early harry potter video

It's also worth noting that hagrid is not written as entirely sympathetic all the time. Specifically, there's a scene where, after having fallen out with the french headmistress, hagrid goes on something of a xenophobic rant about foreigners and scolds harry for making friends with them. Harry is explicitly described as being glad to be out of hagrid's company at that point. So It's not like JK was completely oblivious to hagrid and vernon sharing some unpleasant qualities.

Sorrel Tilley

I'll never look at Harry Potter the same way ever again. I don't know if I should be sad about that....or happy. JK. I actually never read the books...just a movie watcher.

Lynn Short

You got me curious, so I went and looked it up! You're right that McGonagall initially scolds him, but she also immediately praises him afterwards: “I see what Bellatrix meant,” said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, “you need to really mean it.” “Potter!” whispered Professor McGonagall, clutching her heart. “Potter--you’re here! What--? How--?” She struggled to pull herself together. “Potter, that was foolish!” “He spat at you,” said Harry. “Potter, I--that was very--very gallant of you--but don’t you realize--?” “Yeah, I do,” Harry assured her. I mean, "gallant" isn't exactly the descriptor I'd use. And maybe there's more context here that I don't remember, but I personally don't think this comes off as the story/characters suggesting Harry has done anything wrong here.

USC Stuff

Huh, I always took the implication as an "oh fuck, Harry's gotten super dark" moment, BECAUSE he's suddenly crossed the line from "righteously angry" to "genuinely sadistic." Kind of like when Luke actually DOES try to strike Palpatine down with all his hatred before Vader steps in, or when Carrie decides to kill everyone at prom. It's *understandable* but it's not portrayed as *okay,* and I never got the sense that I was supposed to think it was okay - IIRC, McGonagall (on whose behalf the curse is used) is horrified and Harry's response ("he spat at you") is incredibly petty, thus showcasing how unnecessary it was (he didn't do it to, like, stop the Carrows from murdering puppies or something). I'd argue that the treatment of the Unforgivable Curses is actually the one time that an action is bad rather than a team, and I'd say that's actually more telling than it being 100% consistent. Like, according to Rowling, the following are okay if the heroes do them: * Making fun of people for their appearance * Making fun of people for their intellectual ability * Cursing people in general * Cursing people without their knowledge to force them to adhere to a contract (Marietta Edgecombe STILL has the pimples spelling "sneak" in the next book) * Intentionally engineering a situation for someone to be brutalized or, as implied, gang-raped by centaurs * Blackmail * Imprisonment Things that are not okay under any circumstances, apparently: * Feeling joy at someone else's suffering

Marzipan Googolplex

The similarities drawn between Hagrid and Vernon were pretty interesting, but reducing it to "they are essentially the same" misses out the compelling factor for the reader: in the wizard world, Hagrid is the equivalent of being oppressed. He is the victim of racial and ableist oppression, and experiences classism in both worlds too. This is (supposedly) Vernon and Dudley getting a taste of their own medicine from an oppressed person, basically a girlboss moment. Rowling is incredibly ableist - a point that should have been brought up with fatness, by the way - so this violence begetting violence is just a joke, but still. This scene would be different with an abled, pureblood wizard in Hagrid's place.

fohfuu

Fair point, although I don't think Dumbledore actually kept Trelawney around because he thought she was "good." He just didn't want her to fall into Voldemort's hands, since she was the one who produced the prophecy. Keeping Trelawney in Hogwarts, where he could protect her, was just a pragmatic choice for him.

Tormuse

If you say so... but for some reason, when he said "council scene," the first thing that came to my mind was the Jedi council from the Star Wars prequel trilogy. I'm not sure what that says about me. Maybe I just have bad fantasy franchises on my mind. :P

Tormuse

A very good place to start.

Tormuse

This was always the thing that bugged me most about the seventh book. These curses had been established as the Unforgivable Curses, that are unspeakably horrible, that you can't even use unless you *really mean* them, implying you have to be kind of a horrible sort of person to even do it. But then in the seventh book the protagonists just sort of casually throw them out while fighting like any other curse and it goes entirely without comment? It was *incredibly* jarring to me, as a reader who was a pretty big fan of the books generally.

