Harry Potter After 2020

This volume is going to humble us all. We're all going to have to face the parts of ourselves that we're not sure we're strong enough to face, and everyone else in the world can see these things about us. What are you going to do if the world is in an urgent enough crisis so that we don't actually have time for self-delusion anymore? Well, just give it up and just do what you have to do. For full...

On Umbridge:  How would you feel if you had tried your absolute best to get somebody destroyed and they come to save you? It's not because they love you; it's because you have worth -- because people have worth. I think that being face-to-face with the greatness of that humbling mercy and that moral code is world-destroying for her. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or su...

Recently, having seen what becomes of people when they become billionaires, how it warps them… I have felt a greater appreciation for what Dumbledore did for Harry by not having him be raised from the age of one as The Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the savior. Neglect and abuse are awful; uncontained indulgence is frightening in a completely different way. For full show notes, transcripts, ways t...

Grace Candido-Beecher [author of Voldemort] reads that phrase "the boy" as when Voldemort says it, he means Harry and he also means that part of himself that was the young Tom Riddle growing up in an orphanage. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com .

When your friends are literally in mortal danger around you, the only important thing is these people's lives have to be saved. That is such a good, strong value that I think the Harry Potter generation, the millennials that grew up with this, really internalized from this international bestseller, which is one of the reasons why there's so much confusion and mass indignation at thinking that it's...

The locked room, the one that you can't do anything about. You can't get in, there's no handle, there's no nothing.  I associate this room with Snape in all ways.  To me, the energy that keeps this room sealed is exactly what this whole volume has been showing us about Occlumency. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact the hosts or support the show, and more, visit hpafter2020.com .

I see it from people who accepted these books when they were children and didn't have the critical faculties to see, 'Okay, this is a woman of a certain race and background writing these limitations that are her own personal prejudices.' But it's not too late to go back and reread and build up those defenses. That's just what any rereading does. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact th...

JC:  Madam Pomfrey says, "I would resign in protest, but I can't abandon the students." I hear teachers say that all the time. "I hate that the government wants me to put up the Ten Commandments or whatever. I hate that I can't call kids by their chosen name. I hate that I can't ask them how they're feeling or express concern over their mental health. I would quit in protest, but then who is going...

JC: ICE comes in the middle of the night to take Hagrid, basically. LK: Where are they taking him? What are they charging him with? Harry demonstrates something that is painfully real and current: he's so upset by all of this that he gets three hours of extremely poor-quality sleep the night before his History of Magic exam, so that exam is doomed. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to contact...

The bullying that Grawp was suffering (that Hagrid had to save him from) is a result of colonization and displacement because giants were not meant to be in such close quarters. They've been attacking and killing each other because they weren't meant to be crammed into wherever they've escaped to, but there's nowhere else for a giant to go. This is about land rights and displacement. For full show...

Even if Harry can't understand it right now, he is getting some of his father back by seeing that there were real living people -- full-fledged people -- who knew the whole James and demonstrate that they knew all of him and they loved him, and that complexity is restoring some of Harry's feelings. You can't really blame Voldemort for being dead of jealousy that Harry gets this. For full show note...

Snape's worst memory is that he regrets betraying Lily by referring to her hunted status and reinforcing it. That supports the notion that Hermione did a sort of favor for Marietta by preventing her from having the same guilt on her conscience. If Marietta later had to think about her murdered friend Cho and exactly what it was that led Cho to be found and punished, this stopping people from going...

Marietta catches a sight of herself as framed in Umbridge's agenda, and seeing what she really is in that agenda? That's this moment of recognition that shuts her up. Marietta has now just seen a different part of herself written on her face. I have wondered if people who thought on previous rereads that Hermione went too far see what is going on with ICE and current events and if that has changed...

Somebody is being a grown-up, and he is taking on a dangerous duty so the kids don't have to fend for themselves. "It's not your job to find out what the Dark Lord is..." "That's your job, isn't it?" "Yes, it is." This is what it looks like when Snape stops hiding his agenda and tells something, the rare thing that is true about himself from every perspective. For full show notes, transcripts, way...

This is her chance to explore this unexplored concept of writing journalism as a member of the Fourth Estate, trying to hold people accountable; she's never done that, and when Hermione reminds her outright, "I can blackmail you," then she gives Rita the assignment. "Harry, are you ready to tell the public the truth?" She has just become Rita's editor. For full show notes, transcripts, ways to con...

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...

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 ho...

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 suppo...

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 wa...

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 un...

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-gian...

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 o...

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 con...

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...