What Does Harry Potter Mean Now? [23:29-28:30]

Serious black is first described as waxy, gaunt, and corpse-like. But becomes handsome and full-faced in later books. A transformation not shared by his evil cousin and fellow prisoner of Askaban, Bellatrix, even Dudley goes on a diet and becomes muscular before his mild redemption in book seven. Okay, but Gildroy Lockhart is both unsympathetic and handsome, until his cowardice is exposed, and he's described as not remotely handsome anymore. But Madai Moody is mysterious, intimidating, and turns out to be a death-eater in disguise. Look, I'm not going to litigate every character. The point is, Joanne does this a lot. The reason she does this, according to Kamachi, is to encourage readers to make a quick moral judgement about her characters, especially unsympathetic ones. And in fairness, there is a history of this device, especially in children's literature. Roll dial, Charles Dickens, and the Bronti sisters all did it. But Kamachi argues that in the modern day, and in a story attempting to portray a morally complex world, it sends a mixed message. It collapses the moral middle ground, but even more damningly, teaches readers that evil is visible in physical appearances. Adult readers know that this is a literary device, but with younger readers come to the same conclusion, over this offer confusing lesson. And some have connected this directly to Transphobia, pointing out how Rita's skaters overly feminine fashion sense is contrasted against her heavy jaw, man-ish hands, and surprising strength. It's possible Skita is intended to be a transphobic derision of trans women. I mean, her MO is sneaking into places in disguise. But even if Joanne didn't do this consciously, it still suggests she connects masculinity in women with ugliness, and therefore, badness. This, I would call ethically mean-spirited. It's not just that the text describes its unsympathetic characters as ugly, it derisively caricatures certain traits, certain sorts of people. Like how lavender brown is used to mock gossipy girly girls, or how the literal first sentence of the first book is a joke mocking the dursleys for their prudishness. Characters are derided less for what they do, but what they are. For instance, when Dudley receives comeuppance, it often targets his weight. Hagrid curses him to have a pig's tail, which he needs to get surgically removed. Fred and George lure him into cheating on his diet by eating a tongue-tonged toffee, which makes his tongue magically swell. By contrast, as YouTuber Shaun points out, when Draco insults Molly's weight in Goblet of Fire, our heroes respond with outrage in a way they don't, when Dudley is ridiculed for the same thing. So is it wrong to make fun of someone for being overweight? And the answer is, it depends on if you're a good or a bad person, and whether your target is a good or a bad person. So there is a kind of essentialism going on here. The world is split into good people and bad people, and as Shaun goes on to argue, the morality of an action in potter, short of full on murder, largely depends on which team you're on. And there's a lot of team spirit in potter, most obviously the Hogwarts houses. As part of a wizard's induction into the wizarding world, they are divided into categories, which define them for their entire education, and even into adulthood, based on a magical assessment of their character at 11 years old. Even if blood purity is proven nonsense, clearly there are essential qualities on which a person can be judged. It's a eugenicist's wet dream. In fairness, the narrative does attempt to deconstruct the sorting. There are exceptions to the rule, slughorn, wormtail, and let's not forget, sever a snake. As Dumbledore says to him, I sometimes think we sort too soon. After the Battle of Hogwarts, the victors celebrate in the great hall, no longer sitting according to house, symbolically dismantling the whole idea. Yet in the epilogue, it's clear the sorting still exists as it always has. Nevertheless, the epilogue also reaffirms that Harry was able to choose his house, another quote from Dumbledore. It is our choices, Harry, the show what we truly are far more than our abilities. Except you can't choose not to be sorted. Choosing between Gryffindor and Slytherin is still framed as a choice between siding with the good guys or the bad guys. Nearly all the heroes are Gryffindor's and nearly all the villains are Slytherins. None of the Slytherin students join the final battle against Voldemort. The bad students come from bad families,