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Quantum Harry, the Podcast

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January 15, 2019

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: JK Rowling's Own Private Tarot Game

January 15, 2019

JK Rowling never tells her readers about Harry Potter learning about Tarot, nor is it ever mentioned during his Divination lessons. Despite this, Professor Trelawney abruptly reappears in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince , even though she is no longer Harry’s teacher by the time he’s in his sixth year. In just about every appearance she makes in the sixth book she is raving about the Tower , also called The Tower of Destruction , or La Maison Dieu ( The House of God ) in French, the sixteenth card in the Tarot Major Arcana. Trelawney ranting about this card is the first overt mention of Tarot in the seven books, and it is a virtual throwaway. It is not, however, the first mention of the name of a Tarot card in the series . In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , Rowling calls the Little Hangleton pub frequented by Frank Bryce, the caretaker at the Riddle House, The Hanged Man. This is the name of the twelfth card in the Tarot Major Arcana. JK Rowling has also invente...

Essay: Blood Sport

April 11, 2018

When Harry first enters the wizarding world, where someone stands on Quidditch is a metaphor for how well they fit into that world. That Harry takes to flying immediately clearly delineates him as a soldier, a warrior. It also contributes to the animus between him and Draco Malfoy, who first mentions the word “Quidditch” to Harry. For Harry to join the Gryffindor house team as a first year and actually be good at it cements the separation between them. In addition to there being an archetype aligning with each book in the series (see QuantumHarry, the Podcast, Episode 2: This Old Man ), JK Rowling has also engaged in a clever bit of self-referential recursion. Each of the seven obstacles to the Philosopher’s Stone also aligns with one of the seven books in the series, and links to a significant theme in each book. The first obstacle to the Stone is “Fluffy”, the three-headed dog Hagrid loans Dumbledore to guard the trapdoor leading to the Stone. Harry initially sees Fluf...