Nick and John get together to discuss three HogwartsProfessor posts about the All New Hogwarts House Emblems and Rowling’s commentary via three emojis about the recent trailer for the Bronte Studios adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. You can read those posts via these links:

The HBO+ Potter Trailer: The Meaning of Rowling’s Heart, Owl, and Lightning Bolt

HBO’s Harry Potter and the Alchemical Symbols

The New Hogwarts House Emblems and Their Alchemical and Plant Symbolism

Or you can just jump right into the conversation via the questions, notes and links below!

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The Ten Questions Guiding this Conversation: Nick in Red, John in Blue

1. G’day, John! Great to see you, your chin, and hairline again! You posted a short piece over at the HogwartsProfessor weblog this week about a seemingly meaningless Rowling tweet that shared a new trailer for the HBO+ adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. She only ‘wrote’ three emojis, but, even though you wrote was only several paragraphs long, it said a lot. Why do such a deep-dive into these perhaps offhand fan-servicing signals?

* All the signals or emojis are traditional symbols, so, offhand or not, they're markers of the choice a serious reader has to make about understanding Rowling's work properly;

* Is it literary sacred art as her Shed tool choices suggest or just creative personal expressions for our diversion and entertainment?

* Rowling is signaling us, as you say, that it is the former with these three emojis.

* T. S. Eliot, ‘The Dry Salvages’ (InterNet Poem)

We had the experience but missed the meaning

And approach to the meaning restores the experience

in a different form

2. Let’s take a closer look, then! The Heart, the Owl, and the Lightning Bolt -- what does the Rowling fan, from “ten years old to seventy,” see right away before they stretch for the traditional meaning?

* Heart – Rowling is pleased; we should be, too; heart as sentiment, love token.

* Owl – Hedwig in Stone, important message being delivered, ‘pet’ project of Rowling’s.

* Lightning Bolt – The Boy Who Lived’s signature mark, news out of the blue or ‘news flash’

3. And there’s more? What traditional meanings do these emojis have?

* The Heart to Rowling is a lot more than a token of sentiment. It is a Golden Thread in her work that the Heart is a pulsing symbol of the human spiritual capacity. Only the Eye does as much heavy freight of meaning lifting in her work and I think the Heart surpasses the Eye ultimately in importance except insomuch as she elides their meaning. Read The Heart is Not About Emotions and Affection but the Human Spiritual Center for discussion of the symbolism and the Golden Thread.

* The Owl, too, is an ancient and dynamic symbol, the reason frankly there is a Hedwig rather than Hedwig being the meaning of the token. Rowling clearly draws on her experience of owls in Greek mythology (and reading of C. S. Lewis’ Narniad drawing on the same source) in making the owl the vessel of communication and supernatural perception in her Wizarding World. None of the letters written by her witches and wizards need to be addressed because an owl is so attuned to everyone and everything that it is able effortlessly to understand where it needs to go, God’s own GPS. What is usually described as a symbol of Wisdom is clearly much more a revelation of a mind able to grasp the great interconnectedness of things which in turns takes us back to the Eye and the Heart — and what Rowling is trying to bring to readers in her transformative literature. (Contrast this Greek mythology symbolism with what owls represent in Christian scripture; quite the gulf between Athens and Jerusalem there!)

* But the wisdom piece is there, too! Rowling is writing at four levels of story that correspond with the four ways of human knowing, of which the last and most important is gnosis or wisdom, the so-called anagogical layer of meaning that no less a light than Flannery O’Connor said was the whole point of writing and reading. If you’re writing for the Heart or to illumine the Eye of the Heart, the goal is transformative imaginative experience fostering wisdom.

* And the Lightning Bolt? The forehead scar, the mark of Orestes, the Greek hero who avenged his father’s betrayal and murder, is another polyvalent and profoundly spiritual cipher as a lightning bolt. In it simultaneously the reader experiences simultaneously as we do in a thunder storm albeit imaginatively (1) sudden illumination or enlightenment, (2) from above, the heavens, the super-conscious realm, and, most important, (3) a reorientating shock, a cathartic shaking, the jolting moment that jars us out of our psychological rut and cage to see the world afresh with our ‘eye of the heart.’

* Rowling’s three emojis on her tweet about the fun trailer below can be read as fan servicing variations on the ‘thumbs up’ and ‘hand-clapping’ using tokens associated with the books. No doubt about that reading.

* I think it as important to note, however, the possibility that Mrs Murray is signaling to the HBO+ audience as well as the international of readers that this adaptation is about trying to reproduce as much as is possible in an iconoclastic medium some replica of the imaginative and transformative experience to be had in the books. The Heart, the Owl, and the Lightning Bolt all point to that experience and depth of meaning.

4. Which segues nicely to your brief post, Nick, on the HBO+ adaptations and its choices in how to represent the four Hogwarts Houses: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. (”Nitwit, Blubber, Oddment, Tweek,” anyone?) Can you review what the books say are the proper representations, the heraldic glyphs most appropriate to each house?

5. Has Rowling added content or context for why she chose those specific representations?

[Anelli-Spartz Interview discussion of four elements]

JKR: But they’re not all — don’t think I don’t take your point, but — we, the reader, and I as the writer, because I’m leading you all there — you are seeing Slytherin house always from the perspective of Death Eaters’ children. They are a small fraction of the total Slytherin population. I’m not saying all the other Slytherins are adorable, but they’re certainly not Draco, they’re certainly not, you know, Crabbe and Goyle. They’re not all like that, that would be too brutal for words, wouldn’t it?

ES: But there aren’t a lot of Death Eater children in the other houses, are there?

JKR: You will have people connected with Death Eaters in the other houses, yeah, absolutely.

ES: Just in lesser numbers.

JKR: Probably. I hear you. It is the tradition to have four houses, but in this case, I wanted them to correspond roughly to the four elements. So Gryffindor is fire, Ravenclaw is air, Hufflepuff is earth, and Slytherin is water, hence the fact that their common room is under the lake. So again, it was this idea of harmony and balance, that you had four necessary components and by integrating them you would make a very strong place. But they remain fragmented, as we know.

More on Elements and Humours at HogwartsProfessor:

* Ben Jonson’s Every Man and His Humor

* The Crimes of Grindelwald Group Portrait: A Study in Temperaments

6. Where did the Warner Brothers film adaptations depart from and stick to the page-and-interview House heraldry?

* The animal representations as often as not are facing in the wrong direction, sinister rather than dexter and vice versa; AND

* The Ravenclaw eagle of the books became a raven and their House colors become dark and light shades of blue rather than blue and copper.

7. But those corrections aren't the most interesting changes or corrections in these new House shields, are they? What are the extras we're given that weren't suggested in the original texts but implicit in the interview material?

[Hat Tip to Sad-Ad-9273 at r/HarryPotteratHBO for these screen catches!]

* Note the vegetation in the Banners and the Emblems: the acorns in the Gryffindor mean the Oak tree is its symbol; the white berries in Slytherin suggest holly, per Sandra Miesel Kopec, the laurel tree seems a match for Ravenclaw and ivy for Hufflepuff;

* Check out a website devoted to these things, ‘What Do Leaves Represent on a Coat of Arms,’ for the meaning of these plant associations with each house or share your own ideas in the comment boxes below!

8. What is with the ornamentation on those triangles? The Slytherin circle, the sideways line and paleolithic horse on Gryffindor, the Ravenclaw ‘V,’ and the Hufflepuff cup and ‘V’? Are these Founder’s treasure tokens that become Horcruxes? If so, are there traditional meanings as well as plot points, e.g., Tarot Card qualities?

[Hat Tip to LightAngel452 at r/HarryPotteratHBO for the brilliant graphic! LightAngel also picked up on the alchemical symbols.]

* The Emblems material that gets heady involves the melange of symbols and signs in their respective headboards;

* Slytherin has an easily discerned ‘S,’ the suggestion of the House’s signature serpent, and the Horcrux locket of Salazar Slytherin;

* Ravenclaw’s header with a little head turning and squinting has an ‘R,’ the V inserted looks like a diadem, and simultaneously it has what looks like an eagle in flight from a distance;

* Gryffindor does not seem to include the ‘G’ we’d expect, but the Sword of Gryffindor, and the paleolithic horse a Medieval knight be riding are evident;

* Hufflepuff gets the best of the lot, though, with its distractingly obvious cup obscuring how the ‘V’ within the inverted triangle and its bisecting line yields both the stripes of a badger and Helga Hufflepuff’s initials!

* That’s great stuff, Nick, but the real catch, I think, was what you shared in your post about the alchemical symbols for the Four Elements, the triangles illustrated in the Wikipedia page for such things and in The Book of Alchemy (Chapter 9, ‘The Four Elements,’ pp 111-128 [pdf numbering]; Air triangle 119, Water, Fire, Star of David 115, Earth “no predetermined figure” 113-114)

* The meaning of those triangles, especially their direction and the bisecting lines in the symbols for Earth and Air, can be found in Titus Burckhardt’s Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul, a book we can be pretty sure Rowling read because the Penguin paperback available when she was a Comprehensive student featured Rubeus Hagrid, hermaphroditic giant, with a dragon, both astride a Golden Snitch, on its cover:

* Burckhardt explains that the symbols are understood correctly in their harmonious combination or elision as the Seal of Solomon (‘Star of David’) [pp 74-75];

* The bisecting lines of the Earth and Air symbols is from the base lines of the triangle in the Seal that brings the whole into balance;

* Which representations align perfectly with Rowling’s attempt to explain the Four Houses as the Four Elements and how the goal or telos of each is its harmonious integration with the others, i.e., the Seal of Solomon;

* We may not be able to say that Rowling told Bronte Studios to use these symbols on their respective Hogwarts House emblems, but its undeniable I think that the HBO+ adaptations are going to be risibly rich in traditional symbolism that most readers may or may not notice but which they will not ‘get’ without some serious study.

