← Critical Magic Theory: An Analytical Harry Potter Podcast
Critical Magic Theory: An Analytical Harry Potter Podcast
Prof Reponds: Harry Potter & the Politics of Worthiness
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In this second Prof Responds episode, Professor Julian Wamble returns to listener comments from Critical Magic Theory's Patreon and Spotify communities for a deeper dive into Harry Potter's heroism, sacrifice, half-blood identity, and free will....
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This is the story of the One As a maintenance engineer at a beverage manufacturing plant, he starts his day knowing every line is ready to run because Grainger delivers the industrial grade products he needs to keep mixers, conveyors and packaging equipment moving. With Grainger's vast selection of bearings, belts and motors, he keeps operations running smoothly so nothing grinds to a halt. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. Welcome to Critical Magic Theory, where we deconstruct the wizarding World of Harry Potter. Because loving something doesn't mean we can't be critical of it. I'm Professor Julian Womble and today is our second Prof. Response episode on the one and only Harry James Potter. I have a confession to make and that confession is I'm recording this later than I normally do. I'm tired and so antics will abound. Now I know that some of you are pleased because some of you enjoy the anxiety, not anxiety induced. That's not what's happening here, friends. I'm not anxious, I promise. Exhaustion induced. That's what I was going for. And I'm not editing it out because see Previous note okay friends, thank you all so much. To those of you who participated in the post episode chat for this episode, there's a lot for us to discuss, there are many, many, many many things for us to unpack and I personally cannot wait to dive into all of it with you because the last episode had some takes. Again, we find ourselves in the midst of hairy detractors who came, dropped their antics and left. Imagine leaving your baggage on the front step of someone's home and then just having them figure out what to do with it. That's what they did. And I think it's messy, but as you know, I love mess. And so here we are yet again navigating the antics, foolishness and fooleration of the hairy detractors without much word from them in the post episode chat. Despite my and I want, I want it on record that I invited those individuals to come forward with their thoughts, with their defense of their words. And they said nah dawg, I'm good. To which I say, and there it is. And so we are getting into many a thing. We are unpacking and diving in deeper to some of the things that we spoke about in the episode. We are talking about what it means to be a hero from Harry's perspective. We're talking about sacrifice, we're talking about about free will. We're talking about what it Means to be a good half blood. We're diving into every single one of the questions that we discussed in the last episode in depth, with amazing commentary from people who commented on our Patreon patreon.com criticalmagic theory. If you did not know, and I know that we normally dive into the bop, and we will get there, I promise. But we also don't dilly and we don't dally for the Prof. Response episode, so I don't want to invite that. Okay, so we're going to get into all of it, and it's going to start now. But before it starts, I mean, y', all, it's the summertime. And I don't know about you, but I'm waiting for the summertime bop. Although some are saying that it's Midnight sun by Zara Lawson. And to that I have to say. Let's go. All right. I won't give you the vocal because copyright, but let's just say I've been blasting it. But you know what you can blast. Huh? This bop. Because what? Once you bop, the fun don't stop. I do have some announcements, and then we're gonna get to the things. But before we get to any of that, you gotta get ready for the bop. I'm just vamping for you right now so that you can get ready for it. Cause I know that some of you aren't, and I'm generous and kind. Ever heard of it? I know you all don't associate that with Slytherins, but here we are, breaking stereotypes left and right. You're welcome. But the BOP is coming to you in three, in two, in one. Let's bop. We do some clo here. Father Sam, I hope you danced. Welcome back, y'. All. Welcome to those of you who are joining us for the first time. If you're joining us for the first time, you got to go back three episodes just to catch up, just to see where we're at. But welcome to this moment. We're living in the moment. Welcome to those of you who have been with us from day one. Welcome to those of you who are in the process of catching up. And maybe you're behind a bit. And now you're catching up. Welcome to you. Good job. We're glad you're here, y'. All. I'm gonna really try to keep this as brief as possible, but there are a couple announcements that we need to make. First of all, obviously, behind the cloak race. What is it? What's the title? Race identity in Harry Potter? I think that that's it. If not still just search behind the cloak. Julian Womble. You'll find the book. I have a book. H. It's out. You probably have heard about it. Some of you have pre ordered it. If you have. Thank you so much. I can't think about it too much or I will cry. If you have not. No time out the present. If this isn't your financial moment, that's okay. We have time. The goal is to try to get as many pre orders as possible so that this book can become a bestseller. I'm not going to lie, it's what I want. I'm a Slytherin, I'm ambitious, I'm shooting for it. Will I get it? Who knows? But you can't fail unless you try. And so we are trying. Also. I recognize that there have been some issues for our friends and comrades and classmates in Australia, New Zealand and the UK when it comes to pre ordering. I'm on it. I've reached out to the powers that be about this very thing and asked them to investigate the case. Because I don't know if you all know this, but Harry Potter kind of matters a lot in those places and you all should be able to pre order the books. If you by some miracle have been able to do that, please reach out to me. Email me at criticalmagic theory gmail.com send me a DM on Instagram @prof.jw don't send it on