Thank you very much for that, really enjoyed it.

Arka, personnaly, I think that there will be some meaningful things hidden among the funny bits of DD commentary.

I think Travis hit on what you’re thinking when he said, it’s not as if JKR sits down & plans out each day how to write morals into her works but that she does have a moral & ethical framework that she uses & that it flows out of who she is, as you have so clearly pointed out.

Naturally projects her own real life wishes and hopes into her characters just as she may project her own feelings and behaviors onto them.

In that sense she is not injecting morals from a logical standpoint but rather from an emotional one.

Great episode Greg, Penny and Travis!

FYI Daniel Radcliffe was on Inside the Actors Studio this week!

Keep up the Potter-rific Podcasting!

The discussion on fairy tales was especially good, & I think you all were pretty insightful on it, even Greg. As with most things, I pretty much hold to the same view that Travis does. That JKR certainly had certain things in mind & a certain story to tell but not in the sense of intentionally writing a certain morality or of being evangelistic about it.

Also especially like Travis’ comments on the fundamentalism of tolerance or the intolerance of tolerance.

Hope you can make it!

I have such a hard time keeping up with Twitter sometimes. I’m glad you saw my Tweet and enjoyed the podcast.

I am sure as I can be that there was no ‘agenda’ or desire to ‘change the world’ on her part.

She did indeed say that she was writing the story that she would want to read (the Inklings said the same thing). Still, she also called the series “an extended argument for tolerance.” So it’s hard to argue that there was some kind of accidental moral vision that happened to make its way in there. I think she intended her moral vision to be there. She just wasn’t sitting down to write with precisely this type of mindset: “Today I’m going to teach about love, and I’m going to create characters X, Y, and Z and make the plot to go this way and that to teach that lesson.”

There’s an important thing to remember about J.K. Rowling. Despite the amount that she talks about her stories, she’s writing in a tradition that likes to keep the key interpretive/imaginative elements to her stories a secret. Rowling gives a whole lot of non-answers, and she’s exceedingly clever at dodging questions. Despite the overwhelming evidence for an alchemical framework for the series, she’s only referenced alchemy once in an interview. So I don’t think we can sum up her whole purpose for the series by her quote that she was writing the kind of story that she would want to read, as if that’s her only possible commentary on the matter. There’s likely a lot more to it than that, as even she admits (“extended argument for tolerance”).

JKR has said she wanted to write a book that she would enjoy reading herself. In that sense it naturally reflects her own way of seing the world.

I am sure as I can be that there was no ‘agenda’ or desire to ‘change the world’ on her part.

In so far as there have been positive effects flowing from the books, I would guess that JKR is really surprised and pleased about that. And now that she can stand back from the books, I suppose that it must be easier for her to see the consistent moral/ethical strands in amongst the many many other strands that thread their way through the seven books.

I’m glad Travis Tweeted about this cast or I’d have missed it!

It’s true that when I first discovered the Harry Potter podcasts, I preferred the top-hp-site ones, but now it’s great to hear intellectual, analytical talk about the books, looking at them as actual pieces of literature in addition to a source of fandomness. HP Progs and The Hog’s Head really bring out a lot of the greater qualities in Harry Potter.