9. And, John, you’re putting up a post later today about the New Potter Mania and how it will look like the old Potter Mania and still be qualitatively different. We’ll probably do a whole show to talk about that but what are the highlights?

* Not today, but very soon!

10. And I see you’re putting up material for the Paid Subscribers on just that subject?

* Paid Subscribers will be receiving chapters from the Perennialist PhD thesis draft I wrote that Dimitra Fimi rescued from the fireplace;

* I’m meeting with an online course platform owner today that I’m all but certain will be hosting the Wizard Reading Formula classes I gave in 2017 which will be free to Paid Subscribers;

* And which will serve as a run-up to and acid test for our ten week week ‘Lake, Shed, Golden Thread’ course that will launch in 2027, maybe even at Christmas time 2026 for folks to give themselves their friends and family as presents

* Stay tuned!

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Nick Jeffery and freshly Shorn & Clean Shaven John Granger sit down to discuss John’s two posts about the symbolism of the Letter ‘G’ in Strike 8. Part One of the series did the necessary work of demonstrating that, yes, the letter ‘G’ is all over Hallmarked Man, from the online guess that the murderer carved that initial into ‘William Wright’s back to the Witness G echoing with Green-jacked Gorilla-bearing man and a bit of calligraphic terrorism on the Agency door at street-level. The first also covered the accepted Masonic interpretations of why the ‘G’ is featured in the Compass and Square symbolism of their fraternity.

Part Two was a deep dive into more esoteric meanings given to the ‘G’ by Freemasons and by Rene Guenon, notable Perennialist, and into what associations Rowling-Galbraith tried to make between the seventh letter and the key hallmark of the book. It concluded with three answers to “So What?” including some fun speculation about a possible shape for the series, a shape highlighted in Strike 8, and with a discussion of whether Rowling-Galbraith’s subliminal artistry with ‘G’ worked or failed.

Perhaps the biggest take-away of this series of posts was to introduce subliminal coloration as the common denominator of Rowling-Galbraith’s signature seven Shed tools. Nick and John open their conversation about the letter ‘G’ with that subject and everything they discuss in the end folds back into that covert artistry.

As always, the Dynamic Duo covet your comments and feedback as the best follow-up to their conversation. Please jump right in!

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The Ten Questions and Relevant Links

1. Okay, John, let’s talk coloration. You mentioned some examples in famous authors’ work in Part One of your deep dive into Letter G Symbolism in Hallmarked Man; do we have coloration in Harry Potter? Another Strike novel?

* ‘Donegality’ in Planet Narnia, Michael Ward, the subliminal artistry of C. S. Lewis’ Narniad;

* From ‘Literary Alchemy: Sacred Science, Sacred Art, and the Alembic of Story’

C. S. Lewis, according to Michael Ward, author of Planet Narnia, also felt appreciating the “manner of the author,” his “various special tricks,” especially those connected to creating atmosphere, were critical to understanding the style of the Greats.

Again and again, in defending works of romance, Lewis argues that it is the quality or tone of the whole story that is its main attraction. The invented world of romance is conceived with this kind of qualitative richness because romancers feel the real world itself to be ‘cryptic, significant, full of voices, and the mystery of life.’ Lovers of romances go ‘back to fruit tree for its taste; to an air for… what? For itself; to a region for its whole atmosphere – to Donegal for its Donegality and London for its Londonness’ (Ward, 16).

Donegal was one of Lewis’favorite vacation spots as a child in Northern Ireland. Ward defined Lewis’ stylistic atmosphere as his ‘Donegality:’

By donegality we mean to denote the spiritual essence or quiddity of a work of art as intended by the artist and inhabited unconsciously by the reader. The donegality of the story is its peculiar and deliberated atmosphere or quality; its pervasive and purposed integral tone or flavor; its tutelary but tacit spirit, a spirit that that the author consciously sought to conjure, but which was designed to remain implicit in the matter of the text… the more influentially to inform the work and so affect the reader (Ward 75).

Ward’s concern is especially with Lewis’ character Aslan, in whom this donegality is “concentrated and consummated” as a “Christologically representative character” (Idem), but the thesis of Planet Narnia is that the “kappa-element,”[xiv] Lewis’ phrase for the informing, hidden “tutelary but tacit” style of a work, is astrological symbolism, each of the Narnia chronicles representing one of the seven traditional planets. Ward argues that Lewis’ subliminal artistry, the “inner weave” or style of his work in Nabokovian language, is the embedded mythological and astral metaphors to be found beneath the surface of each story. Twain is supposed to have said, “”If you would have your fiction live forever, you must neither overtly preach nor overtly teach, but you must covertly preach and covertly teach.” Lewis, believing as he did that “an influence which cannot evade our consciousness will not go very deep” (Lewis no date), wrote in astrological glyphs to reach covertly his reader’s unconscious depths or noetic heights.

* ‘The Eyes of Deathly Hallows’ in The Deathly Hallows Lectures, John Granger, and, briefly, here, and 2010 lecture at New York Public Library; and

* ‘The Cross Symbolism of Troubled Blood,’ John Granger

2. You list those eyes and crosses and I confess it didn’t strike me on my first and repeated readings that there were so many of those. What made you notice all the ‘G’s in Strike 8?

* I confess that I didn’t make anything of the letter ‘G’s repeated appearances in Hallmarked Man until I saw that Rene Guenon, the most famous and profoundly metaphysical of the first 20th Century Perennialists, had written a brief essay in his youth, ‘The Letter G and the Swastika.’ I made that discovery inadvertently when looking for something else in Fundamental Symbols, a posthumous collection of his writing (downloadable as pdf here).

3. Let’s play ‘Name a G passage;’ I’ll start with the G supposedly carved into William Wright’s back and you name another until we’re both out of examples...

Robin’s research into the death of ‘William Wright’ in the Ramsey Silver shop vault begins with an online observer saying out of the blue that a ‘G’ was carved into the victim’s back and that this was tied to the Secret Word of Freemasonry and the legend of Hiram Abiff’s martyrdom. Rowling-Galbraith has Robin mention this to Murphy at their first unofficial briefing on the case and Murphy all but explodes; he denies it was a ‘G’ and says he heard it was a “hallmark” instead.

The letter is associated with Freemasonry as their symbolic center (GAOTU) via a telephone message and in Strike’s meeting with ‘Hiram’ Hardacre.

We learn after Robin’s being attacked in Harrow’s that she was ‘Witness G’ in her rapist’s trial, the letter being to her something like a secret identity.

Strike not long thereafter finds a blood Red Letter ‘G’ painted on the street level door to the Agency which he hopes is a Masonic terrorist marker rather than the pointed suggestion that the Angel of Death is coming for Witness G.

I’d add that the Gorilla mask and doll of the Green jacket man that haunt Robin have some of their subliminal effect on her and the reader because of the initial guttoral sound of ‘Gorilla’ and ‘Green.’

4. The Freemason connection is the most interesting one even though the Masonic G isn’t carved into Powell’s back (it’s a Salem Cross and the only other twice played symbol is the orb and cross pendant Strike buys for the charm bracelet Christmas present). Who knew that the capital ‘G’ was such a big deal in Masonry?

5. At the end of Part One, I thought you’d pretty much covered the symbolism and were going to close in Part Two with what God and Geometry are about in Hallmarked Man, hence the coloration. Instead you wrote that the G being a one-letter acronym wasn’t enough. Why not?

* not Masonic -- no edges!

* not ancient Greek, Hebrew, or Sanskrit,

* not tied to craft symbolism,

* not a symbol!,

* the catechism answer “By letters four and science five, this G aright doth stand in due art and proportion’.”

6. So was Guenon’s essay the key to Rowling’s use of the letter ‘G’?

* Yes and no!

* His Symbolism of the Cross, Lord of the World, and The Great Triad chapters help a lot but from ‘The Letter G and the Swastika’ we learn that

* yod is God is gamma,

* catechism answer means four gammas or four yodhs which both yield swastikas (gammadion cross),

* GAOTUmeans Christ the keystone/cornerstone,

* the sequence of jumps from letter ‘G’ to Murphy’s Salem Cross...

7. Who backed Guenon up on this connection so you weren’t using the Perennialist hammer to drive in a screw or fasten a bolt?

* Cockburn, Crypto Curry, Albert Pike (via Tamara/Tamspells!)

8. If I accept the preponderance of ‘G’s in Hallmarked Man as coloration/Donegality (I do) and the meaning of the symbolism per your readers (I’m withholding skeptical judgement), what effect was this supposed to have on me the reader so I can tell you if it worked or not? If it was supposed to confuse me, boffo job!

* Nabokovian potustoronost,

* numinous quality in the air,

* Robin as ‘Witness G, ‘

* Strike channeling Tyler Powell at finish in Ironbridge

9. Will we see Freemasonry and its symbolism in Strikes 9 and 10?

Maybe! [Rowling-Galbraith] certainly has made us long for a big pay-off with respect to ‘G;’ see Sarah Keeler’s idea that it may be a pointer to Gillespie reappearing in Strike 9. I love that possibility and it certainly is in keeping with the HogwartsProfessor working thesis that Hallmarked Man is what it is to set up the next two books. If we’re going to see characters and themes bleed between the first book of the last three and its successors, why not its symbolism?

