Like a fine wine, a book, too, can get better with age. With age comes maturity; with maturity comes appreciation. This is all to say that a reread of a prolific childhood novel can leave one with a much greater understanding and respect in adulthood.
July 31st comes but once a year. To most, this seems like it could be nothing more than an arbitrary date; to others, this day celebrates the birth of one of literature’s most prolific heroes: Harry Potter turns 39. To commemorate this day, a Harry Potter-inspired post is a (room of) requirement.
If I baked, I’d make this cake in celebration. Source: Giphy
I am a fan of Harry Potter. I grew up with the book series and enjoyed the films; however, I recognize that my passive appreciation doesn’t hold a match to the fanaticism of many, including a few of the contributing writers of The Mindful Rambler.
I wanted to write this post, however, because I have come to this realization as an adult: The Chamber of Secrets is the book I underrated most growing up BUT I have come to realize it is a lynch pin to the plot of the entire series.
Building on Perfection
The first novel in the series, The Philosopher’s Stone, is bliss. It gives us all the tools to understand the Wizarding World — the grandeur, the allure, the sense of place Harry finds so comforting, and it sets up the conflict of good versus evil. However, it can stand alone as a novel. Independent. A one-off.
The Chamber of Secrets takes what the first book establishes, uses it as its foundation, and further builds up and solidifies the future of the entire series.
Expanding the Wizarding World
In this second installment, we get to see more of what makes the Wizarding World so magnificent. For instance, we are introduced to the Weasleys’ homestead, The Burrow. This is a location that will continue to represent a place of belonging for Harry throughout the series. Or take the Floo network, a magical highway of sorts, connecting all the fireplaces of the Wizarding World together.
While all very intriguing, what The Chamber of Secrets does so well is in its setup of the extent of Voldemort’s evil and how Harry will eventually meet and defeat his foe.
Horcruxes FTW
Yes, Voldemort is the big bad. And yes, we know that from the start. What The Chamber of Secrets does is covertly introduce us to the concept of Horcruxes — the physical objects in which Voldemort has split his soul. As any reader knows, the Horcruxes are what drive the plot and action of the last third of the series. For J.K. Rowling to plant this seed so early in the series, however, speaks to her ingenuity and thoughtful long-term planning. The fact Harry is able to face and defeat one of these manifestations of evil (Tom Riddle’s diary) so early gives us some comforting foresight. As well, the continued use of the basilisk as a further symbol of Voldemort’s terror is very affecting. Furthermore, this symbolism contrasts the fact that the fangs of this creature are a powerful tool in destroying the evil they seem to represent. Two words I use to describe this: bloody brilliant.
Wise words, Ronald Weasley. Wise words. Source: Giphy
With all this being said, I would suggest we all give The Chamber of Secrets a reread. Heck, why not a reread of the entire series? I reckon you’ll be amazed at what you’ll pick up on another pass through the books.
What are you thoughts on The Chamber of Secrets, and Harry Potter, at large? Drop us a comment below!
With the release of the newest Harry Potter film, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, wetake another look at representation in author J.K. Rowling’s works in this installment of the Critiquing Harry Potter series.
“Strong women” is a phrase we hear a lot, especially regarding film and literature. The desire to see strong women in entertainment (and the misunderstanding of what a “strong” woman actually is) sets up unrealistic standards for female characters and their real-life counterparts. Irrespective of these confining notions, empathy and vulnerability are traits that make women strong, not weak. A profound emotional complexity encapsulates what it means to be human, to live, and to persevere through adversity.
J.K. Rowling has promoted female complexity to an extent through Harry Potter characters such as Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, Nymphadora Tonks, Luna Lovegood, Cho Chang, Fleur Delacour, Angelina Johnson, Minerva McGonagall, Lily Evans, Molly Weasley, Narcissa Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange, and even Lavender Brown, all of whom have diverse personal attributes that make them uniquely human. Some are leaders, some are learners, some warriors, and some nurturers, but all of them feel. So do men, of course – yet male emotion is sadly suppressed as weakness in our society.
Brothers Theseus (Callum Turner) and Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) interact while Leta Lestrange (Zoë Kravitz) looks on. In J.K. Rowling’s latest spinoff, men still dominate the story, women are supporting characters, and non-binary characters aren’t included at all. Photo: Entertainment Tonight
Critically examining all aspects of Fantastic Beasts would take days, so keep in mind that I’ve tried to confine the scope of my analysis to gender here. Given that J.K. Rowling is a woman writing in the 21st century (though her latest story is set in the 20th), I’d expected her to feature a female lead this time around. Despite the many complex female characters in the Harry Potter books, Rowling never struck me as going all the way to give women full representation. The majority of the major characters are men, after all, and the few women who are given significant roles are almost all white. In today’s political climate, the time is ripe to focus on feminism and gender equality. Some might argue that it’s Rowling’s responsibility as an influential woman to present more female role models, and I won’t even get started on non-binary characters because that evidently seems too much for Rowling to consider. Ezra Miller, who is a queer actor, does play Credence Barebone in Fantastic Beasts, but Credence is referred to as male in the films – we don’t have any evidence that Rowling understands or wants to include the lived experience of genderqueer individuals. Instead, Rowling safely elected to feature Newt Scamander, widely acclaimed Magizoologist – and a dude.