antialiasis

Not sure if it’s been mentioned yet, but one of the most unsettling things to me about the HP series is the existence of a torture curse that sees regular use by the main protagonist. If I remember correctly, Harry tries to use it 3 times throughout the books. Twice he fails because he has righteous anger (or some similar hand-wavy garbage) instead of a desire to truly hurt someone… and one time he succeeds. So the protagonist succeeds in torturing an individual using a curse that, as described, can drive people insane with the pain if they experience it for too long. I think Rowling could have explored an interesting idea with this curse. Causing someone intense pain to satisfy some internal need for revenge is clearly not a “good guy” trait, and the two times it backfires on Harry are moments where you think Rowling is suggesting this is a line in the sand that justice should never cross, which on its own is okay. It’s even implied that the normalization of that behavior is a primary method for influencing children toward Voldemort, given that it’s one of the main othering tactics used at Hogwarts in the seventh book. Children are compelled to use it on their classmates who have disobeyed, which could have been a very powerful look at the ways punitive systems are abused to influence how society thinks about individuals in those systems, rather than the systems being used to rehabilitate those individuals. But when Harry uses it the third time, it’s implied that it’s totally justified because wizarding laws were changed to make those curses legal, and he sees zero repercussions for this, personally, socially or legally. Which is insane... Harry Potter just straight up tortures someone he hates out of spite, and no one really cares. And he’s not even the only “good guy wizard” to do this! What made those curses wrong is that people shouldn’t torture others, or take away all of their free will, or murder out of spite. And if you have a scene where one of your protagonists DOES do one of those things, it really should be a heavy moment of reflection and commentary, especially from the people who witnessed them do it. But Rowling seems to suggest that those things are totally fine if the system allows for/endorses it, and doesn’t really need a second thought.

USC Stuff

When you finish the video, can you turn up the volume on your audio? When I've watched this I've had to turn my volume up pretty high for it to be audible above any level of background noise

Cal

I remember reading a reddit post a long time ago about how the Harry Potter world is a society in slow decay. All their textbooks and theories are from hundreds of years ago, people don't really create new spells, techniques, or artifacts as often as you'd imagine for a school, and honestly the whole method of how they do magic with wands and spells is very recitation-based. Collectively they've also repudiated non-magical medicine, even in cases where it could be very valuable, like blood transfusions. They may have cool magic, but it's not their society that's doing most of the innovation in their world.

aismallard

This is a really good insight, I'm sure JKR would refute being Calvinist but that kind of underlying philosophy is definitely present in the works, and does reflect her perspective on systems just existing and the only thing that "matters" are whether people are "good" or "bad".

aismallard

I loved the video, excellent job as usual. Maybe some thoughts of one of my blog's coauthors would also be of use for final version. Or not. https://freethoughtblogs.com/affinity/2020/12/27/harry-potter-and-the-horrors-of-world-building/

Karel Bartoš

Great video! There was only one part I thought needed clarification which someone else has already mentioned here - the part about Dumbledore's Army maintaing the status quo. I think I can see what you're getting at, but it might be worth including an excerpt and offering some brief commentary just to clarify that point. I'm not sure if you've already planned this for your conclusion so sorry if I'm jumping the gun a bit, but I wondered if you plan to include a point about how Harry Potter can't be separated from JK Rowling's politics and worldview? It's obviously something that's implied throughout the video, but it could still be worth making explicit especially as I still see so many Harry Potter fans forging this separation between text and author as if the books are solely problematic because of their association with JK Rowling and her transphobia. As you've pointed out, the issues run far deeper than Rowling as she has been specifically in the past few years. There was that NYT billboard recently about fans enjoying Harry Potter without the author, and that seems a good way of illustrating that this narrative of "Harry Potter is all fine except for being associated with Rowling". Overall, fantastic work as usual!

Siân

I hope Shaun talks about both these things, honestly. Although I think calling it a prison system is generous. As far as I know, Azkaban is literally the only option which seems extremely wild. The justice system as a whole though is like, wildly underthought and concerning considering Sirius Black was able to be imprisoned for life in a torture prison based solely on aftermath eye witness testimony, a severed finger, and literally no trial or interrogation or even checking Sirius' wand. Love also seems to be just kind of a surface level 'this person has a connection or just SAYS they loved this other person' kind of thing for Joker Owling. After all, Severus Snape is 'redeemed' based on the fact that he 'loved' Lily Potter (nee Evans) except at no point are we actually shown him doing that. We're just told he loves her and did love her even though he called her what is objectively a slur in that universe and joined a hate group specifically against people like her. And then treated her son like crap because he reminded him of her. Like I don't think Joker Owling ever wanted to or realized that merely saying you love someone doesn't always mean much. And that it isn't actually an excuse for bad behavior.