If I had to bet money on it, though, I think we probably won’t see more Freemasonry or Big ‘G’ payoffs. It kills me to say that given the investment I’ve made in books about the Masons (they’re on a shelf beneath the dust-collecting little library on Mormon history and scriptures I collected while writing about Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight books). I just cannot see her weaving the Mason characters from Hallmarked Man into story lines that give us resolution with respect to Charlotte’s and Leda’s supposed suicides twenty some years apart, Shanker’s family history, and the mysteries around Strike’s time with the military police, especially the IED that nearly killed him.

10. I thought you promised not to get into the Strike Series Shape Sweepstakes? You’ve already said you think it’s a seven part ring with a triangle-trilogy addendum and in Part Two you give us a Harry Potter shape for the decalogy structure -- or is it Christmas Pig?

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Late last month, John shared two theories about the Cormoran Strike series of novels, both from Katya Slonenko, a member of the Reddit r/CormoranStrike online fandom: Dementia, Jewelry, and a Nine Inch Cock: The Mystery of Shanker’s ‘Old Man,’ His Given Name, and Why He’s Never Killed Jeff Whittaker and Katya Slonenko: Leda Strike's 'Mistress of the Salmon Salts' Pudenda Tattoo. John corresponded with Katya while preparing those posts and invited her to join him and Nick for a discussion of her ideas, of life as a Redditor, and her thoughts about Rowling’s artistry and meaning. She accepted the invitation but said she wouldn’t be free until July to talk.

Hence the wait! As expected, though, speaking with her about her own journey to expertise in Rowling Studies, her ideas about the clues Rowling has embedded so carefully within the first eight books and especially in Hallmarked Man, and the Reddit posts of which she thinks Hogwarts Professor readers need to be aware was well worth the wait.

You’ll want to read those posts from June before listening to get the most out of this conversation, but, regardless of your preparation, John and Nick believe that every Serious Striker and Rowling Reader will be charmed and challenged by Katya’s remarkable insights, generous spirit, and winsome personality. The conversation includes three other Reddit community posts — about Leda’s ‘Carnival’ dress (Arachulia), about the real name of her first husband, and about the Harry Potter tattoo Rowling-Galbraith hid on a Strike novel character’s shoulder — which took the discussion above and beyond the two Katya theories in the June posts.

Nick and John close the conversation by inviting her back and they hope readers here will share the questions they want us to be sure to ask her on her return visit in the comment thread below. Or just ask her yourself! As she demonstrated on the threads beneath the June posts, she is generous with her time in responding to other Strike fans.

Can’t wait for more Katya Slonenko? Follow her at r/CormoranStrike, on Instagram (Tattoos!), on FaceBook, and check our her older, longer posts on Medium…

The Ten Plus Questions with Links

1. Welcome, Katya, and thank you for joining us! The serious readers at Hogwarts Professor have been buzzing about your Shanker and Leda r/Cormoran Strike Reddit posts and we’re thrilled to be able to talk with you about those ideas. First, though, tell us about your first Rowling reading experiences and how you started posting on Reddit about the Strike series.

2. I’m guessing that Reddit Strike fandom may be as unfamiliar to Hogwarts Professor readers as it was to me. What is it about the Pelican_Girl and TopRequirement670 moderated posts and that international community that you love the most?

3. Shanker! I confess -- I hadn’t given him a thought really beyond a doppelganger twin for Strike before Fiona from Adelaide introduced me to the ideas that he had to be involved in the death of Leda Strike and that the Riccis were also somehow party to it. Ed Shardlow shared your Reddit post on the subject and my mind was blown; you made a compelling case soon after the publication of Hallmarked Man last year that Shanker is a Ricci, the illegitimate son of Nico ‘Muccy’ Ricci, but to avenge Leda Strike’s death he has become a Met or MI5 informer.

Let’s start with the four pointers that Shanker gave Strike in one conversation that he is a Ricci-by-blood and what made you think of that connection:

* Shanker’s statement that his father had dementia or was senile;

* Shanker’s report that his dad taught that jewelry was the way to a woman’s heart;

* Shanker’s claim that his ‘old man’ was said to have a “nine inch cock;” and

* Shanker’s saying that his begetter “‘ad kids wiv abou’ ten diff’rent women.”

4. I see the trigger now that you’ve detailed it but you dug and made four more connections that were buried in the texts of the series’ other books:

* Shanker’s knowledge of the Ricci clan, especially Mucky,

* his Strike-witnessed working with Mucky in drug deals,

* “he deals cocaine and is good with a knife;” and, best of all,

* the reaction Robin had to both Shanker and Luca at their first meeting, the fun-house mirror upside-down reflection of the attraction half-siblings feel for another intuitively. Robin is viscerally repulsed and afraid of the half-sibling Ricci boys.

We cannot not see these connections after you point them out, but they’re nigh on invisible until they’re pointed out! Why do you think you saw them when we missed them -- and why do you think Rowling has taken such care to make them invisible in plain sight?

5. And Shanker is an MI5 informant? Where does that come from?

5.5 Let’s not forget that you also make an intelligent guess, the first one I’ve heard, about what Shanker’s given name really is, one based on the names of Nico Ricci’s two children out of ten for whom we have names.

* Katya shared not only her reasoning about why Shanker’s name is John or an Italian variant of the Evangelist’s name but also her theory about the parentage and name of the other remaining character in the series who also remains nameless: the mysterious ‘Strike’ with whom Leda ran away from Cornwall! (Be sure to read the comment thread for Redditor conversation about other possible Ricci children…)

6. Your thoughts about Shanker all feed into theories about Leda Strike and her mysterious death in the end, which brings us to another aspect of her life and death about which you’ve brought an important and unique perspective. I’m talking about the Mistress of the Salmon Salt tattoo. Did you know anything about tattoos, Katya, before writing this piece?

7. As a tattoo artist yourself, what do you make of Leda’s tattoo placement?

8. Tattoos are meaningful, powerful reflections or revelations of the person’s interior life or self-understanding (see the post about Katya’s ‘Salmon Salt Tattoo’ theory for much more on this). What do you think this tattoo communicates about Leda? Is it another example of Rowling’s text-within-the-text or a variant of her using cryptonyms to signal important information about a character’s inner life?

What Tattoos Mean in Cormoran Strike and a Catalog of Examples

* From Katya’s 2023 ‘Mistress of the Salmon Salt Revisited:’

I hear you asking - why can’t Leda’s be just a tattoo, without any deeper meaning to it? That’s because all the other tattoos in the Strike books have meaning and provide a clue to their wearers’ characters.

Here are some examples:

* Kelsey Pratt’s One Direction tattoo is an obvious link to her being a One Direction fan. (How Leda’s tattoo is different? She chose the name of the particular song, not the more generic name of the band, to be tattooed on her)

* Laing’s rose pierced with a dagger bluntly means violence to women. Rose is a woman in the language of symbols, while the dagger is… well, a dagger.

* Polworth’s St Piran’s cross means he’s a Cornish patriot. I’ll be surprised if it also doesn’t mark him as The Hanged Man (a symbolic bearer of a cross)

* Portia Bayliss’s trident refers to her Caribbean roots

* Edie had a small black heart on the knuckles because she was the creator of ‘The Ink Black Heart’ cartoon.

* Zoe’s tattoos are of ‘The Ink Black Heart’ characters she identifies with.

* Pez Pierce has The Beatles quote around his neck - Strawberry Fields was (is?) a place in Liverpool.

* Union Jack, a skull, and a Nordic “Chaos” rune give a good impression of what the Turisaz character will be about (all tattooed on visible spots like head or neck - he wears them proudly!);

* Same with Algiz and Uruz, sans the Union Jack and the skull.

* Noli Seymour’s tattoo stands for “Golden Prophet”. It denotes her connection to the Universal Humanitarian Church and her status there as the current Golden Prophet.

* An ace of spades was inked onto his left cheek, and a tattooed tiger covered his throat. - Jordan Reaney’s tattoos are pretty telling, too.

* Not a character, but still - JK herself has a tattoo, “Solve et Coagula”, which means - “I’m a writer of an alchemical detective series!” :D

So you see, all these tattoos are chosen to reflect their owners’ personal histories. That’s generally a feature of Rowling’s writing: if she describes a character, every little detail works for the portrait she wants to paint. There are no details put there “just because” - everything is important. How the characters dress and speak, what they eat and drink, what music they listen to, and what tattoos they have tell us something about the character.

What does Leda’s tattoo contribute to her portrait?

Nothing!

In Career of Evil, when we learn of its existence, the tattoo adds literally nothing to Leda’s portrait. Why is it mentioned in the story to which it makes zero contribution, except for serving as a plot device enabling the killer’s obsession?

Because it will be important later.

* Katya shared in her answer her theory from experience that Rowling-Galbraith had secretly marked a character as a Harry Potter fan by giving her a shoulder tattoo that Potter-heads would recognize!

9. Rowling’s Solve et Coagula tattoo: what do you think she is telling the world about herself? Is there a correspondence or tie between the author’s tattoo and its placement and Leda’s?

10. Whittaker quotes a line from the Salmon Salt song by the Blue Oyster Cult — “She was the Quicklime Girl” — while testifying at his trial on murder charges; what do you think that tells us about her death? Does it suggest it was suicide or murder? Do you think Whittaker did it?

11. And another one to make eleven! You thought at one point because of the meaning of ‘Mistress of the Salmon Salt’ that we had to take seriously the possibility that Leda herself was a serial killer. But you’ve changed your mind. Why is that?

* In addition to her own thinking on this subject, Katya shared yet another Redditor theory, this one from Arachulia about The New Dress that Aunt Joan said was the real reason that Leda had left her Nancarrow home in Cornwall with the mysterious ‘Strike.’ Enjoy!