TikTok because I'm very, I'm rarely on TikTok. Or send me a message on Patreon and let me know how you were able to pull it off. And we're not talking about like ordering it using a VPN in the US and we're. No, no, no, not that. But if you've been able to pull it off in one of those places, New Zealand, the UK or Australia, please let me know because I would love to let other people know so that they too can get in on this. But I have also reached out to the powers that be to try to facilitate this because I know that it has been a thing. If you are in another country and you are also having difficulty pre ordering the book, please let me know and I will let them add. I will add that to their plate. One of the beautiful things about this process that's very different than academic publishing is that like there are people and because those people are interested in selling books, it means that they are motivated and they are very, very, very helpful. And I am very fortunate to have a great team of people behind me who are helping facilitate all of this. If they're listening. Thank you so much. I appreciate you and all that you do. But also, I don't know if I'm supposed to tell you this, but I'm going to tell you anyway. The they really want me to push Barnes and Noble and so if you are in the United States and you haven't pre ordered yet, please feel free to do so at Barnes and Noble. That'd be great. I think that would make them very happy. I just want the book to sell, but keeping them happy means that I get to be kept happy and that's what this is all about. As always, please feel free to join us for free on Patreon patreon.com criticalmagictheory for the post episode chats, I am putting together a list of the episodes based on your suggestions about summer episodes. I think we're gonna start off with a Ministry of Magic conversation which I'm very, very, very excited about. I have a really cool idea about how to structure it, so I'm excited to share that with you all next week. Oh wait. I didn't even think about this and no one even caught me. But we kind of have to do our best of superlatives Half Blood now that we're done with Harry Potter. Oh wait, so I lied. We're going to get to the Ministry of Magic in a couple of weeks because we got to do our superlatives for Half Bloods. My goodness gracious. What was I thinking? I wasn't. I'm grateful that I'm doing this later in the evening because I'm aware. Okay, I know. I know things now that I didn't know before. I hope you got that reference. If you didn't, it's okay. Okay, so that's gonna be next week's episode. But it's not next week, it's this week. And this week we don't dilly, we don't dally, we don't delay. We get right into Harry Potter. I'm so sorry. I told you. I told you that this episode was going to be a wild one. And so it is. And so we go onto Harry Potter. So buckle up and buck up because it's going to be a bumpy ride. I just made a mistake and I had to go back and re edit it. And I thought what if I had an episode, a single episode that was just completely unedited? It would probably be very explicit because I do curse a lot. Despite the way that this is. These Episodes are recorded. Anyways, I just thought about that. Don't worry about me. Everything's fine. The first thing that we had for this week based on the conversations in the post episode chat both on Patreon and on Spotify where you can comment friends and I love reading them was one about the mechanics of how we judge Harry differently from other characters. And a part of it, I think. And what was brought to us is because we get a sense of his interiority that we don't necessarily get from anyone else. And so then the debate was kind of about whether or not that makes Harry more relatable and thus we hold him to a higher standard or whether it's like an unfair advantage. Francesca wrote, the way the books are written, this is always going to be a false comparison because Harry is the only one whose thoughts we get to see. Other characters are judged only by their actions or our projections onto those actions. But in survey responses, Harry's thinking, lack of thinking is often brought up. It's worth being aware of when analyzing his character against others. I think Claire wrote, do we hold Harry to a higher standard because Harry is the closest character to a reader stand in. So we hold him to high standards we might have for ourselves. Jaz wrote, I think Harry is also very much heroic. Slash a hero in, not just the Big Bad of it all. He stays at the bottom of the lake to make sure all the hostages are retrieved. I'm not editing that. He hears a disembodied voice whispering about rip, tear, kill and runs towards it to find whoever it might be going after Every time he tries to help and save people, pretty much any chance he gets. And his heroism and quote saving people thing unquote even extends to his enemies. He doubles back to save Draco and Goyle in the Room of Requirement and he tries to stop Wormtail's hand from strangling him. The boy is a hero. There are many O's in every sense of the word. For me, Sarah H. To say he's not a hero is crazy. I understand the whole he had to cause the prophecy argument, but if someone was a true coward, they would run. They really would. In the face of all Harry had to do, he did the things and put himself on the line constantly. He never had regard for his own safety. And Erica wrote, a lot of the arguments in defense of Harry's heroism are great examples of his natural ability to lead. Is being a leader a form of heroism or is he a hero that so happens to be a great leader? It's My turn. And I have some things to say and I hope you're ready. I love these comments because while they don't seem to be kind of speaking to one another, they absolutely are. Because I think that at the end of the day, what Francesca and Claire bring to bear bars is the idea of what does it mean when the main character is the only perspective that we get and how is it that we take that information? I've been working on an op ed for the book release and the press is trying to get it out to, you know, the places where these OP EDS go for the purposes of getting eyes on the book. And one of the things that I was looking at as I was doing research for the op ed was a lot of studies that have come out in the 2010s, 2020s about