Book 1, Ep. 1 | The Chosen One
Material Girls
Rehak Hannah
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2020
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s FINALLY HERE! In honor of Hogwarts day, September 1st, we present to you the first day of class you’ve always dreamed of from your two favourite lady scholars: Witch, Please | Ep. 1, The Chosen One.
Our first episode goes back to the very beginning–to the concept of origin stories themselves–to explore how and why Harry Potter fits into a long tradition of “chosen one” narratives. Harry, we learn, is a very special boy in all the ways English literature tells us special boys ought to be. Harry is a hero, following the tidy path of the classical hero’s journey. But what are the limitations of building characters and building worlds this way? What kinds of stories and perspectives are missing when authors rely on such tried tropes? Join us for a thorough unpacking of Harry’s special-boy-hero-complex and don’t forget to prepare your quills and parchment–you may want to take notes.
Be sure to follow Witch, Please on Twitter and Instagram @ohwitchplease and let us know what you think of the episode through a review on Apple Podcasts. As always, you can join our Patreon for exclusive content including bonus interviews, Q&As, Watch Alongs and more — our tiers range from $2-$13!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to which please a rebooted podcast about the Harry Potter world. |
| 0:10.0 | I'm Marcel Kossman and I'm Hannah McGregor and holy shit Marcel we're back we're back |
| 0:18.8 | so before we get into the specific content for this, our pilot episode. |
| 0:25.0 | We thought it might be a good idea to talk a little about some of the high-level principles |
| 0:30.6 | and assumptions of this podcast, |
| 0:33.2 | as well as the thorny question of what it means |
| 0:37.0 | to be making a Harry Potter podcast in 2020 |
| 0:41.4 | when we know some uncomfortable truths about JK Rolling and her very very bad opinions. |
| 0:48.7 | Yeah, those of you who have listened to the original run of the podcast, you will be familiar with our lack of concern about what we can |
| 1:05.0 | JK Rolling says is true versus what we can find |
| 1:10.0 | what we call textual evidence for. |
| 1:12.2 | So often when we study any kind of literature, |
| 1:16.4 | we are looking for what we call textual evidence. |
| 1:19.6 | And so that means just by looking at the words on the page can you find proof for this thing. |
| 1:26.6 | And that doesn't mean that we want to ignore what rolling is saying and pretend that the texts are perfect and without flaw. |
| 1:36.0 | Looking seriously at the textual evidence that Harry Potter provides us with shows you that the texts are also pretty flawed, and it's not going |
| 1:47.4 | to shock you to find out that they're often flawed in ways that align pretty strongly with the flaws of the Creator. |
| 1:55.6 | Definitely. |
| 1:59.6 | And so we talk about those flaws, we talk about the problems with it, and we talk about the ways that they are hurtful, and |
| 2:11.0 | Hannah, why do we do that? Why do we bother talking about these things |
| 2:14.5 | that are hurtful in these things that we love? |
| 2:16.9 | Why not just pretend that they don't exist |
... |
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