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(Credit: Telegraph article, June 2017, J.K. Rowling at the Raisa Gorbachev Foundation party in 2007, wearing a floral diamond necklace and matching earrings, cf., Christmas Pig)

Solomon Schmidt, author of A Pen to Change the World: The Life of J. K. Rowling (Skyhorse, June 2026), sat down with us again to discuss what challenges he faced in collating and synthesizing almost thirty years of interviews for his biography. He also shares the three questions he’d ask The Presence if she’d consent to an interview, questions that he thinks she might answer; Solomon turned the tables on his interviewers who had to improv questions they’d ask without being told their interview with Rowling was over.

The necessary links to the book’s Amazon page and to the two Hogwarts Professor reviews are here:

* A Pen to Change the World: The Life of J.K. Rowling (Amazon.com)

* A Pen to Change the World: The Life of J.K. Rowling (Amazon.co.uk) Uk Edition

* A Pen to Change the World – the Biography of J. K. Rowling by Solomon Schmidt (Nick Jeffery)

* Book Review: A Pen to Change the World - The Life of J. K. Rowling (John Granger)

Five Questions for Solomon Schmidt, Author of A Pen to Change the World:

5. I said you didn’t get to interview Rowling, which is true, but you did have access to all her interviews that she has done 1997 to the present as well as the interviews and articles with her family, friends, fans, and business associates. How did you find, assemble, and sift through those interviews?6. If you had been allowed inside the gates of Fortress Rowling and you were only allowed three questions, what would you ask her? (This is a game John and I regularly play, and usually John’s questions would get him thrown out of an interview!)7. What discoveries that you made in your research were the most exciting to you?8. Rowling has said repeatedly through the years that the critical negative events of her life that reshaped her thinking and her work were the death of her mother and the abusive relationship she had with her first husband. Agree or disagree? What do you think were the most important positive turns in her life?9. Very few people I meet don’t have a fixed opinion about Rowling; the world seems to love and hate her in equal measure with little grey area between the two: adoring fans and political allies on the one hand and those that despise her work, her political efforts, or both. Where do you fall in that divide and how hard was it to represent the other point of view in your biography?10. I assume you’ve started researching your next biography though you’ll be neck deep in this book’s launch for a few months. What will you be working on next?

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(Credit: Neil Wilder, Edinburgh 1999, now in National Portrait Galley)

Solomon Schmidt, author of A Pen to Change the World: The Life of J. K. Rowling (Skyhorse, June 2026), sat down with us this week to discuss what moved him to write a Rowling biography at the height of her radioactivity as a supposed “transphobe” and the obstacles that Rowling, Inc., puts in the way of unauthorized biographers. He also shares the kindness and circumspection of the people who did agree to speak with him, to include Neil Blair and Jorge Arantes.

The necessary links to the book’s Amazon page and to the two Hogwarts Professor reviews are here:

* A Pen to Change the World: The Life of J.K. Rowling (Amazon.com)

* A Pen to Change the World: The Life of J.K. Rowling (Amazon.co.uk) Uk Edition

* A Pen to Change the World – the Biography of J. K. Rowling by Solomon Schmidt (Nick Jeffery)

* Book Review: A Pen to Change the World - The Life of J. K. Rowling (John Granger)

The second part of our conversation with Mr Schmidt will be posted next week. The first five questions he answered were:

1. What moved you to start this project? You've already written a biography of Alan Dershowitz and many more in the History Bites series; what made J. K. Rowling an inviting subject to you? What made it different from the other biographies you've written?2. You wrote in the acknowledgements at book's end that you didn't write the biography as a work of "literary criticism," but you do discuss everything she has written or collaborated on, Philosopher's Stone to Ink Black Heart. What would you have included in those discussions if you had been writing "literary criticism"?3. This is an "Unauthorized" biography which means you were researching and writing outside the gates of Team Rowling, simultaneously shut off from Rowling and her circle of friends and, one would hope, outside her ability to shape the narrative you put together of her life. You did, though, get some push-back from Rowling, Inc.'s legal arm at one point; what was that about?4. You weren't able to interview Rowling, her sister, her husband, her father, her daughter Jessica, Sean Harris, the Sisters of Swing, Michael the boyfriend, Lucy Shepherd, Pearl Biddle, or 'Starsky and Cox.' You did find and scored interviews with Jorge Arantes, Barry Cunningham (the publisher who signed J. K. Rowling to Bloomsbury), Steve Eddy (one of Rowling’s English teachers), Neil Blair (sort of!), and her American cousins, Ben and Bryony Rowling. How did you find these sources and what was it like sitting down to speak with them?5. I said you didn't get to interview Rowling, which is true, but you did have access to all her interviews that she has done 1997 to the present as well as the interviews and articles with her family, friends, fans, and business associates. How did you find, assemble, and sift through those interviews?

Please share your thoughts below as well as follow-up questions you wish we had asked! Part Two will be up in a week…

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‘Fiona F’ is a Hogwarts Professor subscriber in Adelaide, Australia, the truly down under capitol of the South Pacific island-continent. She works as an environmental scientist on the days she isn’t combing through the Cormoran Strike novels of Rowling-Galbraith in search of answers to the over-arching mysteries of that series.

The Hogwarts Professor Talking Heads duo invited her to a discussion of her potential solutions to two of the unresolved questions that have to be answered before the epilogue of Strike 10, namely, ‘What really happened in the ruled-a-suicide deaths of Leda Strike and Charlotte Campbell?’ Fiona seems to have broken both cases using information dropped as asides in Hallmarked Man.

The Ten Questions that guided their conversation are below with the promised links and Fiona’s time-lines and comments on the Moderator Backchannel they discuss.

In brief, about Leda’s death Fiona notes that we learn in Strike 8 that Shanker is familiar with ‘Barnaby’s, the preferred body-disposal business used by the London under-world, to include the Ricci Crime Syndicate. She connects that dot with (1) Strike’s memory of making a drug delivery for Shanker to the Ricci Godfather way back in the day when the two shared a flat and (2) Shanker’s near panicked warnings to Strike not to investigate the Riccis in Troubled Blood. Fiona’s theory? Means, motive, and opportunity point to the possibility that Leda’s heroin overdose was a Ricci ‘message’ to Shanker that he had better not cross them in a drug deal. Readers have missed this possibility because Shanker loved Leda like a mother, which love unfortunately made her a perfect target for the gangsters to ‘get at’ Strike’s adopted brother.

And Charlotte’s death? Fiona, unlike much of Strike fandom, accepts the Jeffery hypothesis (see here, here, and here) that Ms Campbell-Ross did not kill herself but was murdered in a staged-suicide (a la Leda Strike, Lula Landry, Jasper Chiswell, and Kevin Pirbright). After a close reading of Hallmarked Man, Fiona realized that Dino Longcaster, whom Tara Campbell married after she had divorced Charlotte’s supposed biological father, may have been, based on his fathering Rupert Fleetwood in an adulterous relationship, Milady Bezerko’s real sperm-donor daddy (and at home molester).

Which possible parentage would have made Charlotte and Valentine Longcaster half-siblings. Fiona theorizes from there that the baby Charlotte says was Strike’s was Valentine’s (a la Rupert and Decima’s Lion), that Jago Ross’ children might have been Valentine’s, or both. Valentine, Jago, and Tara shoot to the top of the ‘Charlotte Murder’ suspect list, with Sasha, Rupert, and Amelia as Tara’s agents all possibilities.

Fiona, Nick, and John discuss the various Rowling Golden Threads in play with each of these theories — incest, pregnancy traps, staged suicides — and how both Fiona’s Ricci-Shanker and Secret Charlotte theories are textbook illustrations of Rowling misdirection while planting clues in plain sight.

John and Nick are grateful to Fiona for getting up as early as she did to chat with them and for sharing her theories here with the Serious Strikers at Hogwarts Professor. Hats doffed with a bow from the waist in admiration and gratitude!

The Ten Questions With Links and Notes

1. Fiona, you, Nick, and I have been chatting on the moderator back channels since May and we’ve shared your Daddy Dino theory in which Charlotte was another Longcaster child conceived in adultery and Valentine was her incestuous lover and abuser. Nick and I discussed that idea on our ‘Incest Golden Thread’ program. But none of us know who you are really and I just learned you’re living in Central Australia. Tell us about Fiona, a Welsh name?, and what brought you to Serious Striker land?

12 April Fiona Comments on Moderator Backchannel:

In response to a post by Cheryl Rose Orrocks on 17 Feb 2026, my current theory is that Dino Longcaster is Charlotte’s father and that his son, Valentine Longcaster, will be revealed as her abuser and the possible biological father of Charlotte’s children. Hence the 2nd incest storyline will also involve the Langcaster family. This could be why Charlotte’s mother, Tara, despised Charlotte so much.

If Jago Ross is somehow linked to the matter of the DNA test involving Bijou and Strike, it may be because he had Charlotte’s birth children DNA tested to confirm parentage. Maybe Jago discovers he is not the biological father and assumes Strike is, hence the reason he wants to obtain Strike’s DNA results.

2. Nick was telling me the other day that he has been re-reading the series and it’s changed his thinking about how he would rank the books, especially in light of Hallmarked Man. I hope he’ll clarify what he means by that – and that you’ll share, Fiona, where Strike 8 is on your list of best to worst Strike novels and if or how it changed your thoughts about the first seven.

3. By the time this conversation is posted, I hope to have put up a short summary of your Birthday Party Theory, Fiona, or else it will be the text beneath this conversation. In brief, you lay out the calendar dates after Sacha Legard’s birthday party with respect to Charlotte’s death. Can you tell us why you thought that party had something to do with her death and how you went about setting up the time-line?

May 6 Fiona note on Moderator Backchannels:

In this video, your comments regarding Rupert Fleetwood and Charlotte’s murder (1:00:17) got me thinking. If Charlotte was murdered, her murderer was likely present at Sacha Legard’s birthday party.