An early promotional poster for Fantastic Beasts. The core three characters of this film – Dumbledore (Jude Law), Newt (Eddie Redmayne), and Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) are male. Photo: Flickr
If the secondary characters were all female it might be less of an affront that Rowling went with a story about another man, but I can’t really defend her there. Just like Harry, Ron, and Hermione, Newt is surrounded by other male leads. In The Crimes of Grindelwald specifically, we have No-Maj (Muggle) Jacob, Newt’s brother Theseus, Credence, and then the big ol’ showdown between future Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore and European powerhouse tyrant Gellert Grindelwald, the darkest wizard on the world stage before Lord Voldemort’s time. As you can see, lots of testosterone floating around.
Of course, the Goldstein sisters Tina and Queenie figure into the storyline, this time alongside Leta Lestrange and *SPOILER ALERT* Nagini (to whom I’ll probably devote a whole other post in the future). It’s not that the women are there, however, that checks the proverbial box of so-called gender parity; as I argued in my article on ethnicity, it’s what they do that matters. In the first Fantastic Beasts film, Newt and Jacob were the top-billed characters in the plotline, with Tina and Queenie playing supporting roles. Likewise, we know that the Dumbledore-Grindelwald relationship takes centre stage now. J.K. Rowling could just as easily have chosen a witch to work with Dumbledore for this spinoff series, but she didn’t, and men are still at the centre of the action. It strikes me as a bit disingenuous for a self-declared progressive female author, but I suppose our society influences our implicit expectations. All I can say without spoiling the film is that our girls Tina, Queenie, and Leta’s storylines heavily feature men and aren’t explored as in-depth as I would like.
There’s one possible upside apart from Newt’s own emotional vulnerability: Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s confrontation and the unravelling of their past. Such an interplay could do much to highlight LGBTQ2+ representation and men’s emotional depth if it’s properly explored. It is a shame that the only gay relationship we may see is an abusive and manipulative one, but nevertheless, this franchise will be very telling as to whether J.K. Rowling truly believes in diverse representation or is just trying to ride the wave.
So far she’s demonstrated a shocking hesitancy to give female, non-binary, or trans individuals representation, and I doubt we can expect anything that doesn’t feature a male lead from her soon.* For now, even as far as women – complex, wonderful, and important as they are – are concerned, I’m not convinced Rowling’s in it for the long haul. If she is, I’d like to see more action and agency from her non-male characters front and centre.
After all, actions speak louder than words, and Rowling’s approach to gender isn’t quite loud enough for me.
This article is part of the Critiquing Harry Potter series. Read about ethnic representation in the series here.
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FOOTNOTES
*Just take a look at her Cormoran Strike novels under the penname Robert Galbraith, which also feature a male character.
Some Harry Potter readers today assert that J.K. Rowling’s universe is not accurately diverse enough. Population research yields an interesting dialogue about the demographics in the series, but representation is an even more complex issue.
I’m about to do something which may surprise you: I’m going to criticize Harry Potter.
During my life I’ve spoken with many friends about my favourite book series, and in the last few years especially, the issue of diversity often looms large.
In Harry Potter the possibilities for discussing diversity are endless, from ethnicity, to LGBTQ+ inclusion, to gender, to species.
Today, I’d like to talk specifically about ethnic diversity. Why are there only, like, five* non-white kids at Hogwarts? (*Seven, but who’s counting?) The fact that there are so few minority characters isn’t ideal for the most popular book franchise of the twenty-first century so far. Even in the 1990s when the Harry Potter books are set, shouldn’t there be more diverse characters to represent the society the novels portray?
I definitely thought so … and then I embarked upon some research for this article and found this thread on Reddit, in which a fellow fan argues that the Harry Potter universe accurately reflects the ethnic demographic of the United Kingdom at the time. In the census for 1991, the year Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone begins, 94.1% of Britons identified themselves as white, 5.9% as non-white.* (I don’t think the census asked about mixed ethnicity, since it was the first UK census to collect information about ethnic background.)
Dumbledore’s Army in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Photo: Harry Potter Wikia
With the 40 students in Harry’s year (5 of whom are non-white), that places the white population at 90% and the non-white population at 10%, which is actually almost double the proportion of non-white people in Britain at the time. What?!
Indisputably, Harry Potter is a product of its time. Though author J.K. Rowling’s illustrated demographic fits the temporal setting of the story, it doesn’t accurately represent its readers, who span the world over. Readers aren’t going to see the current population (of either Britain or the world) represented in the novels; they’re going to see the population of Britain 20 years ago. And with such a diverse present-day audience, we’re now left with a disparity in terms of ethnic representation.
I would therefore argue that the problem doesn’t necessarily lie in the number of non-white characters featured in the story, but rather the significance J.K. Rowling gives (or doesn’t give) them in the narrative. Let’s count the confirmed non-white students mentioned at Hogwarts in the books:
Dean Thomas
Blaise Zabini
Angelina Johnson
Lee Jordan
Cho Chang
Parvati Patil
Padma Patil
How many of these students have a major part in the story? None, really.