the impact that Harry Potter has had on young readers. And one of the interesting findings that these studies have have come up with statistically is that individuals who relate to Harry are more likely to be accepting of refugees, immigrants, and lesbian and gay people. And I found it interesting because the caveat was individuals who relate to Harry and see themselves as Harry. Right. And it made me think about these comments because I think that there is something to be said about the way that we bring ourselves to him. And it's also very fascinating to me because one of the biggest critiques that we get of Harry is when we're talking about other characters. And the critique is often he is a very unreliable narrator. And as a result, we have to really question what that means for the characters that we are discussing at any given time, because there are things that might be missing because Harry simply doesn't notice them. And I think we have to take into account the fact that no matter how young we are or were, when we read or read these books, we're bringing ourselves with them in the same way that we've made the argument time and time again that the author brought so much of her own understanding of the world into these pages. We also bring ours. And I think that there is a part of us that wants to be, at least in part, Harry. Now, I know many of us would say, no, no, no, I never wanted to be Harry. I always wanted to be Hermione or I always saw myself as a Neville, or that's fine. But I also think that it's easy to say in retrospect. I also think that given the fact that Harry's perspective is the only one that we really are privy to, that implicitly there are parts of ourselves that really do connect with him. And what the studies show us, right, is that that's not inherently a bad thing. But what it also suggests to me is that if we're bringing parts of ourselves to this character, which, of course we are, how could we not? That we're gonna hold this character to the standard that we hold ourselves, and especially for this podcast. And I don't know if you all know this about this podcast and you all as its listeners, but some of us, most of us, are overachievers. Some of us are actively chronic overthinkers, like, big time. And that means then that when Harry does things that we consider to be dumb, we're annoyed. And it's me. Like I'm talking about me as much as I'm talking about you. I think that there is a world where, yeah, some of the standards that we hold ourselves to, we expect from him, and why wouldn't we? But also, I think. And I don't think this is false. I think Harry holds himself to an unrealistically high standard. So that when we think about his heroism, right, when we think about what Jazz and Sarah and Erica bring to bear, and is, I think, also the byproduct of Harry feeling the pressure of everyone else's expectations of him and also his own ambition, one of the moments that really stands out to me for Harry is one that kind of happens very quickly, but it's in Goblet of Fire, after they've announced exactly how people are gonna be chosen to be champions, and he is in bed, and he kind of has this kind of dream about being the Triwizard champion. And obviously, this is before any of that. And it's just a moment. It's a fleeting moment. But I think it also speaks to the fact that Harry does have ambition. And Harry is not someone who's afraid to want to be chosen for things. And I think that in the. So I think he has that going for him. I also do think that part of his heroism is born out of the fact that, yes, there is a prophecy. We're gonna talk about that a little later. But also that we're talking about an abused child who is trying to do whatever it takes to make sure that people look at him positively. And he does have a saving people thing, and no one complains when they're getting saved. But I do think that, you know, when we think about his heroism and some of the moments, I think that it's hard for us to disambiguate our own expectations for ourselves and. And those that we have for Harry, because so much of our journey in these books is with those expectations and his reality in tandem with one another, right? Working together side by side. And I feel like even though it's written in a third person narrative, we're only ever seeing the world through Harry's eyes. And as a result, we can sometimes be very, very harsh. And I also think that it's informed by the fact that so many of the adults in Harry's orbit also have ridiculously high expectations of him, for reasons that I don't quite understand. And I think I've had to grapple with this throughout these last couple of episodes, because when I look at Harry and I think about, like, my particular critique about him being mediocre and a lot of the feedback that I've gotten, I realize it's because, like, I am very sensitive, particularly to boys who like in certain aspects of their life. And I don't really care about. Some of you Harry Potter defenders have to acknowledge the fact that Harry phones it in certain aspects of his life. Maybe not when it comes to, like, battling basilisks or going after, you know, convicted felon godfathers, but when it comes to doing that homework, when it comes to learning spells other than other than the Patronus, which he felt like he needed to do because he didn't want to be castigated by his peers because he was passing out all over the place. But there are moments of mediocrity for Harry. And as a person, myself, who jettisons anything that is even remotely mediocre, I just. I can't do it. It's just not in my spirit, it's not in my blood. And I also recognize that that is what makes me a Slytherin. And I'm sure that other people in other houses also have this don't attack me. But I feel like that's part of what motivates my perspective of Harry is I look at him and I'm like, why would you do that? I would never do that. What a stupid decision. I would never make that decision. And that informs so much of how we then approach it. And we don't necessarily always do that with other characters because we don't have the interiority, we don't know what motivates of the choices that they make in the same way that we do for Harry. And so because of that, it makes things very different. Like, we don't have that for Draco. All we get are the moments