Shared Text (Not Safe For Work)

July 9, 2022 by Leave a Comment

Andrew Schulz clearly knows next to nothing about Harry Potter. Note that in the above routine that he mentions “Harry Potter the Musical” in reference to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which for all its glories (failings?), is not a musical.

Having said that, it’s interesting to observe that he does understand, as in “know for certain,” that his audience will get  a Harry Potter joke and especially enjoy an equal parts playful and tasteless spell in Latin. Because everybody knows Harry Potter.

Filed Under: Shared Text

Shared Text: Unvaccinated Pure Bloods

June 5, 2022 by 1 Comment

To read more about the phenomenon, apparently a year old now, of those who have successfully resisted the mRNA inoculations, the ‘Great Unvaxxed,’ that want to be known as “Pure Bloods,” read this Newsweek piece: Vaccine Skeptics Are Calling Themselves ‘Pure Bloods’ in Bizarre Harry Potter Reference. I believe this is known as a “own-goal” in soccer, which is to say, if you’re going to choose a Harry Potter reference as your hashtag identity, the one that is an anything but subtle pointer to eugenics and fascism is not your best bet.

I call this a ‘Shared Text’ item because the response to this nomenclature adoption has been almost universal scoffing, which is to say, everyone but the TikTok Pure Bloods seems to understand immediately the Hogwarts Saga reference. I wonder, though, if the failing of those who adopted the title to recognize how they were casting themselves as bad guys means that they certainly don’t have the Rowling novels’ nuances as a sure point of reference. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Shared Text

Shared Text: SNL Channels Dobby

May 25, 2022 by Leave a Comment

Pete Davidson is a comedian who for the last eight years has been a member of the cast at NBC’s Saturday Night Live. He’s leaving the show at the end of this season, so, as SNL heads into summer re-runs, Davidson took the opportunity last Saturday to thank Lorne Michaels, the show’s producer, for giving him a chance back in the day and for sticking with him through thick and thin.

Before he got all sentimental and grateful, though, Davidson did his straight man routine with Colin Jost, one of the two faux-anchors on the show’s ‘Weekend Update’ segment. Jost asked him if it was true he was really leaving the cast. Davidson showed in his answer what a Potter-head he really is — and how confident he was that his audience would get the joke.

 

 

That is testimony to Harry Potter continuing to be this generation’s Shared Text. No explicit mention of Dobby, the Boy Who Lived, or Malfoy freeing his house-elf by mistake. It wasn’t necessary; “accidentally gifted me a sock so I’m free” instantly brought Dobby’s liberation to the mind of the audience.

Filed Under: Shared Text

Shared Text: Hillary Clinton is Voldemort

May 21, 2022 by 2 Comments

American Democrats weaponized Harry Potter years ago. ‘Republicans for Voldemort’ bumper stickers, for example, were ubiquitous during the Obama years. It didn’t hurt that The Presence all but endorsed that meme:

The Chinese Communists, too, have enjoyed calling their enemies “the Dark Lord.” In 2014 it was Japan and in 2021 it was the United States. Leftists owned the field, it seemed, in energizing their base via Voldemort epithets.

Now, though, it seems the GOP is turning the tables on the Dumbledore’s Army division in the Democratic Party. For one thing, former Moaning Myrtle’s vocalist Nina Jankowicz has been forced to step down from her leadership position in the Biden Administration’s ‘Ministry of Truth.’ Now Hillary Clinton, of all people, has been branded with the Dark Lord sobriquet, ‘She Who Must Not Be Named.’

Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley predicted that Hillary Clinton will avoid “direct responsibility” for pushing claims of former President Trump’s collusion with Russia Friday on “Special Report.”

TURLEY: Hillary Clinton has always had a sort of Voldemort-like status of she who must not be named in a scandal. The Clintons have really been able to avoid direct responsibility in a series of scandals. And here was her campaign manager effectively dropping the dime on his former boss and saying, “Look, she approved it. She knew about it.” Now, the reason that’s important is that this claim was utterly ridiculous. It didn’t have a basis. It was quickly rejected by people in the government, and it was without any foundation when people looked at it. But the Clinton campaign pushed it anyway. This Alfa Bank story was pushed by Jake Sullivan, now the national security adviser, and by Clinton herself. But the thing to keep in mind is that President Obama was briefed when he was president, that Hillary Clinton was planning to make a Russian collusion claim against Donald Trump to try to sort of get out of her own email issues during the campaign. And we now have someone saying, “Yeah, she green-lighted the Alfa Bank claims,” which were completely without foundation. 

