What Does Harry Potter Mean Now? [42:57-48:00]

describing Hermione's future career working in the ministry to improve the lives of house elves. Improve their lives, sure, but without changing the system which led to their discrimination in the first place. What seems clear throughout is that Rowling sees house self-inslavement as an institution that is capable of much improvement, but which cannot be eradicated. Even if the text agrees with Hermione that there's an injustice here, it disagrees with her methods. In the end, she doesn't change the system. What she does change is that both Harry and Ron learn to be more conscientious about house elves. Harry treats creature with respect and dignity and is rewarded with a loyal servant. Ron remembers to save the Hogwarts house elves during the final battle and is rewarded with a girlfriend. The problem which gets addressed is not the house elves position in society, but the way their masters treat them. Thus, the less charitable reading is that... It does not matter whether slavery is overthrown just as long as the erstwhile emancipators do that bit. We don't get rid of slavery. We just replace the bad slave owners with good ones. We don't question muggle segregation. We just make sure nobody is mean to muggles. We don't change our corrupt and ineffectual system of government. We just put the right people in positions of power. The system itself is never questioned. And I think the reinterpretation is right that you can see this attitude reflected in Joanne's politics. To those who seek to tell me that I don't understand my own books, I will say this. Some of you have not understood the books. My position is that this activist movement in the form that it's currently taking echoes the very thing that I was warning against in Harry Potter. The death eaters claimed we have been made to live in secret and now is our time. And any who stand in our way must be destroyed. If you disagree with us, you must die. This claim is absurd on its face. Death eaters are deliberately analogous to Nazis who persecuted and killed trans people. This comparison is not only objectively wrong, it's offensive. Obviously, this quote reveals a lot about Joanne's perception of trans activism. But I think it's just as revealing about her perception of death eaters. Death eaters resemble Nazis only in the broadest sense. A charismatic leader and his followers assume power so they can put their bigoted ideology into practice. But where the Nazis were a populist fascist movement that rose to power legally for the most part, the death eaters seize power through what is effectively a military coup. The Nazis used their bigoted ideology to appeal to the frustrated middle and working classes. But the death eaters don't appeal to the populists. They just are bigots who seize power to do bigotry. Joanne doesn't actually appear to know that much about the Nazis. She's been accused of holocaust denial for insinuating the raid on the Institute of Sexual Science didn't happen. And she was quote, chilled to discover she invented the idea of blood purity without realizing she was echoing the Nazis' ideology. Did she just not do any research? In fairness, I don't think Potter was intended to be read as an animal farm style parable. It's more like how the Empire in Star Wars represents generic imperialism. The death eaters represent generic authoritarianism. Or is it that Joanne just has a simple understanding of what authoritarianism is? And then we come to the famous two-word slogan, the stop phrase, no debate, no debate, no debate. I can't think of a pure instance of authoritarianism than no debate. In fact, that is the attitude of the fundamentalist. You may not challenge my ideas. That makes you evil. So trans people are authoritarian because they're unwilling to put their own rights up for debate. This is an argument Contra has already dealt with. I think that to be authoritarian, you have to be able to leverage authority and trans people are in a weak position. I guess Joanne forgot that Voldemort wasn't defeated by debate. The main problem Voldemort poses is he seeks power. He wants to control the wizarding world to subjugate Muggles to gain the elder want to become immortal. He doesn't target Harry because of bigotry. Harry isn't even Muggle-born. By the way, weird choice in an anti-bigotry story that the protagonist is not a target of bigotry. Literally, the first thing Hagrid says to Harry when he learns about blood purity is, don't worry, that doesn't affect you. To Voldemort, Harry is just an obstacle on his route to power