that Draco shows up and is a jerk and we're like, oh, some of us, not me, but some of us are like, oh, he's just a. You know, he's just been going through so much because his dad is mean. To which I say, okay, sure, Jan. But I think we bring so much of ourselves and so much of what the way that we've been socialized to understand this world, these boys, these girls. And so that when we assess Harry, it is through the lens of our own experiences. It is through the lens of how we understand what should and shouldn't be. And I think that when we look at his heroism, we look at it through the lens of a direct comparison to not only other characters, but to ourselves. And that's something to think about. The second theme is very connected to the first, and it's one that looks at sacrifice and looks at what's happening underneath Harry's particular repeated willingness to die for others. His genuine courage, the trauma response, the response particularly to the idea that, like, you don't matter as a person. And thinking about how we as readers come to understand that and I think pushing us a little bit harder on exactly what it means for our own understandings of who Harry is and what his sacrifices mean. Because I think that so much of the way that we come to understand what Harry does and why he does it is born out of the kind of comparisons that we make to other characters and then like the reconciliation that we have to make about, you know, the prophecy and all of these other things. And I think that sometimes we do Harry a disservice by not taking the things at face value. But let's get into what you all had to say about it. Kimce wrote, is Harry's tendency to sacrifice himself bravery or is it cowardice because he's afraid of living with the loss of more people he loves? I think he makes the choice to put himself in harm's way and to try and spare others because he doesn't feel capable of facing life with the burden of more losses. I think he'd rather die than live knowing other people that he loved that have died. Charlie wrote. Prof. Mentioned that Harry is never afraid for himself. I wonder if that is a factor of. Of his abusive upbringing. He was taught that he doesn't matter, not even worthy of his own self preservation. Kennedy, which I'm obsessed it's written. Ken D Wrote. My only hairy comment is he turned out remarkably well, all things considered. When you think on it. How old was Harry when they put him under the stairs? His parents died at one year old. Did he ever even have did he ever have a nursery with the Dursleys? Did they hug him when he cried? It's a miracle that he didn't go full VL diva Psychopath Bear wrote, Harry does have some misplaced empathy. A healthy empathy seeks to limit suffering, while an unhealthy empathy seeks to absorb suffering. Both are in pursuit of others suffering less. Harry often has this it should be me approach to who suffers. Harry's default is I'll fight and or suffer so others don't have to. And sometimes it works to his detriment, while often leading to heroic actions and grand outcomes, but also at times causing more suffering, such as the death of Sirius. Matt wrote, for some reason, I'm not sure why we are dead set on trying to label brave, courageous characters as cowards. Lupin, Pettigrew, now Harry. None of them are cowards. It's my turn. Here's the thing and I think that this is something that I don't know that many of us, but some of us will be able to identify with. I think that there is a way that many of us are conditioned that serving others makes us worthy. And I think that when I consider Harry, I think a lot about the way that he understands what it means to be worthy of love, of care, compassion, empathy. And the older I've gotten, the more I've really begun to think about why people do the things that they do. And one of my hypotheses, and this is completely I use hypotheses to make it sound better than it is, but this is just my own kind of thought out in the world, is that for many adults the way that they go about operating in life is the way that they normally get attention. They got attention as kids, right? My dad for example, who does not listen to this podcast and so will not know that I'm saying this, like used to be a bit of a mischievous kid and that was kind of the way that he was able to get my grandparents attention when he was younger, right? My, my aunt was a brainiac and so being smart was her thing and so it's still her thing. My dad was one who got in a lot of trouble and would just do things I think to get my grandparents attention by virtue of like both out of boredom but also out of a recognition that like this is how he would be able to get attention. And I think that, I think when we look at the moments that Harry is with the Dursleys, so much of what he does for them is service, right? Washing the dishes and making Dudley feel better by virtue of being the one who suffers. And I think that there is a way that he has been conditioned to understand his worthiness tied to his service, and there is no intervention for him in that domain. He enters into the magical world and from the very beginning, he finds out he has done a service to the magical world by virtue of doing nothing for all intents and purposes, but still doing something enough that Voldiva death dropped, at least for a spell. And so that so much of his own understanding of what it means to be seen as a worthy person, as a worthy child, is through his acts of service, is through his sacrifices. It's through all of these things that if I just do this, I will live up to the expectations that people have of me. People will like me. And we see that affirmed time and time again. The points given to him innumerable years, right? The idea that he was defamed in order of the Phoenix. And then Voldemort comes back and Harry is seen as being successful in the battle of the Department of Mysteries. And now he's praised again. So much of these sacrifices and so much of this service is literally the reason why people like him. So it's not only just him as a kid, it's all of these moments where we then are able to see him getting affirmed and praised for this. And it's interesting because I think a lot of the comments seemingly suggest, you know, is it cowardice, is it bravery? I think it's worthiness. And that doesn't negate