AmazonRhinos

I've tried to block out a lot of the stuff from Cursed Child, especially the part where Bellatrix and Voldemort had a secret child, to no avail, but I will say that the writing and plot were bad enough to remove the last like, 10% of nostalgia/love of the franchise from me entirely so it at least had some use. Also I had preordered it and a coworker still loved everything about harry potter so after i complained about it enough they bought it from me for more than I asked for so I also made a tiny profit off of it. But also while writing this reply to you I've realized just how obsessed Joker Owling is with like, secret children of powerful families. What's up with that?

AmazonRhinos

Hey Shaun - Loved it - No notes My only note is that the horror of the ole slave heads could potentially be emphasized even more - like, the situation is so ridiculous that it when the words hit my brain I assumed they were just statues or something, and not literal disembodied heads. On my second listen I realised properly what you were saying, and I pictured it properly, and it was ghastly.

Dave Connor

If you wanted to, you could probably elaborate on Dolores Umbridge's depiction in the books, including the really disturbing use of (implied) sexual assault as a comeuppance for her character, which is especially disheartening considering Rowling's own experience with sexual assault (though I don't know if it happened before or after writing that book).

A Goblin

Also, Hermione is muggle-born, so if she was black she would be particularly familiar with racism and the history of the slave trade in the muggle world.

A Goblin

I think my partly sympathetic take on the books is that they started out with one good idea: mixing the classic enid blyton style boarding school story with archetypal fantasy elements. It's not interested in subverting tropes but being a well executed pastiche of already culturally ingrained stories. I think that's why a lot of people find HP charming and comforting, it's a quaint little world filled with nostalgic tropes. It's at once fantastical and mysterious but also familiar and static. The fantasy elements aren't there as allegory, just charming tropes for their own sake. That also means the inherent politics of those tropes and JKs own bad ideology end up seeping through so clearly; they were never suposed to mean anything and so the actual meaning goes basically unchecked because even as she tries to make the stories more complicated she's still in a storybook mindset. Happy little elves make the food at the wizard school? Cute, of course they do. The story is more grown up now and you feel a need to explore the labour conditions of the elves while still maintaining a simple fairytale reflection of society? Oh no you're defending slavery what are you doing!

Sasha Rose Blatchley Hansen

kinda want to see fanart for all the fantasy “races”

Renee

Very interesting video! I had a brief thought about Remus Lupin when you were talking about individual vs societal change - I wonder if that's part why he died in the end. In terms of people discriminated against that Harry actually had thoughts about (though still not many, if I'm remembering correctly), I believe he was more consistent in his outrage at Lupin's treatment as a werewolf than that of house elves. (Though actually did he ever think about the treatment of werewolves as a whole being unfair, or was it primarily unfair that Lupin was "outed" as a werewolf and then was personally discriminated against....) And Lupin dies at the end of the series and what happens to the problem of werewolves as second class citizens? .....nothing, I guess? I suppose it was only really a problem while Harry personally knew a werewolf who was Good. But maybe in the years between the end and the epilogue, discrimination against werewolves ends off screen. And the house elves are freed. And racism is ended. All is well.

Mady, you know, from TV

Awesome vid! I grew up reading Harry Potter but my memory of the books kind of faded and was replaced by the movies, which as you say in the video removed/corrected some of the issues with the books to avoid controversy. I appreciate that you read them all + watched/read the other stuff to do your research, it was a good refresher on the details of the controversies! One minor point: You attempted to pronounce the name of the Japanese Wizard School, but did not do so for the Brazilian Wizard School. Is that because you felt it was unnecessary because you explain what the word means, or because you were just like "nope, not gonna even attempt to pronounce that, no idea". And one question, I tried to look it up but had no luck: wasn't the reason that Harry wasn't using his money so much is because he is a minor who doesn't have access to his wealth until he turns 18? I could be making that up, or maybe that was in the movies not in the books, or maybe I'm mixing it up with A Series of Unfortunate Events, but I could have sworn that during one of the scenes at Gringotts, they explain that while the money was left to him, he couldn't have access to it besides to pay for school supplies? It doesn't counter any of your major points, but thought it might explain why he isn't buying anyone anything? 100% could be wrong, haven't read the books since I was a wee lad.

