One of the over-arching meta-themes of the Harry Potter books is, without a doubt, choice. From early on the books the theme of choice is empasised, when the Sorting Hat defers to Harry’s wish to be in Gryffindor, or when Dumbledore makes it clear to Harry that it is his choices, far more than abilities that make him the wizard that he is. It’s clear that J.K. Rowling is a proponent of the idea that we make ourselves who we are and are ultimately responsible for who we become.

Putting aside a scientific discussion of free will and determinism, a greater question, from within the stories themselves, comes to light. With the conclusion of Book 7, and the revelation of Dumbledore’s less than altruistic motives, does J.K. Rowling’s position on free will and choice change? Did Harry, in fact, make all those choices of his own free will, or, perhaps, was he influenced by forces beyond his control? Despite Dumbledore’s protestations to the contrary, could Harry ever have avoided the final showdown with the Dark Lord, had he simply chosen to walk away?

In this week’s episode, we examine the nature of free will and choice as presented in the books after Book 7, and what J.K. Rowling might be saying about what it means to be free.

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Check out some of the books we talked about on this week’s episode.

Make sure to check out Penny’s post Deathly Hallows: One Year Later for a rundown on all that’s happened since Book 7 was released.

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In this week’s episode we continued our discussion on Power as the prevaling theme in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. We specifically addressed the invisibility cloak and Mirror of Erised and their roles in bringing the theme to life. We also had some great listener comments in MP3 form from: Shimon, Aaron, David & Christian, and Travis (from the Hogs Head Pubcast).

News was slow this week but we discussed a couple of interesting news items.

We are enjoying the listener participation so please send your voice comments to us in mp3 format to harrypotterprogs at yahoo dot com as soon as possible. We will be starting our discussion on the Patterns of Book 2 so we’d love to hear what ya’ll have to say. Please keep the comments to around 1 minute in length.

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In our first episode of Patterns in Potter for Book 1, we take a look at the circumstances of Harry’s childhood and how that shaped him into the young man we meet right before being plunged into the wizarding world.  The rush of power, along with a less-than-clear message on the nature of right and wrong make up Harry’s first year at Hogwarts. 

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In the news:

• JK Rowling to be the guest speaker at Harvard commencement ceremonies. If you are in Harvard, we would love to be part of your extended family at this special time.
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie won a Golden Tomato Award.
• Alan Rickman does not talk about the character of Severus Snape.
• Filming for HBP has started in Gloucester.
• Ace of Cakes premeired last week with a cake that was used at the LA Premiere of OoTP. Duff Goldman, if you googled your name and are reading this- we want you to come on our show. We are in Baltimore. You rawk!!!!!!!!!!!!
• It doesn’t look like Del Toro will be directing Deathly Hallows.
• JK Rowling has received a South Bank Award. She spoke of her split from Harry being more painful than any relationship ending.
• Lord Richard Attenborough feels left out of all the Potter-hoopla.

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download an mp3 directly.

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