After checking out several sources (books (physical copies) 7 TRG and 8 THM, Strike Fans, the Farting Faculty Lounge and Hogwarts Professor) I put together a rough timeline to assemble my thoughts.

* Saturday 21 May 2016: Sacha Legard’s birthday. Valentine and Cosima Longcaster are at the party. Rupert Fleetwood gatecrashes and he and Valentine have some kind of confrontation (refer THM Chapter. 36, pages 291 and 292). I presume Charlotte and Amelia would have been at the party as they are Sacha’s half siblings, however I have no evidence to support this.

* Friday, 27 May 2016: Strike listens to Charlotte’s voicemail messages. (TRG, Chapter 55, pages 421 and 423).

* Tuesday, 14 June 2016: Charlotte is arrested for assault on Landon Dormer (TRG, Chapter 59).

* Thursday, 23 June 2016: Strike deletes three voicemails from Charlotte before heading up to his attic flat (Chapter 61). Charlotte Campbell dies (commits suicide?).

* Friday, 23 December 2016: When Strike goes to the National Theatre to interview Sacha Legard (THM, Chapter 36, pg. 289). Sacha says he ‘was shooting a film in Mexico (Conquest?) when all this business with him [Rupert] and Dessie happened.’

I’m unsure when Sacha was in Mexico (before and/or after his birthday party on 21 May 2016). If he was filming in Mexico after his birthday then he may not have been in London when Charlotte died. If filming in Mexico finished before his birthday, he would have to be on the short-list of murder suspects.

As Charlotte loved tension, conflict, and rows, she may have overheard the confrontation between Rupert and Valentine. Presuming the confrontation was about DNA testing and Dino Longcaster being Rupert’s biological father, maybe the DNA results also contained information about other unknown (and related) people with a similar DNA profile to Rupert and the Longcaster’s (Dino, Valentine, Decima and Cosima) and Rupert threatened Valentine with this information. Valentine is scared of his father, Dino, and wouldn’t want the DNA paternity information to reach Dino.

If Valentine Longcaster (as possible Charlotte abuser), finds out he is the biological father of Charlotte’s children and realises that Charlotte has found this out, that could be a strong motive for murder, particularly as he was appalled by the incest between Decima and Rupert.

It will be interesting to see if Rupert makes an appearance in Book 9.

* See Louise Freeman Davis’ Strike and Ellacott Timelines at The Farting Sofa Faculty Lounge.

4. Your conclusion is a mind-blower as I’ve written in my notes you to invite you to wake up early down under to talk about it. To skip to the Big Reveal, you think, if Charlotte was at the birthday party or learned from Cosima or Valentine about the Dino-Decima-Rupert genetic conjunction, that Valentine Longcaster has to jump to the top of the Campbell-Ross ‘assisted suicide’ list. How so?

5. This is fascinating theorizing, Fiona, and it highlights what Nick has said that the complexity and crowdedness of Hallmarked is a marker of Rowling crafting a “target rich” environment for Books 9 and 10 possibilities. You wrote on 4 June that what if, instead of being molested at home by Trevik, her supposed biological father, she had been abused by a schoolteacher. Why did you think that was possible and how would it color your thinking about her life and death?

4 June Fiona Comment

Have you considered the possibility that Leda Strike (Peggy Nancarrow) was molested by a school teacher, rather than a victim of incest. Both scenarios are obviously awful. I have been pondering this because Leda/Peggy packed up and moved so often and Cormoran and Lucy never stayed in the same school for very long.

6. On 10 June you sent your magnum opus, the Leda Strike life timeline and a ‘Means Before Motive’ examination of her death. Again, why bother and how did you track down the dates?

7. What did the data reveal about Leda that you hadn’t seen before?

10 June Fiona Timeline for Leda Strike

I have been systematically going back through the Strike books using the JKR finder in an attempt to work out who killed Leda Strike.

I am relying on Rowling playing fair and that the answer to the question of Leda’s death and the evidence to support this has already been given to us in the books.

My attempt at Leda’s timeline and my murder theory are attached. There are gaps in Leda’s timeline and changing dates in the books. I mostly focused on Leda’s childhood, then the last few years of her life in London. I’d be interested in your thoughts.

Constructing Leda’s timeline was also about reaching a conclusion on whether Cormoran Strike was the product of incest. At this stage, I don’t think he was. The timeline doesn’t support the incest theory and I suspect Leda was away from St Mawes from when she married at 18 and left Strike Snr two weeks later until she returned to give birth to Cormoran at Truro hospital at age 20. Too many parties and gigs to go to!

I’d be interested in your thoughts.

Leda Strike Timeline

Peggy (Leda) born in 1954.

Ted and Peggy (Leda) mother died when Ted 16 and Peggy (Leda) 2.

Peggy (Leda) forcible separation from Ted at the age of two.

Peggy (Leda) lived with her paternal grandmother. Ted stayed with their father, Trevik.

Ted leaves home for National Service (age 18?)

Ted returns from National Service after Trevik dies. (age 25?) Married Joan. Peggy (Leda) (age 11?)

Peggy (Leda), at age 18, escapes her paternal grandmother, and runs away with a youth who’d come to Truro with the fair. Changed her name to Leda. Ted (32 years old).

Leda married youth from the fair when she was 18 years old. She had run out on her husband after only two weeks and that her sole motivation in marrying Strike Snr. (who, according to Aunt Joan, had arrived in St. Mawes with the fair) had been a new dress, and a change of name.

“Leda had never stayed still long enough to present a stable target. Often her children remained in a school for mere weeks before a new enthusiasm seized her, and off they went, to a new city, a new squat, crashing on her friends’ floors or, occasionally, renting. The only people who knew what was going on, and who might have contacted social services, were Ted and Joan.”

1990? Leda brought Shanker (age 16), who had been stabbed, home to their squat.

1991 Leda Strike met Jeff Whittaker.

1992 Nick Herbert and Strike had a joint eighteenth birthday party at the Bell pub in Whitechapel.

1992 Leda had fallen pregnant in Strike’s eighteenth year, while he was applying for university.

Leda married Jeff Whittaker in 1992.

Switch born in December 1992.

Leda died in 1994, (age 40?), when Lucy (age 19?) and Strike (age 20?)

8. Okay, now that we have Leda’s life in a mental picture, walk us through your Means Before Motive breakdown of the most likely suspects.

Fiona’s Theory about Leda’s death: Means before motive

* Means: Three Suspects

1. Member(s) of Ricci family or Ricci gang member.

2. Jeff Whittaker.

3. Shanker.

All had access to drugs.

* Motive

1. Unpaid drug debt (Whittaker) and Ricci’s killed Leda as a warning, or

2. Rival gang to Shanker’s cousin’s takes revenge (knowing Shanker is close to Leda) and kill Leda as a warning, or

3. Drug induced murder by Whittaker.

Shanker’s knowledge of organised crime in London is peerless. He knows what happened, blames Whittaker, but has never said anything to Strike. (Refer Troubled Blood, chapter 27, where Strike recalls helping Shanker make a ‘delivery’ in ‘92 or ’93 and Shanker’s reaction to Strike’s recall of that).

Maybe Leda was suffocated while she slept (similar to Margot Bamborough’s death), then injected with heroin by her killer.

* Opportunity

· Jeff Whittaker (lived at squat; a drug user).

· Shanker (frequently visited the squat; was close to Leda).

· Member(s) of Ricci family or Ricci gang member (local drug dealers) making a delivery.

9. So Shanker is both a suspect and a person of knowledge; he either did it or knew who did it? How important is Strike’s memory of the Ricci drug deal delivery for Shanker in all this?

10. The beauty of this theory is that it’s been so well set up; who has Shanker who revered Leda on their suspect list when she revered her so – and yet it was just that relationship that would have made her so vulnerable to targeting by the Riccis if Shanker stiffed them… Hence his warning Strike off the Riccis with such care in Troubled Blood and obscuring how he knows about Barnaby is Hallmarked?

John Notes 10 June

I’m intrigued by the Ricci-Shanker connection. Shanker knows about Barnaby’s and that Knowles was dispatched there; Strike sees Marco Ricci later in the story making a delivery to Barnaby’s. If I’m following your notes, Shanker’s panic about Strike investigating the Riccis in Troubled Blood isn’t out of concern for his adopted brother but from the fear that Cormoran will learn of his relationship with the family -- and, as you speculate, that Leda was killed by them as a message to young Shanker not to cross them. Shanker testified against Whittaker to scapegoat him and perhaps because he knew the Riccis would kill him if he told the truth.

* Great plot twist and one that explains the whole Knowles plot line in Hallmarked Man and the police interest in Strike’s source of information; Shanker is being presented as a dangerous criminal to readers who are blind (as are Strike and Robin) to the possibility that he was the natural suspect in Leda’s death because of his proximity to nihilist forces. The delivery Strike made for Shanker to Ricci and Shanker’s response to Strike’s memory is a critical catch in all this; well spotted!

I don’t think your timeline precludes either Ted being Strike’s father or Trevik molesting Leda as a young woman -- or another possibility. Her birth years and years after Ted’s suggests that Trevik was not her father, that her mother’s death wasn’t natural, and that Ted may have been Leda’s father via an incestuous relationship with his mum, both victims of Trevik’s abuse. Leda’s adoption by her grandmother after her mother died may have been to protect her from Trevik or her simply being cast out by him. Incest is a live issue, I think, in the Cornwall household.