Seamus Yossarian (A Serpent Perplexed)

Another aspect in the neoliberalism is how magic spells and items were created in the past but there are no new ones now. Like how the Marauder's Map, an incredibly powerful custom object was created by some prankster students but after they graduate none of the students can invent anything new. There are obvious plot reasons not to let our protagonists create anything they can describe, and it's not "high fantasy" so nobody expects a fully consistent magic system from the author, but there's not even an attempt at explanation. The neoliberalism you mentioned really ties into this. "This is how it is now, and it isn't going to change. Don't ask why, it's just how it is."

achoo

I really enjoyed your video! Honestly, I still kind of feel like a sucker for giving JKR so much benefit of the doubt about stuff like SPEW. Definitely a lot of good points about the weird mean corners in Harry Potter. Honestly, though, I think it’s more pointed than just teams. I think Rowling lumps characters into the deserving and undeserving in an almost Calvinist way. There’s a real tension in the books when it comes to choices. Dumbledore says choices are the most important thing in determining character, but the events of the novels don’t always bear that out. You find out in book 7 that Petunia wrote Dumbledore, begging to get into Hogwarts, and it’s only after she doesn’t get in that she becomes small minded. Voldemort’s secret backstory is that his mother was unloved and used a love potion on his father to get married. Snape is friends with Lily until he’s sorted into the evil racist house. Events none of them chose. Goes back into the avoidance of structural issues you outlined very well. But we’re not supposed to worry about any of the undeserving.

Ashley Stoering

I just started the video, but I hope you link Contrapoints’ JK video in your description! She does a really good job of explaining JK’s POV and how someone can reach out for flawed conclusions

RebeccaC

This is a brilliant compilation of issues with Rowlings writing. I really enjoyed the Harry Potter series while growing up, but in spite of still enjoying the world, grew to resent the protagonist and the underwhelming ending of the story and the video carfully outlines many of the central points that lead to this frustration.

radow

Minor edit suggestion - at 1:20:02 you mention that ‘Pratchett says…’ something, without noting in this video that he’s the author. If, god forbid, a listener hadn’t watched your ‘politicizing the dead’ video, I could see that being a point of confusion

Austin Pfundheller

While I think the anger you showed in the first BBC video is the most validating and a moment of true allyship that us trans folks need, this video is probably the second. Even though you don't focus on her transphobia, you absolutely eviscerate her views and put all of the horrific pieces of her work into focus. This is the response to Joanne that we need. She's vile, but just focusing on her transphobia means she gets to slide on all of the other damaging and offensive views she has. This was unbelievable. Thank you thank you thank you

Adam Greene

Fantastic video, I love it

Kate Albrecht

I agree with you on the Draco Malfoy story having so much more potential than the Snape story as a 'redemption' arc. Snape was still a horrible person and a bully as an adult and wasn't even actively spying on Voldemort/Death Eaters throughout most of the books, which is the time Harry interacts with him. Somehow him being in love with Harry's mom makes it all better and worth naming his kid after? All Slytherins are bad except for Snape because he loved Harry's mom, I guess? It's so ridiculous and honestly smells of self-insert writing to me (most of the main female characters are stand-ins and some degree of fantasy fulfilment for JK imo - Hermione, Molly and Lily). Meanwhile Draco was brought up in a family of wizard supremacists, shows a glimmer of good (saying he doesn't recognise Harry when the trio is caught and taken to Malfoy Manor) but then at the very end is antagonising Harry again and for what? It would have made for much better storytelling for him to at that point splinter from the rest of the Slytherins and even try to convince some to stay, preventing the '"all Slytherins are bad and leave during the battle of Hogwarts" scene from happening. JK was always very publicly against fans who wanted Draco to become better and overcome his upbringing, yet continued to romanticise Snape who was arguably worse.

seaofdoubts

>> Isn't the Brazilian magic school also named using European Portuguese rather than Brazilian Portuguese? I'm not sure on that one, but it's something I've heard. An extra fun bit if it's true. Sorry but I am Portuguese and this is incorrect. Both of the words that make up the South American school name exist in Br and Eu Portuguese, the spelling is the same, and the way they are joined up to make up the name of the school makes just as much grammatical sense in either variation of the language (in fact I would say it sounds slightly better in Br Portuguese so that's a plus for her, for once). Your point about Harry's use of the Cruciatus curse is really good though. It's not the first time he tries to use it either! And McGonagall's reaction is a little underwhelming to say the least. I suppose there are more important things to focus on at that time, but doesn't she call him chivalrous or something like that?

