SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT


All future episodes of Quantum Harry, audio, video and essay, will be posted on successive TUESDAYS, rather than Mondays. The Episode guide will also be updated to reflect this change.

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Essay: The Wand Chooses the Wizard

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In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , Voldemort’s and Harry’s wands refuse to fight each other because they have the same core: a phoenix feather from Fawkes. This was the third wand revelation that JK Rowling gave her readers, the first two being that the wand chooses the wizard and that a damaged wand (like Ron’s wand in Chamber of Secrets ) can backfire on the user or otherwise behave unpredictably. Once we learn more rules of the Wand Game in Deathly Hallows it is clear that Ron’s broken wand is responding as if the he is no longer its master ; the wand/owner covenant is broken. I have written in previous essays about the metaphorical quantum entanglement between Harry and Voldemort, but this is not the only type of metaphorical entanglement in the Harry Potter series. Wizards and their wands are also entangled. After it breaks, Ron and his wand are no longer entangled—if they ever truly were, since Rowling reveals early on that he is using Charlie’s old wand. It is un...
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Essay: Arrested Development

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Early in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets , Harry visits the Weasley house for the first time. Ron’s room is covered in paraphernalia from his favorite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons, a name that includes a weapon. Ron is marked as a future warrior because of his proficiency at chess, but his insecurity is also showing due to his allegiance to the Cannons. This team is ninth in a league of thirteen teams, and their motto is, “Let’s all just keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.” Quidditch and games are frequently key to this book and, as in the first book, games again segue into battles. However, the most prominent “game” this time is that the plot is shaped by one of the most famous fairy tales of all time: “Little Red Riding Hood”, which I’ll cover extensively in the next blog post. (See Quantum Harry, the Podcast, Episode 13: Deus ex Machina .) There is also a fairy tale in Deathly Hallows called “The Three Brothers”, by the wizard writer Beedle the Bard...
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Essay: The Rule of Four

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In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone , Harry, Ron and Hermione play a life-sized chess game, Professor McGonagall’s contribution to the defense of the Philosopher’s Stone. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , JK Rowling designs the Triwizard Tournament to be a life-sized board game. That there are four, rather than three Tournament Champions helps draw attention to this. Multiple board games have been based upon Harry Potter , and the Hogwarts houses have for their chief colors red, yellow, blue and green—colors commonly used for board game playing pieces around the world. The Hogwarts houses also align with the four elements that medieval alchemists recognized: fire, earth, water and air.  Gryffindor aligns with the element of fire, has a lion for its mascot, the symbol for Leo, an astrological fire sign which happens to be Harry’s and JK Rowling’s birth sign, and Rowling has assigned to this house the “fiery” colors of red and gold.  Hufflepuff aligns ...
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