The First Seven Strike Novels Paralleled Their Seven Harry Potter Equivalents; What Rowling Work Did The Hallmarked Man Parallel?

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’