seaofdoubts

I'm so sorry, I started thinking and I need to get it out of my system. In Snuff the conflict is not whether slavery is good or bad, but rather if what the goblins are experiencing is slavery. They are treated as pests, tools, animals at best. I think it's especially clear with Feeney, who needs to realize that goblins are thinking, feeling beings, but once he does that he knows slavery has to end. There is this exchange where Feeney compares goblins to cows and Vimes says "what would you say if the calf walked up to you and said "Hello, my name is Tears of Mushroom." to which Feeney replies "I think I would have the salad". Like, no discussion if maybe they like being hauled away to some plantation to die. Or that it's better for the goblins to be enslaved, because at least they will not become addicts and will have purpose in life. No good characters, once they accept goblins as people, think that slavery is good actually. Arguably, even the bad characters mostly don't think slavery is morally good, just that it's not slavery - they don't think goblins are people, so they have no right to freedom.

Liszka

liberals telling on themselves

SA

Well, he has a gay/bi wizard actually featuring in one book (a very minor character, but still), and a couple of others are mentioned by Ridcully, so yeah.

Liszka

It's a good point, but I think in this part Shaun was talking about the individual action for a minute - Harry and friends decorate slave heads, while Vimes after seeing a racist behaviour tries to correct it (by the use of his authority and, yes, the threat of violence because he's a cop). At this point I think it's not about the systemic change, but an individual one (and both of these stances are missing from HP). Vimes has also not set out to be a saviour, he's a cop and is trying to solve crime. It starts with murder and kidnapping, that's what he's trying to solve. The systemic change comes after. When it comes to goblin's agency - they are the ones that demand justice for the murder of the goblin girl. They are already trying to improve their society through the works of mostly women goblins (better food, learning, new tools). And Stinky answers the question of why didn't they fight by saying ''too tired, too hungry, too.. dead''. And that is unfortunately very reminiscent of what happens in real life. They can do certain things, but they've been put in a situation when it's not enough. I think the book can be also read as a commentary of how the liberation of oppressed groups is perceived. That the voices of people in power (Vimes, Sybil) are unfortunately worth more than voices of actual people and that they are given more credit than they deserve. In previous book Vimes is declared a hero of Koom Valey, when again, dwarves and trolls were already working on achieving peace. He just wanted to catch the murderers. Still, a lot of credit goes to Vimes, and he's not happy about it. Also the ending acknowledges that not all is well. Goblins are ''declared'' people by the rulers of different countries (which in itself feels horrifying), but all the past crimes against them are going to be forgotten. No repatriations, no actual punishment for the perpetrators. Vimes, and by extension the reader, doesn't think that everything was solved - there will be no justice, just maybe a better starting point for the goblins.

Liszka

He does go into that a bit, as an example of how Rowling describes bad characters as ugly and defines "ugly" as masculine.

Marzipan Googolplex

First time as a patron, so this is fun! Re: good teams v. bad teams, I think is like 99% of the reason why Dumbledore Discourse (and Snape Discourse) exists. We see both of them do objectively awful things (Dumbledore was apparently totally fine with Sirius going to Azkaban without a trial and when two seconds and a bottle of truth potion would have prevented it; Snape gleefully bullies children and blames it on his sad childhood like that changes anything). But they're the two greatest men Harry ever knew because in the end they were on Team Good.

Marzipan Googolplex

My first time watching the early version of a vid - this is excellent!

JayCyrZak

I regret to inform you that it’s “roh-ling” but tbh it’s probably not worth re-recording everything, you could just not worry about it. And it’s a very good video

Jordan Tullis

Thoughtful work (as ever). Re: the Professor Trelawney take, I think any opposition might point out that while Hermione may be deaf to Professor Trelawney’s treatment, Dumbledore and McGonagall both offer protection to Trelawney when she is fired by Umbridge. Dumbledore clearly identifies Trelawney as a member of the "good guys" team, and allows her to stay on in the castle even though she contributes little to the students' education. As you point out, Rowling assigns alcoholism (or obesity, or deformity, etc) freely to characters she wants to be seen as deficient in other ways, but always according to the simple HP morality standards. For example, Trelawney is a fraud and a racist in her own right (she is extremely racist toward Firenze), and so she might as well also be an alcoholic - however, because she is one of *Dumbledore’s* frauds/racists, her racism and alcoholism are mostly played for laughs, and her racism in particular is not seen as a threat to goodness in the wizarding world.