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Last week Ed Shardlow posted his thoughts about The Hallmarked Man being written in playful but meaningful parallel with Rowling’s “political fairy tale,” ‘The Hallmarked Man Meets The Ickabog.’ Nick Jeffery and John Granger called him up both to congratulate him on Arsenal winning the Premier League Cup — Go, Gunners! — and to learn as much as they could about the parallels he noted. After acknowledging the correspondences with Casual Vacancy, the trio explored Ed’s argument about the Ickabog echoing just beneath the surface of Hallmarked Man, straight up and in inversion.

The Ten Questions, Links, and Helpful Notes

1. Nick, can you provide some context for this conversation? How did we get to the point that we expected Hallmarked Man to echo in characters, plot points, and themes either Casual Vacancy or The Ickabog? No one thought that was in the cards when Rowling-Galbraith and her publishers locked down the series at ten books.

* ‘Parallels Series Idea’ Pillar Post

* Evan Willis’ Tetractys Theory: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

2. Open subject for the triumvirate to discuss here: there are a bunch of Casual Vacancy parallels in Strike 8 that have to be acknowledged. Name your favorites; I’ll start this ball Rowling…

* Ironbridge and Pagford seemed to be sister cities

* each book ‘begins’ with the sudden and tragic death of a man who haunts the rest of the novel, Barry Obama Fairbrother and Tyler Powell

* The peanut allergy that Tyler and Andrew Price have; and

* The incest secret in the Longcaster and Wall families

3. Having noted those, Ed, why are you so sure that it’s The Ickabog which is the parallel text with Hallmarked Man? Is the quantity of the parallels you and others have found, their quality, or the overarching feel of the works?

* Ed’s Post: ‘The Hallmarked Man Meets The Ickabog’

4. I was surprised by your sheep parallel. I know my Ickabog memories are not fresh, but were there a lot of lambs and ewes in Strike 8?

* Ed’s Post: ‘The Hallmarked Man Meets The Ickabog’

5. And the fish?

* Ed’s Post: ‘The Hallmarked Man Meets The Ickabog’

6. Is there something akin to the Freemasonry of Hallmarked Man in The Ickabog?

* Inversion of ‘Political Fairy Tale’ with modern touches and gritty detective novel and Medieval coloration via Freemasonry symbolism and ritual

7. Sandy Hope, our partner in the Group Adventure of charting Hallmarked Man, had a bunch of parallels that she shared in the comment thread to your post:

* One of my favorite parallels you mention is the Old Forge and the Ickabog’s cave, in which both Robin and the Ickabog tell tragic stories of birth. The Old Forge also reminds me of the transformation of the dungeon once Mrs. Beamish gets a stove installed and starts baking and feeding the prisoners. Mr. Dovetail’s broken mind is restored by Mrs. Beamish helping him remember better times, and Robin’s own brokenness is soothed by Strike’s transformation from a self-serving, manipulative jerk to a selfless, compassionate listener and genuine friend. In both stories the fire is warm and purifying. Comment Url

* One of my favorite parallels was “sticking to the game plan,” the ill-fated idea shared by Strike via Uncle Ted and also Lord Spittleworth. RFM reminds me of Ma Grunter, trying to appear sober when they’re actually drinking on the sly. Dangerous Dick de Lion is not unlike King Fred the Fearless, who both have to learn about being contrite. Robin’s bracelet is rather like Daisy’s bandalore: both gifts are initially a hit but end up secretly hidden or stolen. Comment Url

8. My favorite parallels were between the incest and ectopic pregnancy in Hallmarked Man and the Ickabog’s manner of conceiving children and birthing them. Did you laugh out loud when you figured that out? I did when I read your post -- but it bears some explaining --

* Ed’s Post: ‘The Hallmarked Man Meets The Ickabog’

9. Let’s go around the table again and talk about the connection between the two books we haven’t talked about yet --

* Avenging Ghost of Beamish and Powell

* Eslanda/Jolanda

* Sandy Hope’s Footprint Clue

* Image of St George

* The monster’s cave, the Old Forge on Sark, and an ectopic pregnancy

* Woman talking monster into returning to human society

* Ed’s brilliant parallel Character list

10. You discuss in your post that you went through two stages before arriving at your conviction that The Ickabog was the model: first the overarching story and then on re-reading The Ickabog for specific detailed parallels. Do you think we should do a re-read of Casual Vacancy -- Nick is always ready for a trip to Pagford -- to see if there aren’t specifics there, too?

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In yesterday’s Hallmarked Man Notes: The Christmas Charm Bracelet Decoded, Tod Jameson and the Ectopic Pregnancy, and Venetian Blinds, Ed Shardlow explained three sub-texts within Strike 8 that, though invisible on first and second reading, pop up during structural analysis and in light of other Rowling-Galbraith notes.

* The Christmas gift charm bracelet that Strike gives to Robin, for example, appears to be a ring and a key to Hallmarked Man, a meaning that occurred to Ed in light of Rowling’s own bracelet gift to fandom last year as a key to Sleep Tight, Evangeline;

* John Granger’s posts about Strike 8’s cryptonyms similarly encouraged Ed to think about the meaning of ‘Todd Jameson’ and how the “egg-shaped” man had several names and seemed to be stuck on the Tube; and

* Ed’s efforts to finish his charting of each Part of Hallmarked Man brought up the theme of Robin’s blindness and mental struggles in Part Three’s chapter correspondences.

In conversation with Nick and John explore these ideas as well as the potential importance of A. H. Murdoch, a historical figure that Rowling-Galbraith invented whole-cloth, the meaning of his name (‘Alexander Hughson’), and the passages from his book, Secrets of the Craft, which of course are also Rowling-written.

Below are relevant links to the subjects the trio discuss and copies of the ten questions John and Nick asked Ed. Enjoy!

Links to Conversation Subjects

* Hallmarked Man Notes: The Christmas Charm Bracelet Decoded, Tod Jameson and the Ectopic Pregnancy, and Venetian Blinds

Charm Bracelets

* The Christmas Charm Bracelet of Strike 9 Clues (Part One)

* The Christmas Charm Bracelet of Strike 9 Clues (Part Two)

* 'Sleep Tight, Evangeline,' Miniature Psalters, and the Head of Persephone: A Conversation with Dimitra Fimi

Cryptonyms of Hallmarked Man

* The Allegorical Cryptonyms of The Hallmarked Man, Part One

* What do Tyler Powell, Rupert Fleetwood, Jolanda Lindvall, and Lady Jensen Have in Common?

* The Allegorical Cryptonyms of The Hallmarked Man, Part Two

* Wet Squibs, Islamic Cub Names, the Seven Strike Series Structure Theories, and How a Human Being Reads a Story

* The Lost Child Golden Thread in the Work of J. K. Rowling (Kanreki)

* The Pre Natal Infanticide Theory Explaining the Lost Child Golden Thread (Kanreki)

Rowling as Sacred Artist: A Perennialist Reading

* Ray Livingston's 'The Traditional Theory of Literature' (Chapter 1: Preface and Prologue)

* Ray Livingston's 'The Traditional Theory of Literature' (Chapter 2: Man, Society, Art )

* Ray Livingston's 'The Traditional Theory of Literature' (Chapter 3: The Creative Process)

* Martin Lings’ The Sacred Art of Shakespeare

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

The Ring Readings of Rowling’s Hallmarked Man Chapter Sets

* Index to the Group Adventure of Charting Hallmarked Man (scroll to bottom)

* Ed Shardlow’s ring notes for Part Three

A. H. Murdoch’s Secrets of the Craft Excerpt in Hallmarked Man:

[Strike skim read the entry under Degree Thirty Two.]

The Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret becomes with the degree’s endowment none other than a Christian Knight, the spiritual and legitimate successor of the Knights Templar…

When she elevates and illuminates, a pure and chaste woman is as silver, or the moon. The […] Freemason is sure never to mistake base lead for the nobler metal, else he may find himself forever entombed in the dungeons of lust and lasciviousness. (ch 53, pp 400-401)

The parenthetic ellipsis is in text, presumably there because “Murdoch’s book hadn’t been properly formatted, but scanned into digital form, so that the occasional word was illegible.”

The Ten Questions

1. We have a special guest today, Ed Shardlow, the author of a commissioned post that went up this week, one we begged him to write up. It’s a weird post erven for a site that embraces the exotic, weird in the sense that it’s actually three posts rolled into one. What’s up with that, Ed?

2. So the three topics are:

* The charms on the Christmas gift bracelet Strike gives to Robin;

* The meaning of Todd Jameson’s name; and

* Robin’s sight and memory issues, ‘Venetian Blinds’

Is there a thread running through these ideas?

3. Tell us your charm bracelet idea and the meaning you think each charm has --

4. And it’s a ring, right? What a hoot. --

5. I loved the charm bracelet piece, not only because you read it as a ring and showed that the charms together and separately act as something of a cipher for the book, but because you linked it with Rowling’s Strike 9 charm bracelet. Do you think per Shanker’s advice that Rowling-Galbraith is giving us jewelry as a gift, one that acts as a key to the work in Hallmarked and before Evangeline, because she wants to make up with us for the hardship readers are having with the book?

6. True confession, though I was laughing out loud and delighted with your breaking the Todd Jameson cryptonym, I was also pretty disappointed; that name was number 1 on my not-yet-written third cryptonym post. What consoles me is that I doubt I would have picked up on what you saw, which is mind-blowing. Tell us how you figured it out as well as what you found --

7. Now this is a new variant of Rowling-Galbraith inserting a text within the text. This ectopic sub-story isn’t a written text, a fairy tale, an epigraph, a song playing in the background, an illustration based on a mad detective’s Tarot card throws, or the story the bad guy is selling that we have to unwind and re-write; we’ve seen those books-inside-the-book before. This is Rowling concealing a narrative inside the narrative with really only the name to act as the cipher for the coded message. Hence her talking up the importance of names in this book (e.g. Jolanda -- violets)?

