Claim OwnershipHarry Potter After 2020
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How does it feel to read Harry Potter after 2020?
The words on the page don't change.
But times change. We, the readers, change. And that changes the story.
Join podcast hosts Lorrie Kim and JC on a re-read of the series, chapter by chapter. As we delve into the story, we'll remember what the books meant to us when they were first published and analyze what we see differently now.
For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
The words on the page don't change.
But times change. We, the readers, change. And that changes the story.
Join podcast hosts Lorrie Kim and JC on a re-read of the series, chapter by chapter. As we delve into the story, we'll remember what the books meant to us when they were first published and analyze what we see differently now.
For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
125 Episodes
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JC: We were in a theater full of people who were there because they wanted to see Tom Felton, and like you said, they queued for tickets, they paid a lot of money, they clearly are fans. I heard people crying around us, people were laughing... Everybody in that theater was thrilled; people leapt to their feet at the end to clap. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
"I know people who've come out within the last few years as trans or non-binary because of the book series. It is the perfect metaphor for being gay, for being trans, and that's the community that makes up the heart of, at least, the Wizard Rock portion of the fandom. Regardless of what she says, her books make a difference to little queer kids every day." – Bess Carnan of WZRD Radio For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
I've been a fan of the Harry Potter series for a long time, and have been reevaluating my relationship with it as a trans woman over the last few years. I think that despite herself, J.K. Rowling created a world that made me feel like I could be whatever I wanted. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
"A not-insignificant number of people discovered their trans identities through Harry Potter roleplay and Harry Potter cosplay, because Harry Potter was so big and such a big part of our lives. I was trying to make a list of the people I knew on LiveJournal who went through transition, and it was so long that I gave up. It's a demographic, not just a few people we knew." For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
LK: We know, from him having put three memories in the Pensieve, that Snape has his own important things at risk here. JC: My first read with it was that there were things that he didn't want Harry to know, but now I'm like, 'Oh, there's things he doesn't want the Dark Lord to know.' He's not worried about Harry knowing. LK: If Voldemort sees things, he doesn't have the emotional intelligence to put them together a certain way; if Harry sees those things, Harry does. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
LK: We run into Neville and his grandmother Augusta visiting Neville's parents in the long-term care ward. JC: Hermione has the sudden horror that Kreacher has a picture of her in his little den. LK: This is the human cost of family separation. The people who knowingly do this and enjoy the results have lives and emotional connections, too. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
JC: What I would like Sirius to have said is, "You've told Dumbledore, and Dumbledore's on it. You need to sit tight, and let's see what Dumbledore comes up with. I know this sucks, and thank you for telling me. Can I hug you?" Anything like that is what would have made a difference. There are things that happened to Harry later that I think he ended up making choices because he thought nobody was on his side. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
LK: The hope with Voldemort is that there is part of his own mind that he doesn't understand, and there's hope of being able to get to him that way. The problem with Umbridge is that she doesn't have that kind of empty spot. JC: Yeah. She's choosing it, she knows what she's doing, and she's unreachable in the same way that we talked about before and that others have talked about: the author is unreachable. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
Dumbledore sent Hagrid and Madame Maxime off to approach them, but he had to tell them what to do. It makes me think about stories of people whose parents were immigrants who then had lost this piece of their parents' culture and have a hard time reconnecting to it again. They were having to rely on what Dumbledore had told them about what giant culture was like, even though they're both half-giant. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
Harry feels so empowered by knowing that he's doing something to make a difference in the background. That's really cool and also just very relatable, because I know that I've had feelings like that in the last few years. 'These are the things that are happening, but here's what I'm doing through my work to make it a little bit better.' For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
The hurt that he's accruing by being isolated and ignored by Dumbledore -- that hurt of not having his needs heard and met -- are doing more to turn him into somebody who can understand Voldemort's feelings and how Voldemort became who he is, starting from being an orphan who had nobody to hear him when he cried out for help and nobody to connect with. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
This is part of the instruction manual. Support your own confidence by doing something and carry that within you. People believing Harry and letting him know that they have a high opinion of him has taken such a burden off of him. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
Ernie -- bless Ernie -- points out the thing that has to be said: "We are prefects." He is verbalizing the risk that they have all agreed to take if they go on this path, and that is, in fact, what they're all deciding, and he himself has made the argument for why they should: that this is even more important than O.W.L.s. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
JC: I went into reading this chapter thinking when I read it before, this seemed so incredibly super dark and hard to imagine. It did not feel that way this time; it was even funny to me in ways that it would not have been funny before. I'm starting to wonder if the rest of this book is going to feel that way to me. I remember this book being so dark, and now I'm like, 'It doesn't feel quite as dark.' For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
Harry's thinking he had known Percy for four years, had stayed in his house during the summers, yet now, Percy thought him 'unbalanced and possibly violent'? That was a feeling that was really powerful in the fandom during the first disbelief of TERFpocalypse. That vertigo when you realize that somebody has made you into a monster in their head, even though they had human connection with you that went back quite a way. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
LK: Your friends and allies are the ones who will hear you, so you have to be mindful of how you direct the anger that you're constantly being provoked to feel. I remember, in 2016, I had to be schooled. I had to be taught, "Do not make small hands jokes. The only people who are going to hear you are your trans-masc friends." That's true. Shoot, sorry. JC: Similarly, when people mock his weight or other things about his appearance, it's the same thing. Who hears those jokes? For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
They're all sitting there and it's just like *groans* and everyone's falling asleep… It's intended to be that the room is quiet. The appearance of learning is there, but no learning is actually happening. This is exactly what Umbridge wants. Then Hermione's hand goes up and stays up, and then slowly, everyone starts to notice, and it's this building and building and building. It's so good. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
I would love to go through some of what Umbridge is saying here. First of all, the jargon that she's using…the words that she used to me as an educator were like red flags. The emphasis is not on creating thinking human beings that can reason and question things. No, we want them to have a very specific set of skills that they can apply, then, to whatever we tell them to. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
Luna's final words to him are such a masterful end to this chapter, because she's smiling faintly when she says it; she knows. She is in charge of this moment. It's not one of her thoughtless things where she doesn't realize the effect she has on people, and I think she's chosen these words on purpose to be unsettling. "Don't worry. You're just as sane as I am." For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
She is a resistance fighter who's already lost family and now has children; the more people you love in life, the more they have on you. This is just a fact. Snape is the opposite, of course; he deliberately prevents himself from having attachments so that he doesn't have that liability. But Molly… she went all in on giving birth to resistance fighters, so yeah, this is the price she pays. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
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I love this podcast! Still, I'll always defer to Death of the Author as the more fulfilling approach to text. It's effortless and boring to dismiss as inorganic the things that trouble my interpretation of a book. Although the authorial voice is present, saying Hagrid or Lupin acts out of character when they act badly seems an excuse not to reevaluate our (sometimes misguided) assumptions about character. There's more to be gained from text by asking "why" than there is by being evaluative.