Myfanwy

I like the video. I grew up with HP but grew out of it as an older teenager. As someone who managed to catch the hot dog lecture, I kind of expected you to hit harder on the whole idea that, in the first couple of books the political ideas aren't a problem (having one school house be the "evil" kids, having Hagrid and Vernon basically be the same person but one of them is right bc he's from the good side, etc.), because the tone of those books matches the black-and-white thinking. Whereas in the later books the tone no longer works with those black-and-white concepts, since she decided to try to be serious about the political ramifications and the world building or whatever. Maybe there's not really anywhere interesting to go with that but it seems like an important point to me. There's something else I find interesting which is that Rowling doesn't seem to know what she's got a lot of times, in terms of story potential. For example she had an amazing potential turn for Malfoy perfectly set up - rich kid raised to be a bigot, raised to join the dark side, yet comes to see that all that stuff is wrong and joins the resistance. That's a way better redemption story than Snape's unrequited love thing, but it's like she didn't even know that was there. It's even a thematic point in book 1 where Harry doesn't want to be in slytherin and someone (I think Dumbledore) tells him in a very important way that his choices make him who he is, not his innate qualities. So that would have been extremely thematic as well, and it doesn't have to be a systemic critique at all, just an individual who grew from his circumstances. But in addition to being a status-quo liberal she's also just not a very good writer. Looking forward to the final video, hope you're doing well <3

cal tal

Thank you so much for making this. As I listened to it, I realised that I've been waiting for someone to make a video like this since JK Rowling quote tweeted Momentum Hackney in 2017 when I was running the account and brought a deluge of centrist abuse into our mentions during the General Election campaign. Your point that a defining characteristic of centrists is that it's not actions that are to be judged but who is doing them (that is, whether that person is good aka like them) is one that took me a long time to realise. I made my own vid about it based on my experiences in the Labour grassroots and another YouTuber Claudia Boleyn makes this point in a brilliant video on David Baddiel's programme about social media and anger. Here's the links in case you're interested: https://youtu.be/b-CWEa2Tpz0 and https://youtu.be/CD8M_lQDwvw P.S. I'm also happy that you're doing more UK-focused vids with this and the ones about the BBC.

Heather Mendick

1. The prison system. I think in you argument about keeping the status quo and the part about the ministry sending Hagrid to Azkaban, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the books' prison system in general. It is clearly not rehabilitative, only punitive. It maybe is implied that you are only sent if you have a life sentence? But then when they send Hagrid I can't remember if he even had a trial, or if they were just holding him there as a precaution. Anyways, I think it is some material that aligns well and contributes to your arguments. 2. Theme of love conquers all. She is pretty heavy handed in saying that Harry prevails because he loves and is loved. But he's not really a particularly good person. What does 'love' really mean in these stories? It is stated that Voldemort cannot possess Harry at the end of 5th book because of his grief for Sirius, so here love is feeling a sense of loss of another. But of course, loss of life is only significant if they were a good person. At the end of the 7th, Harry gives Voldemort a "second chance" by telling him to be remorseful, so maybe love is something like empathy. But Harry is pretty hit and miss with this. He doesn't show remorse at using unforgivable curses, and while he does feel bad and embarrassed for other characters (e.g. Neville at the hospital) he doesn't really reach out in kindness to those characters. Even though Luna considers him a friend, he thinks she's just a weird person who shows up on occasion. He's much friendlier in the movie versions in this sense. With Ron and Hermione, he is not a particularly generous friend. While this is perhaps a reference to teenagers being teenagers, it makes Harry fairly unsympathetic that he does not simply explain his viewpoint and try to understand theirs, he gets mad instead. Even when they makeup, he doesn't reflect or grow as a person. I think maybe rolling this major theme into the only good or bad people, not good or bad actions would be another interesting point, since there is 'love' on the bad side (e.g. Bellatrix loving Voldemort, Draco's parents).

Laura N

I'm honestly ashamed that I ever loved these books. How the fuck did I not see all of this? The slavery conversation ALONE should have been obvious. And never, EVER stop trashing Thatcher and Regan. I hear that Thatcher's grave is the only true gender neutral bathroom on TERF island.

