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.

You can listen to this episode using the player below, or download it directly as an mp3.

In this week’s episode we continued our discussion on the theme of identity in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We did a brilliant (in Greg’s opinion) deconstruction of some of the characters in the book: specifically the individuals who were attacked by the basilisk and the so to speak cosmic justice of why they were attacked and the karma involved in that. It was a really interesting discussion and we can’t wait to get your thoughts on it.We also had some AMAZING listener comments from Michelle and Michal. They were both very well thought out and very well presented. Here are some links we promised you during the show:

• Potter’s Army Podcast
• Real life invisibility cloak
• HPProgs listener forums
• UK call-in number

We really want to hear from you so please be in touch!! In the news:

• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix nominated for a boatload of Saturn Awards.
• A scene that wasn’t in the book will be added to the Half Blood Prince Movie.
• It is looking like David Yates might direct Deathly Hallows.
• Dan Radcliffe won an award for taking it all off.
• Harry Potter, addictive? You tell me.

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

In this week’s episode we started to discuss the theme of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Identity.   As usual, the theme is present from the beginning of the book at the Dursley’s  and continues to make its appearance throughout the book. We talked about Harry’s struggle with identity and how it relates to other characters like Dobby, Gilderoy Lockhart, and Colin Creevey.  We also talked about how Harry struggles to create  his own identity while trying to deal with the famous name that was thrust upon him in his infancy.

We started the episode with two excellent audio comments from Travis and Nathalie.  Both comments really set the stage for the discussion and we look forward to receiving more of these comments.  Please send in your audio comments to harrypotterprogs at yahoo dot com and remember, please keep them as close to one minute as possible.

On the announcement front, I (Penny) made an exciting announcement about Portus 2008- so make sure to listen for that. Also, this episode was monumental because I did a great job (in my humble opinion) diverting the conversation as much if not more than Greg ever does (with the exception of the news of course when Greg was in his finest tangential form).  We’ll blame it on the head cold which is also more than obvious throughout the episode.

In the news:

• Jim Dale won a Grammy Award for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:  Oh Hareeeeeee (Sorry, I couldn’t resist)!
• BAFTA Awards were last week.  Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix didn’t win anything.  But we got some interesting sound bytes from Daniel Radcliffe and Jason Isaacs.
• Fleur Delacour won’t be making an appearance in the Half-Blood Prince movie.  I am only sad about this because I liked the scene in the end of HBP when Fleur and Molly hug. Oh well.
• Harry Potter producers Davids Heyman and Barron remain non-comittal about splitting the 7th book into two movies.
• JK Rowling has picked up the James Joyce Award.  She said some interesting new things.
• Actors have been cast in the roles of Fenrir Greyback and Amycus Carrow.

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