Cho Chang, as played by Katie Leung in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Photo: Warner Bros.
Cho Chang, Harry’s one-time love interest, features prominently in Order of the Phoenix but isn’t central to the other books. Rowling has received major criticism for her portrayal of Cho, with accusations of cultural ignorance in choosing her name, negatively depicting the only East Asian character in the books, and more.
Dean Thomas, who is Black, is consistently present as one of Harry’s friends; he shares a dormitory with Harry and Ron, and dates Ron’s sister Ginny for most of Half-Blood Prince. Dean has a rich backstory which was originally included in the books but didn’t survive the editor’s cuts. His story, in which he eventually learns his wizard father was killed fleeing the Death Eaters (Lord Voldemort’s followers), was omitted in favour of Neville Longbottom (a white character, interestingly) avenging his parents after Death Eaters tortured them into insanity.
Kingsley Shacklebolt, played by actor George Harris in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Photo: Pottermore
The whiteness of Harry Potter goes beyond Hogwarts, too. Kingsley Shacklebolt, a Black wizard who is a powerful Auror and future Minister for Magic, is praised throughout the last three books, but he’s still a fairly minor character. There are also no identified South Asian characters in the Harry Potter universe apart from the Patil twins, and Latin American characters are non-existent. And I haven’t even started on mixed ethnicity: as a half-Indian (Goan) myself, I’m no stranger to the erasure of mixed identities. In fairness, delving into the specifics of minor characters’ heritage might have been a bit technical for a 1990s children’s book series. Relating this back to demographic research, there are deeper-rooted issues regarding the historical exclusion of mixed ethnicities on censuses in general (which could fill a whole other post, I’m sure).
All the main characters in Harry Potter are white. We’ve gone over historical demographics, but we should be asking a critical question here: why didn’t Rowling write any of the main characters, or even the major supporting characters, non-white?
After Hermione was portrayed as Black in the broadway play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (a play that was approved, but not written, by Rowling), the author stated on Twitter that she “loves black Hermione”. I personally feel that Rowling latched onto the casting to retroactively interpret her novels as more inclusive than they were when she wrote them. Yes, she seems to support diversity now, but my reading of Rowling’s character descriptions has me convinced that she never wrote Hermione as non-white.*
It’s easy to approve a casting choice and take credit for diversity, but it’s a pretty passive act. In terms of the heavy lifting, Rowling hadn’t originally made strides to portray ethnic diversity in her books. Given all we’ve considered, that seems fair since she wrote the books in the 1990s – even in 2001 when the first film was released, Britain was still 90.9% white. Nevertheless, the later films, made 15 to 20 years after the books take place, haven’t increased ethnic diversity in the casting despite the chance to broaden the demographic for a contemporary audience. And it doesn’t change the fact that none of the non-white characters were given major roles in the books.
The main cast of the Harry Potter films (from left): Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Are questions of ethnicity more prevalent here in Canada (and the United States)? Possibly, since both nations were built on mass immigration. Does that mean North American readers scrutinize diversity more than those in Europe or worldwide? Maybe.
What do you think? Should the Harry Potter films have tried to reflect today’s population to bridge the gap between the whiteness of Britain in the 1990s and its current demographic? Should we throw the idea of accuracy out the window? Going forward, what should the cast of spinoffs like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them look like? Are J.K. Rowling’s efforts at diverse representation tokenistic, or am I not giving her enough credit?
Who knows, maybe in 20 years we’ll get a remake that fulfills all its potential for representation, and the concept of a “diversity quota” will be so outdated that it’s laughable. Only time will tell.
This article is part of the Critiquing Harry Potter series. Read about gender representation in the Harry Potter franchise here.
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FOOTNOTES
*As of the last census in 2011, 81.9% of the British population identified as White British.
*My reasoning regarding Hermione’s race, and my argument that J.K. Rowling is opportunistically interpreting her past work, is as follows:
“Hermione’s white face was sticking out from behind a tree.” This quote from Prisoner of Azkaban describes Hermione in a state of fear, and while it may be a turn of phrase for a stricken expression, it seems odd to describe a Black person having a white face no matter how bloodless or pale they’ve gone. There are countless other ways to describe fear or panic.
“… Ron looking incredibly freckly, Hermione very brown, both waving frantically…” Ron and Hermione have both just returned from holidays in sunny places; Ron from Egypt, Hermione from France. I’m certain Rowling is describing Hermione’s tan here, which implies that her “very brown” face is darker than her original skin tone.
Hermione appears as white in book covers. J.K. Rowling has the power to veto such a portrayal if it is inaccurate, and as Hermione’s race would be such a major difference, she would have noticed and corrected it.
Rowling approved white actress Emma Watson’s casting as Hermione for the films despite overriding other more minor character details (she told writers to remove a line where Dumbledore mentions a girl he once dated, since Dumbledore is gay!). She would have instructed casting directors re: Hermione’s appearance.
This sketch by Rowling, like all others by her, depicts Hermione with fair skin.
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