The Black Cauldron Ep. 3: A Realz Harry Potter Series (Chamber of Secrets Part 1)

Welcome to a new quarantine project brought to you by the RealzTenisFanz Podcast! We are excited to have the lovely Deb (@shackle52) that most of you already know from twitter to join Realz (@realztenisfanz) and Janina (@jlr78) as we break down the Harry Potter series while Andreen is locked up in Azkaban for not sharing our love of this magical world! We will be taking a literary dive into all 7 Harry Potter books in chronological order. We hope you will be an active part of this series. We welcome as always suggestions, comments, criticism, praise, questions and nuanced insights. Be warned that there might be some cuss words but we will strive to never go beyond PG-13 rating.

In this episode we, “conclude” Book 1: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone/Philosopher's Stone. We get to the People and the Plot of the opening book. We deliberate on the “Trinity”: Harry, Hermione and Ron. We begin to ask the question as to whether Hermione is the real hero of the group. How does one function in a magical world with the power of magic at your fingertip? Why does Ron have an old wand, a hand-me-down from his brother Charlie? What of the Weasleys and their status in the magical world? Bullying in the magical world? Did we all hate Professor Snape from the start? What of the ending? What stood out for us?

The answer to last episode’s trivia is given. The trivia for this episode is: In an effort to secure the Sorcerer/Philosopher’s stone, the Hogwart’s teachers set various obstacles in connecting chambers underneath the school. Professor Snape’s effort saw him placing various portions in a row with clues to decipher their order so that one can either get through to the final chamber, leave safely, be stuck in the chamber or succumb to a poisonous death, depending on the bottle one chooses. You should find the information in the book on pages 228-229 or in Chapter 16 of Book. Read through the instructions and arrange them from Left to Right. Your responses on be on Twitter (DM, tweet) or in the comment section. Each of us host, will also have to work it out.

As promised here are a series of questions we hope to answer and consider through our journey of the Harry Potter Book Series.

No one asks Superman why the Holocaust happened on his watched? (Side note, the original inventors were Jewish men) yet Black Panther had to reconcile slavery and that was an overarching theme within it, Africa v the African Diaspora...Real world history becomes an issue when the fantasy world is rooted in the real world. Therefore,

1) Does fantasy world have to deal with real world history?

2) How do you think fantasy world can deal with real world history?
3) Is it too complex for fantasy to deal with especially if it is children lit?

4) Why do fantasies always replicate many of the isms of the real world? For example, men are often the stronger character. Women as secondary characters. White characters take the lead. Characters of colour are often cast in subordinate roles. Able-ism Queer and oddities portrayals. Capitalism wins out even in fantasies. Class issues. Ageism

5) Is this marketing, propaganda or just writing what they know?

6) Is it that fantasies are mere continuation of real world events to maintain status quo if they are saying magic has to fight epic battles for one or the few?

7) Is this escapism?

8) Magic as a solution for anything or something?

Music by:

Ancient Trials by VGM Mark H | https://soundcloud.com/user-656562764
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