Adam Greene

Quick note - I'm pretty sure it's pronounced "rolling" but honestly she doesn't deserve to have her name pronounced properly lmao

minohoonoo

I strongly disagree, that bit was hilarious because it was so obvious what he was talking about. The punchline is him eventually saying "so in lord of the rings"

Dorkaxe

When I saw the video subject, I assumed it would be just about JK Rowling's recent anti-trans shenanigans, and I'm quite impressed at the deep dive into her socio-political worldview, particularly for the comparison of handling individual problems vs systemic problems. It's been ages since I read the books, but this video has a lot of insights I had never considered. Kudos! One minor suggestion: Near the end, when you say Harry Potter "needs a council scene," I suggest adding the phrase "like in Lord of the Rings," because as is, I was rather confused for a long moment about what you meant by that.

Tormuse

I think it’s tragic that they arrived on the scene (a few very very brief references aside) so late. If things were otherwise and Sir Terry hadn’t been embuggered I’m fairly certain we would’ve seen a lot of goblins coming into their own. As it is Snuff is 39 of 41.

Matthew Foweraker

Yeah it's what AGAG said -- their audio is a little rough in the first two books, but they have some very cathartic discussions. Tend to be fair when something is fun or good for a kids book and deeply critical of the politics behind it all

Jess

Agreed on this! One thing that's worth noting about Dumbledore's Army is how it isn't really the status quo at all-- it's technically a class, yes, but everyone is there by choice, the "teacher" is nominated by the group, and it's structured around collective participation rather than lectures. There is no homework, no tests, no grades (all things that our student protagonists, and largely child audience, tend to dislike). And this new way of learning works really well! With the way that DA keeps being mentioned in later books, you'd think this is some kind of preview for how magic school can be reformed, but... no. Once again, the most frustrating thing about HP is how often it sets up a real systemic problem, hammers in just how bad it is (there is a LOT of angst over grades and work in those books and comparatively little enthusiastic learning), teases us with an actually satisfying resolution, and then just....... doesn't.

Victoria Borges

I’ve always remembered the strange descriptions of obesity, but I’ve rarely seen people comment on it. I love the way you juxtaposed that idea with how she only tailor’s those descriptions to “bad” people. Somehow being overweight is only bad if the character is bad.

Kyle

My fav youtuber talking about Harry Potter. Does it get any better? It has always been hard for me to hear critique about things I adore. I am getting better at it but still. The fact that I can listen to this - laugh (very much out loud) and never feel defensive, says everything about Shaun. I have to listen to it again this morning to make sure I really have no critique. It made my weekend. Thank you Shaun!!

Jacinda

I am just blown away that by the plot of Cursed Child. That is fucking me up bad. What the fuck, Joanne?

Ramona Mantegani

Oh boy, another Discworld aside. I read Pratchett at a formative age, and I often wonder how much his ethics informed my worldview. Also kinda wonder, after this juxtaposition and the one about trans rights, how many of Rowling's garbage ideas have a direct inversion somewhere in Pratchett's work. It's probably a lot of them.

Amon

Holy shit the fatphobia!

Patrick H

another funny note on how Rowling thinks: Hufflepuff, the house associated with fair play, loyalty and hard work, is seen as the loser house which never gets glory

Gust Lumbeeck

Finally, I don't know how you feel on collabing with other creators, but I feel like employing a black cultural critic to speak on their take, or to review your script as a copyeditor and supply feedback would potentially beneficial here to take this vid to the next level. *Edit: there is a way that the video at a craft level can't subvert the racism of HP or the project of neoliberalism and the 'worthy few' while your role as a trusted white POV narrator to explain the issues isn't problematised a little bit.

SA

also the kraken x hogwarts reference in the art is sending me

SA

I think it's worth considering Vimes in Snuff in the context of FD Signifier's video "How Not To Be An Ally" - specifically, the savior ally. I love pratchett & the discworld, but I think you need to be careful of pointing at Snuff as "how to do a slavery narrative right" without looking at the ways that goblins are/are not given agency and the way that their suffering is only given meaning through the POV of our sympathetic white dude cop-analogue.

SA

I had to see the PotterMore thing about the house elves - for and against - for myself. TERFism should have been less shocking obviously, though children's books can hide the most aggregious positions I guess... Here's a wayback link for anyone interested: https://web.archive.org/web/20191222224059/https://www.wizardingworld.com/features/to-spew-or-not-to-spew-hermione-granger-and-the-pitfalls-of-activism

Moshe Gordon Radian

Get her ass

James King

I think one of the most interesting talking points in 1984 is that from that ending you can take the argument that these regimes always fail, they are always pointless, and the only thing about them that lasts is the generational suffering they cause. So bittersweet rather than optimistic, but a far cry from cynical. That's how I read it at least.

