Harry Potter After 2020
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. Find more episodes, transcripts, and more at hpafter2020.com.
Episodes
When you're a child, you want somebody to have wanted you and to love you even if there's absolutely no evidence that this will ever happen for you. The need doesn't go away, and you may hate yourself for it. You may try, like Voldemort, to split your soul and deny that need and put it away from yourself so you never feel it again, but it doesn't go away, and this is the bond that Voldemort and Barty Crouch Jr. found i...
He's just rebuilt his entire body with Harry's blood that has protective love in it. That is what it takes to feel human connection and empathy and grief and remorse; those are the qualities in a person that help you heal. All of the effort that Voldemort has always put into compartmentalizing his soul -- walling off his feelings -- now, those efforts are bein...
I imagine that this entire series is being imagined by Tom Riddle, an orphan in an orphanage who is a brilliant and violent and lonely child, and that he's fantasizing that somewhere in the world there is a little kid like himself who has spent the exact same time suffering and can understand him, and if he finds this kid, this kid can give him some answers, put some limits on his pain, maybe help him heal. Read more
No matter how potent Voldemort is, he can't make himself grow. That is magic he doesn't have and that is what he needs Harry for, because what makes you grow? Does brilliance make you grow? Does being ma...
JC: When I think Voldemort, sexual magnetism is not the word that comes to mind.
Lorrie: I think his focus is on how he feels against people who have intact families; he is breaking apart those bonds to create people who feel more like how he does so that he's n...
By the end of this chapter, Harry sees how old Dumbledore is for the first time. Dumbledore ages in this chapter. He sees Dumbledore at first as the great wizard that Harry's always believed he is, and at the end of the chapter, he's looking at Dumbledore and realizing he's an old man and he looks exhausted. Maturing, looking at the adults in your...
He is riding on the back of the eagle owl that he has seen earlier. Apparently the eagle owl is going to Riddle Manor and then Harry's perspective leaves the owl's back. He can see the owl, too, as well as the back of the chair with that thing in it, that thing that Harry has never seen head on: that small, baby-shaped, scary thing. So yeah, he's having a vision.
For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or suppo...
Maybe, if we show how upset we are, she'll understand how angry and desperate she's made people. The thing is, that doesn't work because strangely, recipients of hate mail don't take that lesson away from it. When your defenses and alarm shoot way up because somebody is threatening you and sending hatred your way, your first response is not sympathy for the person who's threatening you.
He says to Harry, "I'll breathe freely again when this tournament's over, and that's not until June." To me, this is the proof. Yeah, Sirius is a parent, godfather. He and Molly Weasley have an argument in the next volume about whether he's really the same as a father. Yeah, this qualifies to me.
For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
She was the mother of a three-month-old, kicked out of the house with her baby still inside. That's something that happened to this author, and I can't help but remember that when I look at the passage of Fleur going crazy because she was physically unable to go rescue her sister. I'm not going to read literature separated from details of the biography of the author. I find it more rich, more human and rewarding to integrate what I...
Whether or not you change on the inside, there are choices you've made in your past that you cannot run away from, and there are people who remember that commitment you made and were in it, too. You can't disavow this. Snape seizes his left forearm as if "something on it had hurt him," and that's one of those rare moments when we get to see the real Snape.
For...
"Boys, keep back! They prefer the woman's touch... Girls to the front…" This is a de facto magical gender test, right? If you're a kid who might not fall neatly into the gender binary, then you have to wonder, “How is this magical creature going to respond to me?” You might be able to pass by human standards or wizard standards. What is a unicorn going to think?
For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or suppor...
“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 ev...
"Hermione, for once, gets to be the main character."
For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com.
My friend Lokifan wrote a meta about how Rowling writes friendship as romance and romance as mystery, because we don't know at this point who Hermione is going with. When friends are separated, their misery is how we consider romance difficulties to feel, and when friends are happy together, that's the great fulfillment that you get in a romance from the couple getting together.
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Oh, Winky. She's nothing but pain, but I love her so much. She has, for me, some of the greatest pain of any character in this series, because she has all of the anxiety and burden of being a caretaker but none of the power. She can't stop caring; she's not even with the family anymore, but she genuinely cared and she can't stop.
Not all of your strengths have to be in being academic, right? And that's really true for Harry. He's got a lot of things that he's good at, but that idea of playing to your strengths and having someone remind you, "What are you good at? What are you bringing to this that no one else is?" That’s powerful, right? -JC
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 mo...
The Invisibility Cloak felt like such a symbol of escape and safety in this way that Harry was able to put it on and briefly escape from all the awfulness that's coming his way. And it was such a relief for me as a reader, too. You can think of it as being able to go into a safe space or a place where you know that, "Here, I can do whatever I want," and he can just be there and be safe. The only people who can see him ...
The thing about Voldemort is that he doesn't connect with people, except that there's this wand that makes it possible that somebody else has. All of this about second chances and the Christian symbolic wood and core in Harry's wand… No matter how badly Voldemort has damaged his soul, if he connects with Harry, there is a chance that his soul could be restored...
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