Mirrors, Memories and Magic Originally presented at Azkatraz, July 2009. Posted with permission. I’m going to talk today about mirrors in the Potterverse, the forms they take their impact. While I’ll be touching on several characters, not just Harry, I’m going to devote some extra time to Voldemort and Snape, whose experiences give us a
For an assignment in a class called “Colonizing Girlhoods: L.M. Montgomery and Laura Ingalls Wilder,” the professor took us to the Special Collections department of the college library to look at books and artifacts associated with the Little House and Anne of Green Gables series, such as spinoffs, older editions, paper dolls, alphabet books, guidebooks
No real-world figure has reminded me of Snape more strongly than Michael Cohen, the former fixer for ex-President Trump. When he described himself as “villain or savior, depending on your point of view,” and discussed his efforts to expose the crimes he once helped to commit, I had to see if there was more to
In a last-minute surprise move, at the end of Deathly Hallows, it turns out that Ron Weasley can open the Chamber of Secrets using Parseltongue. At first read, this seems like an awfully convenient plot point. But is there more to it? I looked into what the series says about Parseltongue acquisition and Ron’s history
With all of the white supremacists, “alt-right” supporters, and neo-Nazis in U.S. government this year, it becomes clearer to U.S. readers that Rowling wrote Snape to be a reformed neo-Nazi who devoted his adult life to renouncing such ideology and remaining undercover so he could help similarly vulnerable students avoid repeating his mistakes. This group interview,
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