8. You make a fascinating connection with Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, and Todd Jameson, the Son Who Killed His Mother (?). Do you think she finally wrote in a Chosen One echo in the Strike series via Jameson?

9. I want to leave the board here because I know you have to run -- thank you for joining us on such short notice! -- and talk about something you’ve been sharing on the Moderator’s Back Channels, namely, A. H. Murdock. His Secrets of the Craft is another text within a text, right? Have you thought about his name or why Rowling gave his book that title?

10. When will you be done with The Ickabog project? Inquiring minds want to know!

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Nick Jeffery and John Granger sat down last weekend to discuss John’s post, The Literary Alchemy of Hallmarked Man: What Do the Structural Models Tell Us? They’d talked about this subject briefly before John had written it up and he came to rather different conclusions in the process of writing and preparing slides for the post, all of which are rolled out in this inquisition.

The questions Nick asked are below after the links in the post in case you want to follow up on what is said above about literary alchemy, the sequence of colors and symbols, and about the structural models for understanding the Strike series, especially Extended Play and Tetractys Theory.

Enjoy!

Links for Follow-Up and Easy Reference: Strike Alchemy

* Literary Alchemy – A Primer for Those Interested in J. K. Rowling’s Artistry

* ‘Literary Alchemy’ Pillar Post

* Metallurgical, Literary, and Psychological Alchemy: Is Jung a Good Guide for Understanding J. K. Rowling’s Artistry and Meaning?

* The Literary Alchemy of Hallmarked Man: What Do the Structural Models Tell Us?

* , ‘The Connection of Ring Composition and Literary Alchemy in the Layout of the Seven Book Harry Potter Series.’ (William Sprague)

* ‘Parallel Series Idea’ Pillar Post

* Robin Ellacott and Reverse Alchemy: Transformation Through the First Three Strike Texts (Louise Freeman)

* ‘Troubled Blood: Strike’s Transformation’

* ‘Water, water everywhere: Baptism, baths, rivers, rain and showers as unifying themes in The Running Grave’ (Louise Freeman)

Seven Structural Theories for Strike Ten Book Series

* (1) straight up Decalogy, no structural connection between books;

* (2) Big Ring Composition, Double Wedding Band (Louise Freeman);

* (3) Seven book series with Trilogy finale (Nick Jeffery, John Granger);

* (4) Extended Play theory (John Granger per ‘Kathleen’),

* (5) Sonnet Corona Form (Robyn Gomillion);

* (6) Tetractys theory (Evan Willis with back-up explanations here, follow-up from Evan here); and

* (7) Celtic Cross (John Granger) scroll down to bottom).

Tetractys Theory in Depth:

* Alastair Fowler’s Triumphal Forms

* Why the Cormoran Strike Novels are a Ten Book Series: Mythological Clues and Tetractys Parallelism with a Touch of Tarot Reveal the Strike Series Structural Echoes with Rowling’s First Ten Book Set [Evan Willis, 10 July 2023]

* Is Tetractys Theory the Best Explanation of Why the Cormoran Strike Series is Ten Books in Length? First Thoughts on Evan Willis’ Numerological Exegesis of Rowling’s Two Ten Novel Series and the Meaning of This Structure [John Granger, 18 July 2023]

* Evan Willis: Running Grave Review In which the Tetractis theory is revisited in light of Strike 7 and the Theory is Updated [Evan Willis, 30 September 2023]

* See The Literary Alchemy of Hallmarked Man: What Do the Structural Models Tell Us? for excerpts from and discussion of each.

* The Tetraktys Tarot Card Spread!

The Charts!

The Ten Questions and John’s Answers (notes!)

1. So, John, you finally got the alchemy post you promised an age ago; what was the hold-up?

· Tried to put too much into the posts…

· Changed my mind several times as I was writing them!

· had to relearn Tetractys ideas!

2. You start off this Alchemy of Hallmarked Man discussion with a review of the literary alchemy of the first three Harry Potter novels; why did you have to reach that far back?

· Because of the Parallel Series Idea, not alchemy at all, oddly enough.

· Rowling seems to be writing Strike decalogy in parallel with Potter to include its alchemical sequences so I reviewed the ‘Reverse Alchemy’ theory, how that worked for Strikes 1-3 but broke down at 6 and 7

· To get Hallmarked Man‘s alchemical stage right, I wanted to figure out why Ink Black Heart and Running Grave weren’t the alchemical stages we’d expect

3. Some of our listeners may not have the literary alchemy three stages firmly in mind; can you go over what they are and why they’re important in Rowling Studies?

· Black, White, Red stages: what each represents in metallurgical and literary alchemy;

· Rowling’s one interview comment about alchemy, her PotterMore notes about colors;

· Rowling’s use in Harry Potter‘s last three books, fourth book, and first three books;

· Galbraith’s use in Strike series’ first three books, fifth book, and six and seven;

· Ward on astrology in CSL’s Narniad (’Donegality’); similar use of alchemy in Rowling-Galbraith

4. So the alchemical parallelism seemed to stop at Ink Black Heart but the other correspondences continued?

· That’s right, the first seven books paralleled their Harry Potter apposite numbers in structure, plot points, and some symbolism but the last two broke from the alchemical pattern;

· I decided that the best place to look for a way that the new pattern could be explained would be looking at the seven theories about the Strike-Ellacott series structure;

· If a specific structure had a very clear idea about the alchemical stage sequencing in the books, then I’d have a real head-start in what to look for in Hallmarked Man.

5. The Seven theories -- last time we talked it was six! Remind me what they are and what each says about the alchemy...

· No structure, Big Ring/Double Wedding Band, Septology and trilogy combo, Extended Play, Corona Sonnet, Tetractys, and Celtic Cross (see links above!);

· Only Extended Play and Tetractys theories had clear theories about the alchemy; and

· Oddly enough, they both explained why Hallmarked Man had to be considered an albedo or white novel even though they disagreed about what Ink Black Heart and Running Grave were...

6. We’ve got slides here that help make what seems hopelessly nerdy something you can see. We’ll start way back with the ring structure of The Harry Potter series and work our way toward Evan Willis’ Tetractys ideas.

· Harry Potter series, Sprague/Thacker ‘Reverse Alchemy:’ Slides 1 and 2 (see above)

7. And via the Parallel Series Idea we should see those same relationships that were found in the Potter books in the Strike series?

· Extended Play idea: Slides 3 and 4 (see above)

· Where it breaks down -- Running Grave like Troubled Blood an “aquatic Nigredo“

8. And you think the Tetractys idea is better. We really need to have Evan on the show to talk about where he learned about this figure, its use in English literature prior to Rowling, and why he thinks Rowling is writing her second ten book series. Can you summarize his two Hogwarts Professor posts on this subject and why Rowling Readers will benefit from learning about this ancient ten point peg board model?

· See Tetractys pyramid slides above;

· Four levels: meaning of monad, dyad, triad, quaternity symbolism; (first Evan Willis post above)

· Pyramid to climb, something akin to four levels of reading and knowledge; [Fowler, Triumphal Forms]

· Benefit to Rowling Readers: Willis thinks the second Quaternion parallels Rowling’s first -- and the differences explain the alchemical stage of Running Grave;

· It also was used to predict three things about Hallmarked Man: it was all about silver, it would be an albedo or White stage novel, and it would parallel The Ickabog

9. Three bullseyes with a special merit badge for figuring out the silver part before the title was announced. Let’s go to the Tetractys slides for the Potter and Strike series:

· All above!

10. Both the Extended Play and Tetractys theories, then, have Hallmarked Man as an albedo. How will that influence your examination of Strike 8 for its alchemical symbols and sequences as well as your interpretation of them?

· I’ll be looking for the alchemical signatures of the second stage, leukosis or the ‘whitening,’

· I’ll be looking for evidence that contradicts the albedo dyad idea, and

· I’ll be researching if alchemical ideas, as in, say, incest, ‘Jason and the Medea,’ and ‘dog and b***h,’ are best read as white stage tokens

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Nick Jeffery and John Granger sat down to discuss four Hogwarts Professor posts. Here are links to those posts with an excerpt from each and the most relevant urls embedded in them. Enjoy!

What is a Squib, Really? And Where Would Rowling Have Met the Word? (John Granger, 27 April 2026)

I confess that I assumed the word for barely magical witches and wizards born into magical families in J. K. Rowling’s Wizarding World, the folk she calls ‘Squibs,’ were given that name because of its onomatopoeic source in fireworks; per the Harry Potter Lexicon invaluable online resource, a squib is English idiom for “a dud firework that will not ignite properly.” It sounds like its meaning (as does “dud”) and a reader can feel in it the disappointment of magical parents when their child turns out not to have the gift that will make them full members of their community.

I learned this morning, however, that a squib is not a dud firework, or wasn’t originally though it may have that meaning today, and that it is mentioned more than once in one of Rowling’s known literary influences.

* ‘Squibbing’ at the Bridgewater Carnival Fireworks Festival (YouTube video)

* Toyohashi Tengu: Japanese Quidditch Team (Harry Potter Lexicon)

* Tengu — Japanese Fantastic Beast not in Newt Scamander’s textbook (Wikipedia)

* Toyohashi Tezutsu fireworks 2022 (Tezutsu-hanabi — Wikipedia)

* Dimitra Fimi’s ‘A Kind of Elvish Craft’ Substack site

* The Fireworks of Gandalf: in which ‘squibs’ are discussed (not duds!)