the fact that many of these things are brave. But if we're getting down to the nitty gritty of the why, sure, some of it is necessity, but some of it I think, is more than that. And I think when I think about, you know, my own journey, I think so much about what are the things that I do, used to do, might do in the future to make sure that people like me, that I live up to the hype, right? One of the biggest fears of writing this book has been people think I know a lot, right? Like, that I'm big brain and really I'm just a dude in front of a mic yelling and screaming about Harry Potter. And that's how I feel, at least, right? And that's not, I'm not fishing for compliments, friends. Like, you do not have to feel the need to, like, reach out to me and tell me that you think I, I, I would appreciate, I appreciate even the thought of it. But, like, that's not what this is About. I think that there is a way that, like, we still do things to feel worthy of people's attention. And I think that there's a world where so much of Harry's existence is marked by. You don't get to just be. You have to do. You don't get to just exist, you have to serve. You don't get to just be a child. You have to defeat the darkest wizard of the age. Then people will appreciate you because you already did it. Right? The precedent has been set. Even if you didn't do anything on purpose, you were just a child whose mother sacrificed herself for you. And you can imagine how that completely warps your understanding of what it means to get affection. Which is why I think Harry is also so emotionally stunted outside of the fact that, like, sure, the Dursleys abused him for so long and gave him no sense or semblance of affection, but so much of the way that he understands his existence in the magical world is through people's perception of the sacrifice that his mother made that then led to him being labeled the hero. And so I think, you know, when we think about the sacrifice and we're thinking about why he does what he does, and I think that that's kind of the crux of what a lot of the comments in this particular theme were. I think a lot of it is a quest for worthiness. And worthiness is one of those weird things that we don't talk a lot about. We talk about, like, whether you deserve something. But I think that being worthy of something is different than deserving something. Right. Deserving feels almost transactional, whereas worthiness feels in many ways intrinsic. And I think when you come from a place where you are made to feel unworthy and then all of a sudden find yourself in a space where everyone makes you feel worthy but you don't know why. Well, you do know why, but you don't necessarily feel like you've done anything to warrant it. I think a lot of Harry, in Order of the Phoenix, when he is trying to convince everyone maybe they shouldn't do the D A. And everyone's like, well, you did this and you did that and you did this and you did that. And he's like, chill. Like, I don't think he felt worthy of all of that. He's like, yeah, it happened, sure, but I didn't do. It's not what you make it out to be. And so I think that what we're experiencing with Harry in this moment is a worthiness thing. It's Someone who is trying to find space for them to feel worthy of all of the accolades and all of the praise and all of the aggrandizement that he is experiencing that he cannot quite navigate particularly well. And then you have the likes of Snape basically being like you're no one, you're no good. You've got the brilliance of Voldemort, the brilliance of Dumbledore, and then you've got Harry. He says to Hagrid, I'm just Harry. There's an insecurity here. There's a feeling of not being worthy. And how do you fix that? You do your level best to be the person that everyone already thinks you are. Oof, oof. This beating me up. That's what you do. One thing about Harry is that he reads people pretty well. Not always perfect, but pretty well. So he knows what people's expectations are of him. And I think so much of what he does. And some of this isn't just like a Harry thing, right? It's a child thing. Like we see Ron do this, we see Hermione do this, children do this, right, because they want positive attention, they want to be praised, they want to feel worthy, they want to feel like they belong. And one of the things that Harry, Ron and Hermione all have in common is their very, very, very deep feeling of not belonging in the space. And so they all do this. But Ron and Harmony don't have the lore that Harry has. They don't have the mythos surrounding them that requires them to have to try to meet an expectation that has already been set by the one year old version of them. That's a high bar. And so that when we think about why Harry is doing this and the it should be me and the I'll fight and or suffer so others don't have to. That was his story before he even got a chance to write it himself. And so that when we think about his heroism in relation to this, I don't think it undermines anything. I don't think we can say, well he's not a hero because he doesn't feel worthy. I think many heroes don't feel worthy. I think that's what makes good heroes heroes. They're not doing it because they think that they're the best. They're reluctantly doing it because they kind of have to and feel this kind of psychological need to do it, especially when they're kids. But I think that so much of Harry's own sacrifice comes from the fact that it is what everyone expects of him and he knows that to be true. That was deeper than I expected it to be. And no, I will not be receiving the bills from your therapists because you aren't going to be taking mine. So tit for tat, friends. The next theme is informed by the ongoing conversation that we're having about whether or not Harry is a good half blood. And really ask the question what makes a good half blood? Which is a conversation that we had ages and ages and ages ago and we came up with two definitions, bridging the Muggle and the magical world and caring about the balance between them and or upholding pure blood supremacy. And so those are the kind of two definitions that we had that we came up with. And the commenters that we have for this are speaking to kind of our thoughts on where Harry fits in there and whether or not these definitions fully encapsulate what