Harry Potter After 2020

"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.

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.

This way that Harry is being set up here -- drawing more blame to himself in proportion to how well he could defend himself from attack -- the only way for Harry to be virtuous in Fudge's eyes is to let himself get killed? There's no winning. There's no way to be a good victim that gets approval. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.

Harry, looking at the layers and layers as he goes down, he's learning how to operate in this world that's built on secrets and hidden agendas and subversive speech, whether it's subversive because it's wizards trying to hide, escaping detection by Muggles, or whether it's members of the Order pretending in public not to know each other for their own safety. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.

When Sirius looks around at how they're refitting the house for the Order, he says, "If my parents could see the use it was being put to now…" I thought, 'Oh, that's actually honest and hopeful,' because one of the words that came to my mind was 'reparations.' For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.

Everybody thought more highly of Harry's achievement than Harry did. He didn't realize what an advantage he's just given everybody and what a giant defeat he handed Voldemort, because as Harry has been rightly complaining, nobody's saying "Good job, Harry." And it's good for all these adults to realize, "Wait, Harry, you don't know what you did?" "No. If anybody would talk to me, maybe I would have some idea." For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.

In Korean, there are no capital or lowercase letters, so when I got this volume of Harry Potter in Korean translation, I checked to see how they did Capslock Harry and it's in boldface. If you're familiar with Capslock Harry, you don't have to read Korean to know what chapter this is; you can just see it and know. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.  

The moment he starts flying, he feels like himself again. This is something that we've really needed in this political landscape. The respite it gives your whole system to get back in touch with who you really are… That is something that anybody who's struggling should keep in mind like this. We actively want to reconnect to that feeling as much as possible, because it just resets your body if you can find a way. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.

Sometimes, there's a fantasy where you think, 'Well, if you could just make contact with somebody who's prejudiced and get them to see the common humanity, then they wouldn't be able to say to somebody's face, "Well, I hope you die."' But no, Vernon is fully aware of who Harry Potter is and has said right to his face, "Do your lot have the death penalty?" For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.

There is no getting away from knowing that for nine and three-quarter years, Dumbledore let him live a hopeless childhood with the Dursleys, never contacted him until he was eleven, never let him know "somebody knows about you," never gave him any reason to think his life would be anything other than that. When Dumbledore ignores or abandons Harry in this novel, that triggers Harry beyond anything else. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.