* ‘The Slow Lord of the Rings Re-Read’ Prof Fimi’s Tolkien Reading Day Introduction

* Reading Rowling as Myth Maker and Myth Re-Writer: A Conversation with Dr Dimitra Fimi

* ‘Sleep Tight, Evangeline,’ Miniature Psalters, and the Head of Persephone: A Conversation with Dimitra Fimi

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Ray Livingston's 'The Traditional Theory of Literature:’ Chapter 2: Man, Society, Art (John Granger, 30 April 2026)

In brief, the Perennialist reading of literature begins with a different idea of what a human being is, which reflects the social environment or society and culture that best fosters his achievement of his end or telos, which reflects what role art in general and story specifically plays in his best life. The human being as primarily spiritual, his end as profound communion with what is most Real, and story as non-liturgical sacred art (not necessarily or even usually ‘religious’) which supports him in his vocation to that end are the premises of the traditional or theocentric understanding of man, society, and art.

Which is the title of Livingston’s second chapter and a description of its organization as well as of its contents. It’s not easy reading; the subject matter is quite dense and he covers an enormous amount of ground relatively quickly so he can get to the ‘literature’ in the remaining chapters of the work. Without setting out the premises of the Perennialist understanding with respect to what it means to be human, how a community is designed to make a fully human life possible, and how the art of everyday objects as well as set pieces for appreciation or entertainment — there being no meaningful difference in the value of practical and fine arts here — bring that polity to fruition, discussion of literature from the traditional view would be a waste of time.

The Allegorical Cryptonyms of Hallmarked Man, Part 2: Ten More Cratylic Character Names and Best Guesses about their Embedded Meanings (John Granger, 1 May 2026)

This is the second part of at least a three part series of articles with supplementary video discussion in which I take a long look at Rowling-Galbraith’s choices for character names in the eighth Strike-Ellacott novel, The Hallmarked Man. For the first posts in this series, in which I explain why this is a worthwhile effort, one critical to Rowling’s intentional artistry and complementary to her other Shed tools, see ‘The Allegorical Cryptonyms of The Hallmarked Man, Part One’ and my conversation with Nick Jeffery about it ‘What do Tyler Powell, Rupert Fleetwood, Jolanda Lindvall, and Lady Jensen Have in Common?’

Almost half of today’s ten posts are about characters named ‘Lion’ or variants on the leonine theme. I think the number of lions prowling through Hallmarked Man, not to mention the dogs from Hell and the bears benign and grizzly, deserve their own post, especially to contrast it with the predominant swan symbolism of the first seven books. Or are they conjoined in Jonny Rokeby, whose middle name is the lionesque ‘Leonard’ and who plays the part of a Jovian swan in the Leda mating that produced Cormoran Strike (we think?). [Be sure to check out Ed Shardlow’s full catalogue of the lions afoot in the pages of Hallmarked Man!]

* ‘I’m an Essex Girl’ (YouTube video)

The Literary Alchemy of Hallmarked Man: What Do the Structural Models Tell Us? Seeking Pointers to the Hermetic Meaning of Strike 8 within (a) the Extended Play and Tetractys Ten Book Series Pictures and (b) the Parallel Series and Reverse Alchemy Ideas (John Granger, 8 May 2026)

There are currently seven theories that I have read about of how best to think of the Strike-Ellacott series structure:

* (1) straight up Decalogy, no structural connection between books;

* (2) Big Ring Composition, Double Wedding Band (Louise Freeman);

* (3) Seven book series with Trilogy finale (Nick Jeffery, John Granger);

* (4) Extended Play theory (John Granger per ‘Kathleen’),

* (5) Sonnet Corona Form (Robyn Gomillion);

* (6) Tetractys theory (Evan Willis with back-up explanations here, follow-up from Evan here); and

* (7) Celtic Cross (John Granger) scroll down to bottom).

The first idea is that there isn’t a series structure worth noting, which is the default position of the great majority of readers. They (we?) enjoy each book and appreciate the over-arching story parts and conflicts without wondering about the author’s intentional narrative scaffolding. Rowling has repeatedly said that special sauce secret of her success is structure but as story organization artistry is very rarely discussed today in English classrooms even Literature wonks neglect it. The other six ideas have their advocates and rather than review each I’ve embedded links above to these proponents’ online arguments in favor of their best guesses.

All of these structure theories have advantages and support from previous work we and others have done in the field of Rowling Studies; all of it, however, it must be remembered is laughably speculative guesswork – we’re not going to grasp the series structure with any certainty until it’s done or Rowling actually answers questions about it or shares the information gratis (neither of which is likely given her history). Those of us who give any time to this, not to name those who are pre-occupied with it, are hunting phantom fandom garlands (as well as having a lot of fun).

There actually is, however, a reason beyond personal insecurities and a search for redemption for thinking about how the ten book series is organized before all the books are out. If you’re trying to figure out the alchemical quality or stage of a book already in print, understanding the sequence of books should theoretically reveal the sequence of stages (and vice versa). As explained above, Rowling seems to be writing the Strike series in parallel with her Harry Potter seven books. Until we got to the sixth book in Robin and Cormoran’s adventures, those parallels included the alchemical coloration or stage the Potter numerical equivalent had. Other correspondences between the series continued, most notably, the seven book ring structure and playful plot point parallels (see my conclusions post Running Grave here, here, and here). The alchemy did not.

In terms of alchemy, the most compelling ideas I think are Extended Play (EP) and Evan Willis’ four-three-two-one pyramid, the Tetractys figure of the ancients, the ‘Great Quaternion.’ Let’s look at each.

* Why the Cormoran Strike Novels are a Ten Book Series: Mythological Clues and Tetractys Parallelism with a Touch of Tarot Reveal the Strike Series Structural Echoes with Rowling’s First Ten Book Set [Evan Willis, 10 July 2023]

* Is Tetractys Theory the Best Explanation of Why the Cormoran Strike Series is Ten Books in Length? First Thoughts on Evan Willis’ Numerological Exegesis of Rowling’s Two Ten Novel Series and the Meaning of This Structure [John Granger, 18 July 2023]

* Evan Willis: Running Grave Review In which the Tetractis theory is revisited in light of Strike 7 and the Theory is Updated [Evan Willis, 30 September 2023]

* Literary Alchemy – A Primer for Those Interested in J. K. Rowling’s Artistry

* Metallurgical, Literary, and Psychological Alchemy: Is Jung a Good Guide for Understanding J. K. Rowling’s Artistry and Meaning?

The Ten Questions!

Introduction: It’s been a busy week, John, with posts on traditional reading, cryptonyms, and literary alchemy. I’ve got a bunch of questions about each subject so let’s jump right in -- with some thoughts about Squibs in Bridgewater and Toyohashi, Japan!

1. Ray Livingston: You’re sending out a chapter of The Traditional Theory of Literature every week to our Paid Subscribers which I think everyone has access to, at least for one or two chapters. It’s no small effort to type up this public domain book that isn’t available anywhere on the internet, especially with the embedded links to the obscure references in the footnotes; why are you bothering?

2. Ray Livingston: The first chapter you sent out went to everyone and included the glossary of terms as well as the Table of Contents, preface, and prologue (chapter one). I’m guessing this is more than throat-clearing and publisher’s data; why does a literary theory text, for example, need a glossary?

3. Ray Livingston: The second chapter, ‘Man Society, and Art,’ was a dense read, I confess. Am I right in thinking this was Livingston’s attempt to introduce the Perennialist ‘Theory of Everything’ in one short chapter to lay the foundation for the literature chapters?

4. Cryptonyms 2: It’s been a minute since Part One of the Cryptonyms series, why the hold-up?

5. Cryptonyms 2: [John] And part of my cryptonym-hesitancy was how much of this post was UK specific, as in the Branfoot = Branson idea and the Essex Girl bit, all of which was new to me. As a Brit living in Wales, should I have resisted the urge to speculate on those subjects? And is the anti-Semitism part of my Hafsa Mohamed interpretation just looking backward from current events?

6. Cryptonyms 2: Do we have a Cryptonyms, Part 3, in queue?

[Ottolie, ‘Jim Todd’ (‘Jim Philpott,’ Todd Jameson), Calvin ‘Oz’ Osgood, Sofia Medina, Gretchen Schiff, Sapphire Neagle, Susan Iverson, Kim Cochran, Trevik Nancarrow, Peggy (Margaret ‘Leda’) Nancarrow,, Carmen Ellacott (Dirk Ellacott, Barnaby Ellacott), Ralph Lawrence/ John Auclair – Open Invitation to readers to make name-deciphering requests in the comments; there are more than 150 names in Hallmarked Man so tell me the ones you want to hear more about]

7. Alchemy (Series) We’ve been writing and talking about ‘how to understand literary alchemy best,’ i.e., by taking a Jungian or a Perennialist perspective on how Rowling uses it, but this latest piece on the Literary Alchemy of Hallmarked Man is much more straight-reading or interpretation, no? And it starts out with how to understand Strike 8 in light of the series sequence of alchemical stages; what’s the struggle with this kind of reading that we’re only getting to this six months after the book came out?

8. Alchemy (Hallmarked): How does your reading of specific alchemical images in Hallmarked Man differ from how you read them in, say, Troubled Blood?

9. Alchemy (Hallmarked): There were quite a few finds in the ten images you found in Abraham’s Dictionary that resonated with subjects we’ve been talking about -- the mythological backdrop to the story, to incest, to Lions and Masonry. What are we to make of this? Do you think it’s a coincidence that Rowling-Galbraith’s plot points and other artistry reflects these alchemical glyphs or is the hermetic symbolism driving the other elements?

10. Coming Week: So what can we expect in the coming week, John?

Lots and lots! Please send in your cryptonym deciphering requests — and your ideas for Hogwarts Professor merchandise (AI generated logo designs welcome)!

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