it means to be a good half blood. Vivian writes, I think Harry is a good half blood from the standpoint that good half blood equals cares about the balance of Muggles and the wizarding world. Yes, he's a wizard supremacist, but I think the vast if not entire majority of the major characters that we meet are. Nadia wrote, from my perspective, to be a good half blood using the definition of bridging the gap between the Muggle and the magical world. He doesn't quite do that. He 100% has empathy for Muggles and acts proactively towards people generally. But he doesn't tell Ron not to make fun of Dean's West Ham posters. He doesn't really have any belongings to bring with him to the magical world to bridge the gap. Merritt wrote, I think you have to make a distinction here between Harry the wizard and Harry the person, the child trying to navigate his life. I also understand why a 12 year old or older wouldn't want to explain things to his friend's father that are second nature to him. Is he actually obligated to explain the Muggle world to Arthur? Kylie wrote, harry is a terrible half blood because the Muggle world sucked for him. It's only let him down his whole life. And if Voldy hadn't come around, he would have grown up like a pure blood wizard. He's a weird half blood example. It's my turn. And here's the thing. I think we're all terrible half bloods. I think every single one of us are terrible half bloods. And I think that we are provided incentives to be that way because I'm not. I won't Speak for you, but I'll speak for me. When Dudley got that tail put on him in the first book, the first time I read it, I said just desserts. I said, when Dobby came and messed up that pudding, I said, that's unfortunate for y', all, but I don't care because you had my boy locked up. Aunt Marge. Just desserts, Dudley. When the Tongue. Tongue toffee. Just desserts. Dementors. Not so. Just desserts. When Dumbledore came in Half Blood Prince and really decided that it was the moment to drag the Dursleys. Just desserts. And I know that I'm not alone in this. We are conditioned in the same way that Harry is to not care about the non magical world. It wasn't until I read the Other Minister in Half Blood Prince when that book came out that I thought to myself, oh, right, of course non magical people are affected by all the goings on in the magical world. Up until that moment it felt like everything was so separated that it just didn't feel like we needed to even think about the non magical world unless Harry was in it. So as we're thinking about the fact that Cornelius Fudge is talking about, oh, we're flying and all these people and we're bringing in these, you know, magic carpets and doing all like. None of that registered to me as like a. Oh, of course. This is a world where you all, we like you all affect what happens to them. It wasn't until the Brockdale Bridge drops. It wasn't until we see Muggles actually being killed. Even when it happens to the Roberts family in the Quidditch World cup in Goblet of Fire, that feels like a one off and like a terrorist attack. So you're kind of like, well, you know, they're terrible that happened to them. That's awful. They didn't deserve that. But you don't see it on like the larger structural level. We are conditioned to not want the bridge to be built between the magical, non magical world. That's why Dean is such a novelty because like he is actively bringing parts of his life with his family in the Muggle world to Hogwarts which nearly no one else does. Not even Hermione does that. And I think that there's something to be said about that. I don't think that we're supposed to want Harry to be a good Half Blood. Yes, I think he takes care of the Dursleys in Goblet, I mean in Deathly Hallows and takes care of Dudley with the Dementor in Order of the Phoenix. But we are invited by the text to not care about them, to want to get out of the Muggle world as soon as possible. And the escapism is what makes us want that, right? Like even in our own lives, in our own, in our own way, right? Like we are all looking for our Hogwarts letters so that we can get the hell out of Dodge. We went out. So the idea then that we would expect a character like Harry to bridge the gap, especially given his own experiences in that space when we ourselves are looking for any excuse to get the heck out of here, feels unfair. And this goes back to theme one, right? The idea that like we are bringing ourselves to this and then holding Harry to either a higher standard that we hold ourselves or in this case it seems a different standard where we are wanting him to do a thing that we one, aren't invited to do by the text but two, wouldn't want to do anyway. Because part of the reason why so many of us love these books is because we're trying to escape the world that we're living in. And so is Harry, which is why we identify with him. And so in that way the expectation that he would have empathy seems kind of off color given the fact that we tend to. Not that we have actively laughed at a child being maimed by magic multiple times. And many of you will be in that post episode chat and will say and I'd laugh again. And to that I say go off. But then we had to look at Harry and say, well then why would we expect him to not, you know, like why would we expect him to be the bridge? We know that not that many people who are the bridge exist because Kingsley in Deathly Hallows has to remind magical people, the good ones who are listening to the. The wireless wizarding network, right? The people who are anti Voldemort. He has to get on there and remind them to cast protective spells over the abodes of non magical people. And he says something to the effect of because after all we're all human. He has to remind the good ones or at least the neutral ones, if you can even be neutral in such a war. These people are human. So in some ways I wonder if the expectation of building the bridge is realistic in a world that is so segregated and so hell bent on being distinct from the non magical space. And the only non magical people that we meet on average are the Dursleys. And then we meet the Roberts family, but they are more of an inconvenience because they're kind of getting in the way of magical people being able to do magical things and then they become victims, which is a very