If you’re not up to speed on the story of how the Clinton campaign and the Dark Lady herself fed a story they knew to be false to the FBI and The New York Times in October 20126, you can read about it here and here. A short cut to the heart of it is on this Glenn Greenwald twitter thread:

This is a ‘Shared Text’ story, though, because, while I’m pretty sure that many of you picked up the ‘Ministry of Truth’ reference to Eric Blair’s 1984 above, I’m all but certain that every single listener to this Fox News broadcast segment ‘got’ what the talking head was saying when he called Madame Secretary Hillary Clinton “Voldemort-like” and “She Who Must Not Be Named.” Harry Potter, despite the transgender controversy and attempts to cancel J. K. Rowling, remains this generation’s (and the one or two before it?) Shared Text. Hat-tip to a friend in Texas for the FOX News story and link.

Filed Under: Shared Text

Tracing the Logic of the Wizarding World: Fun, if Pointless.

March 1, 2022 by Leave a Comment

In his recent post on “The Birthday Misconception,” our Headmaster commented on the seemingly endless efforts we readers do to make the Harry Potter world logically consistent:

What we are doing, then, in hunting for a logic and a system where, as likely as not, there is none is simply paying tribute to the author’s achievement in making us believe her imaginative world is that much like the profane, Muggle existence in which we live.

I believe that one of the first comments I made on this site, back before I was offered the faculty position, was a comment trying to make sense of the Fidelius Charm, so I’ve been in the game a long time  A fun, if somewhat pointless exercises

The thoughts on how long it takes to notify Muggleborn parents of the existence of Hogwarts, and persuade them to send their child off to Hogwarts made me think of another means the Ministry might have of monitoring Muggleborns prior to the arrival of their letter  This is “The Trace,” one of the more inconsistently applied charms of the series. 

Has it ever  been explicitly stated that this form of surveillance is started on the first summer home after Hogwarts?  Or is it on all magical kids from birth to age 17?  We know its use is limited; it does not detect the child doing magic, but only spells cast in the vicinity of underaged wizards; hence Harry being blamed for Dobby’s Hovercharm. Therefore, only Muggleborn and other kids like Harry who are in non-magical homes can be caught and disciplined for underage magic. A good wizarding lawyer ought to be able to win a case-action suit for discrimination. But, this limitation would also make it a convenient tool for monitoring pre-Hogwarts Muggleborns, if employed from birth.

It also apparently does not pick up Apparation and Disapparation, or it would have been easy to tell that someone magical had visited Privet Drive before the spell was cast, and left immediately after.

If all Muggleborn kids are monitored with the Trace from birth, I could see a special ministry division employed to detect displays of accidental magic that might threaten the Statue of Secrecy. Small things like Harry shrinking Dudley’s revolting sweater would not get attention, but what if a tantrumming Muggleborn toddler pulled an Aunt Marge?  Surely that would result in the Ministry swooping in to fix the situation and modify memories. This could certainly give the ministry some hint of how powerful the child is, and when that chat with the parents might need to happen a bit sooner.

Additionally, we know the Ministry had other surveillance around Harry, since they knew when he was sleeping in the cupboard, and when he was moved to Dudley’s second bedroom: non-magical acts not subject to the Trace.  Which leads to the question, why didn’t someone intervene earlier? If they knew where he slept, surely they also could tell things like when he was locked in the cupboard for days at a time. It’s almost as if a Star Trek style Prime Directive is in place; look, but don’t interfere, at least until it’s time to send the letter.

Is this surveillance also in place for other Muggleborns?  If so, why didn’t someone go get poor Tom out of that orphanage; he had no special protection there.  Why didn’t his aggressive magic, like the attack in the sea cave, get picked up by the Trace?  I guess this would be an argument for the Trace not being employed until the kid starts Hogwarts.

So how many Muggleborns under 10 are going to be blowing up tyrannical parents in the meantime?

Or maybe this is a newer technology, not available when Riddle was a lad?

The Trace was introduced fairly late in the series, so it is perhaps not surprising it creates a few corner-painting moments  This is true of a lot of elements we learn about in the last couple of books:

  • Horcruxes:  If you really want it safe, why not make one  from a nondescript pebble and toss it in the ocean?
  • The Taboo: If you really want magically concealment charms to stop working, wouldn’t Taboo-ing something like “the” or “and” work better than “Voldemort?”
  • And my perennial favorite: the Fidelius Charm:  What would actually happen if someone other than the Secret-Keeper tried to disclose protected information?  Would the speaker be struck dumb? The hearer struck deaf? Or could someone die, a la the Unbreakable Vow? If Harry wanted to tell Neville where the Order of the Phoenix is headquartered, could he say “It’s not at #10 Grimmauld Place in London; and it’s not at #11.  And it is definitely not at #13,” and hope Neville gets the hint?

I think out Headmaster’s last paragraph, above, is the best and most generic explanation of all.

Filed Under: Louise Freeman, Shared Text