Clementine Danger

After the whole Lindsay Ellis thing I'm very done with the very online left, and I was done with Harry Potter somewhere in the late 2010s, but I'm very much looking forward to the finished video. No notes, thank you for tackling this.

Clementine Danger

I guess it's beyond the main thrust of the video though, really. If you wanted to include every absurd, bigoted impulse that went into Rowling's writing rather than primarily focus on the mind prison of her liberalism, the video could be ten hours long.

Arben

Namely: Skeeter was described as having blonde hair set in elaborate curls that contrasted oddly with her heavy-jawed face. She wore jewelled spectacles studded with rhinestones, and had thick fingers ending in two-inch nails, painted crimson. Her blonde curls were curiously rigid, suggesting it was styled with the magical equivalent of hairspray. In addition, she had penciled-on eyebrows and three gold teeth, as well as large, masculine hands. Her bright scarlet painted fingernails and toenails were usually likened to claws or talons.

Arben

This is very nice; a bit surprised not to see a quick touch on how Rowling introduces Rita Skeeter, though?

Arben

I think it's this podcast https://soundcloud.com/shriekingshack rss link https://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:407338935/sounds.rss

ALL GOOD ALL GOOD

Seeing as you mention podcasts, any chance you could release audio-only versions of all your videos as podcasts?

I have not completed the video but I agree that it's fitting that we begin at the beginning.

Greg Johnson

I actually really appreciate the mention of how the movies actually somewhat improve on the source material by leaving out some of books' bad ideas and general mean-spirited nature. I think because we tend to meld together the good parts of the books together with the movies in our heads we (or at least I) have had a rosier memory of the franchise than it deserves

Octo

Pretty good video! I've got some scattered thoughts from listening; sorry if it's formatted weird, this is my first time leaving feedback of this sort. When you mention how actions aren't good or bad, only characters are, I immediately thought of how Harry just straight up uses the evil torture curse in the 7th book without even having much justification? Just, a Death Eater spat on McGonagall, and because they're bad and Harry's good it's torture time baybe. In the Time Turner section, it's maybe worth bringing up how the Time Turners were retconned in Cursed Child to only be able to go back ~an hour? And there's at least some implication of this sort of limit always having been the case; Hermione misses class once in book 3 by oversleeping, despite having the Time Turner and theoretically being able to just go back after her nap. I'm not sure this materially changes any of your points, but it's at least a thing that's likely to come up in responses. Isn't the Brazilian magic school also named using European Portuguese rather than Brazilian Portuguese? I'm not sure on that one, but it's something I've heard. An extra fun bit if it's true. For your point about how Casual Vacancy doesn't present anybody who wants to make things better, merely good characters who want to preserve the status quo and bad characters who want to make it worse, it might help to provide a quick example of what a theoretical character who wanted to make things better might have wanted in that specific scenario? Just to round out the argument, I definitely got the main point without it because I can see that framework elsewhere in society, but I think it might help sell the point here, especially if any curious liberals wind up watching this.

Katie Mastenbrook

Amazing video! However I didn't quite follow your logic at ~1:10:00 when you talk about Dumbledore's Army: "when the systems available fail to uphold the status quo, Harry and his friend have to step in". Could you elaborate on that a little more? How is learning self-defence supporting the status quo? I get that Umbridge is disrupting "normal" school life and they're trying to correct that, but I would think that learning self defence when other people are threatening your life is understandable, status quo or not.

All-Natural Fig Jam

where can I find this other roast of harry potter pls link?

Artemis Crock

In case you didn't know, many argue that 1984 actually has an optimistic ending in the form of "The Principles of Newspeak", which appears to have been written after the party has lost its control. So even *that* book is more optimistic about societal change than Rowling.

Jeremy

*looks at the runtime* oh helllll yeah

Nghtfall

This is a really interesting listen alongside the shrieking shack, a different Harry Potter retrospective with a leftist bent-- taking the series in chunks vs a whole and seeing how jks specific kind of class obsessed liberalism is simultaneously inconsistent (in the way liberalism always is (revolution is fine, just don't go too far)) and permeates everything. Jk Rowling... Disdains people. She doesn't seem to like people very much.

Jess

I literally subscribed to patreon JUST for this Thank You Mr Shaun Skull

Artemis Crock