different thing. But I just don't know that we're actually supposed to ever really meet a character other than Dean who is going to meet the standard of bridging that gap. I think that yes, Harry does good things, but he also allows for some pretty terrible things. And I think that we have we can always come up with a well, that's because. And does that absolve it all? That's not for me to say, but I do think that the expectation for him to be a good half blood is a very interesting one. A good half blood insofar of bridging the gap, given his experiences and given our own penchant for trying to get out of the non magical world, by which I mean our own world over and over and over again. The fourth and final theme for this episode is going to be based on our conversation surrounding Harry's free will. This particular thread really tries to navigate whether Harry really ever had a chance, given how young he was, how the prophecy worked, and Dumbledore's involvement in it. Annie wrote, the only way the prophecy has power is because both Harry and Voldy acted on it. Even after Voldy decided to mark Harry as his equal, Harry didn't have to buy into the prophecy. He most definitely could have hidden away or died in a completely different way. I think Harry's choices are more limited by the fact that Voldy killed a lot of people he loved, not that there was a prophecy about the two of them. Hannah wrote, Is it free will if he was groomed into making that Choice since age 11? Savannah wrote, Long story short, Harry had his free will stripped away from him as a baby due to Voldemort's choice. And then it rippled with more adults, taking away his agency or forcing him down a path like a sacrificial animal so that they wouldn't have to die like their children. Earl Earliest he wrote, I personally believe that Harry had free will, but also I think a lot about birth charts. To me, the prophecies are like reading birth charts. You can put a lot of stock in it or not. However, whether you are or aren't aware of any of the above, you still have choices. Every day you still have choices. And while in retrospect maybe Harry could have pulled out his astronomy notes and realize a lot of what he does was spot on for placements indicators in his birth chart, but in the moment he's not going. Well, gee, he's a Capricorn Sun. That's Voldiva. Harry just has to make a choice. It's my turn. When I think about all of this, I'm. I'm so fascinated because it makes me think about, like, kids who are really, really, really, really good at a sport when they're younger. I can't relate. I was not. But. And whose parents are like, this is what you're gonna do. This is your thing. And they do it and they keep going. And there tends to, on average, come a moment where the child who may be less of a child and more of a young adult at a certain point, has to kind of decide, like, am I gonna keep doing this? Is this gonna be my profession or am I gonna stop? And they have to ask themselves, who am I doing this for? Right? And, you know, there are so many movies about, you know, you know, kids who grow up resenting their parents because their parents pushed them, or parents who are, like, living out their dreams because they, you know, wanted to be the thing that their kid is really, really good at. And so they're living vicariously through their child. And, you know, the resentment therein and all the things. And. And as I was reading through this and read through your comments and really thinking about Harry, there's so much of that here, right? And one of the things I think about a lot for me personally is the moments in my life where I decided to do something. I think about it a lot when I think about the sheer amount of student loan debt that I have, and what if I had made a different choice? And then I think about the fact that, like, you know, when I was in high school, my college counselor was like, you're gonna go to this school. And I applied and I got in and I went, and it was the best. My high school. I mean, my college professor, who was my advisor, was like, you're going to apply to this program. And I applied to the program and I got in, and it was treacherous, but great. And they were like, you're going to go to graduate school. And so I applied to graduate school and I went to graduate school and, and. And so on and so forth. Right? All of those moments, though, right, which felt very mapped out and were great. They felt. Didn't feel like mine. And when I think about Harry and I think about his free will and I think about the decisions that he made versus the ones that were made for him or the ones that were curated in such a way that his choice was Going to be the choice that other people wanted for him to make in the first place. I really resonate with the idea and the parallel of a young athlete because certainly there are moments where Harry probably could have decided, I'm not gonna do that. Like, what would have happened if Harry hadn't gone down in the first book into the cavern beneath the school? Right? Like, what would that have. What would have happened? Well, Coral would have gone down, sure, but I don't know that he would have figured out how to use the mirror. So he never would have actually gotten the Sorcerer's Stone. Philosopher's Stone. Right. He never would have gotten it. He never would have even gotten close. Harry decided to go down there. He felt like he had to. But the choice to have to go down there was one that Harry made because he. In theory, I mean, they went to go to the. Cause they thought Snape was going down, but he didn't know what was at the end. Like, he didn't know Dumbledore's trick. He didn't know the mirror was down there waiting for him. And I think. And he gets down there and he also then has to make a decision, right? Like, he realizes he knows how to use the mirror. He decides to lie. And so there are all of these moments where Harry makes choices. And I. I think about this a lot because. And we talked a little bit about this a couple of weeks ago in the Chronic Overthinkers meetup, which I need to post. Okay, this was a reminder, but that there is a way that some things feel very predetermined where, like, Dumbledore gets back and he's, like, he went after him. And that, to me, suggests that Dumbledore did not set this in motion, right? Like, he