Forgiveness: Mudbloods and Murmurs (Book 2, Chapter 7)
Harry Potter and the Sacred Text
Vanessa Zoltan, Casper ter Kuile & Ariana Nedelman
4.7 • 6.8K Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2021
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Vanessa and Matt explore the theme of Forgiveness in Chapter Seven of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. This week they discuss Ron's broken wand, the book's possible critiques of retaliation, and Hagrid's exile. Throughout the episode we consider the question: how can we understand forgiveness without putting an unfair burden on victims?
Thank you to Sarah for this week’s voicemail! Next week we’re reading Chapter 8, The Deathday Party, through the theme of Frustration.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Chapter 7 Mudbloods and Murmurs Harry spent a lot of time over the next few days dodging out of sight whenever he saw |
| 0:07.6 | Gildroy Lockhart coming down a corridor. Part or two avoid was Colin Crevy who seemed to have memorized Harry's schedule. |
| 0:15.8 | I'm Vanessa Zoltan and I'm Matt Potts. |
| 0:19.0 | And this is Harry Potter in the Sacred Text. |
| 0:21.7 | Matt, you are telling a story on the theme of forgiveness today, which I'm really excited about because you |
| 0:31.2 | truly are one of the world's most thoughtful academics on this topic. |
| 0:37.1 | You're welcome Harry Potter sacred text listeners. I've brought you a world expert on such an important theme. |
| 0:43.1 | I don't know if I'm an expert on forgiveness. I think I'm a person who's trying to redefine forgiveness |
| 0:46.7 | in a pretty basic way. And for that reason that means my story for forgiveness might not sound like |
| 0:51.5 | a story for forgiveness, but it might be a way for us to talk about something that happens in this |
| 0:55.3 | chapter. So I think the problem I have with forgiveness and the reason why I started researching it |
| 0:59.6 | is because I'm really worried about the way it's often used and abused by power to either shame victims |
| 1:07.4 | into not feeling the anger that they quite rightly feel. You know, we talked in a previous episode |
| 1:12.1 | about how anger can be good. And often forgiveness is read as the opposite of anger. Like, oh, |
| 1:18.0 | get over your anger and just forgive, right? And so it's rushing victims to not feel anger when I |
| 1:22.2 | think their anger might be quite warranted. And the other thing is that forgiveness is often read as |
| 1:26.7 | just a simple synonym for reconciliation. And so when you get over your anger, then you can be |
| 1:30.9 | friends again, but no, like maybe I don't trust you. And maybe you haven't made the amends or |
| 1:35.6 | done the kind of atoning work that is necessary for us to be in relationship again. Right? So for |
| 1:42.2 | me, the way I think about forgiveness is just sort of non-retalliation, not returning evil for evil. |
| 1:48.3 | Right? Like, that doesn't mean that I'm not so angry. It doesn't mean I don't get myself safe. |
| 1:52.4 | It doesn't mean that I don't keep a distance. Right? I think choosing not to retaliate is its own |
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