knew that there was a chance that Harry might, but he didn't set all of these things in motion. I mean. And then we think about how Harry ends up doing all of these things, right? Like, he finds out about Fluffy by chance. He finds out about, you know, Snape because he's nosy, right? Like, so much of Harry's path, especially in the first book, are based on choices that he ultimately makes to kind of involve himself in things that he needn't be involved in. But Harry is nosy, and that's relatable to me. And I think we think of free will in this, like, absolute way. Like, either you have it or you don't. And I think I said this before in the last episode. I think we think of it as, like, you know, from beginning to End of life. Like, did you make choices that led you to this place? And I think that there are so many instances in these books where Harry makes a choice that obviously plays a big part. And some of it, obviously, this is a book. Some of the answers just plot. But I think even in our own lives, right? Like, especially I can speak for mine, right? There are moments where I'm like, if I hadn't have gone to the college that I went to, I never would have met my friend who wrote the music for this podcast or done music in any capacity, or maybe I wouldn't have gone into political science, and maybe I wouldn't have got my PhD. And maybe I wouldn't have, you know, made this podcast because I wouldn't have had the training to think the way that things think of things the way that I do now. Right. Like, so many things are about the choices that we make. And that the end game can sometimes feel predetermined. Right. Like, the destination can feel like, oh, that has to happen. How we arrive there is a very different thing. And I think that there are definitely moments that are the byproduct of Harry being molded and curated in certain ways to do certain things and to understand himself in certain ways so that he ultimately makes certain decisions, however, simultaneously, concurrently. And I would never be so bold as to say that what Harry does in its totality is the byproduct of that curation. I think there are numerous moments going down into the Chamber of Secrets, that was a choice. That was a compulsion he felt he had to do. He was not responsible for this in any way. In fact, it's another moment where he then realizes that, we should go get a professor. Let's get Lockhart. And he goes down there and realizes that charlatan Lockhart isn't up to going down there. And he's like, I gotta do it. Right? And maybe that's that worthiness thing. But, like, it also then led him to destroy Horcrux. It also then led to him explaining it to Dumbledore, who, again, had not asked Harry to do any of this. In fact, Harry made the choice in the entirety of Chamber of Secrets to lie to Dumbledore about all of it. But a Horcrux was destroyed, and it tipped off Dumbo Daddy about the fact that the Horcruxes might even be Horcruxes to begin with. And so I think at the end of the day, for me, free will and kind of predetermination are not mutually exclusive, that they can all exist in the same arc, in the same journey that, like the prophecy gives us where the destination is, neither can live while the other survives. We know that that is how the tale ends. How we get there, though. Left, right, U turns, ups, downs, operate here, move there, drop down, flip it around, right? Like, there are so many different ways and different choices that allow for us to get to that place. And I think that that's the way that this works for Harry. I think that Harry's free will is exhibited not in the kind of seemingly predetermined astrologically divined destination but in how he arrives and what's more, who he is when he arrives there. Because I think that so many of the choices that he makes on the journey to the forest to meet VOLDEMON in the seven years that he is aware of all of this, this relationship and all of those things that every choice that he makes are the ones that fundamentally prepare him to be the person to do that. And yes, there's an argument to be made about the role that Dumbledore plays in curating that particular sacrificial belief structure. But I think personally that there are moments where Harry goes so far beyond even what Dumbledore believed he would do. And we see it in that first book when he comes back from the Ministry of Magic and he's like, he went after him, didn't he? And I think there's a lot to be said about the role that Dumbledore plays in molding Harry. But I would not. I would never take away Harry's agency in some of this as well. Some of this is fundamentally just who Harry is. And I think it does come from a place of wanting to be worthy, wanting to live up to the expectations that everyone, not just Dumbledore, but everyone, has of him. And Dumbledore then exploits that many a time. But this is not a Dumbledore episode. And so I think that the destination feels predetermined, but the choices, the free will is all in the living. It's all in the middle. And that's true for all of us. Death is inevitable. That is predetermined. How we arrive at that place and who we are when we get there, that's based on our choice. That's the lives that we decide to live. And I don't think Harry's any different. Foreign. This has been another episode of Critical Magic Theory. I'm Professor Julian Womble, and if you liked today's episode, first of all, thank you. Please feel free to, like, rate, subscribe and do all the things that one does where pods are cast y'. All. I know this episode's getting to you a little later than normal normal. I'm so sorry but life was lifing and sometimes that happens but it doesn't matter. I really enjoyed this episode. So again thanks to you those of you who participated in the post episode chat. If you would like to participate in the post episode chat for this episode, please feel free to get on to patreon.com criticalmagic theory where you can join for free. If you'd like to join as a paid subscriber, you can join as an outstanding owl, a deep diver, a chronic overthinker and you can get all the perks that come along with all of those things. Please if you have not, please please please please please pre order behind the cloak y'. All. Join me for the post episode chat episode. Until then, be critical and stay magical my friends. Bye.