I’ve decided that finding out my idols have feet of clay is a good thing. In part, I’m deciding this out of necessity. With the direct contact between celebrities and fans facilitated by the Internet and 24-hour entertainment news, it’s easy to learn that J. K. Rowling is transphobic, that…
*ding ding ding* Ladies and gents and other esteemed persons, do we have a show for you tonight! In this corner, the reigning champion, protagonist of the fastest-selling book in history, Harry F***ing Pot-teeeeeer and his world of wizards, magic, and blood purity wars. Our challenger: young, scrappy, one of…
I did it! I got a copy of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by being patient and waiting until it was my turn to borrow it from Toronto Public Library. More amazingly, I avoided all but the slightest spoilers in the months between the premiere of the play and…
Last week, when I was sharing some thoughts about Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, I mentioned that including diversity of sexual orientations in a story doesn’t necessarily mean including sexual acts. I’d like to expand on that. The place and profession where I’m most cognizant of…
One thing — okay, one of the many things — that troubled me about J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is how it deals with murder. In the third book, we learn along with Harry that there are three Unforgiveable Curses: the Imperius Curse, which forces the caster’s will upon…
What do boy wizard Harry Potter and Pokémon trainer Ash Ketchum have in common? Apart from messy black hair? Answer: another kid against whom competition feels personal. Someone competing at the same level but for the other side. Someone whose actions hike up the in-story tension. In short… a rival.
(WARNING: Spoilers for Veronica Roth’s Divergent trilogy, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia, C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, the original Star Trek and Star Trek: the Next Generation movies, and various Sherlock Holmes stories and adaptations.) I w a r n e d y o u t h…
Back in the day, when I was an eager Harry Potter fan anticipating the next book, J. K. Rowling’s interviews intrigued me. The authors of the series I’d loved before were all dead; no one could post C. S. Lewis’s answers to fan questions online or ask E. Nesbit what…
I’m over sacrifice. In fiction, that is. I’m not quite as excited as I used to be about climaxes where Mr. Spock gasps out his last words on the other side of the radioactivity-shielding glass or Harry Potter whips off his Invisibility Cloak in the middle of a Death Eater…
If I went to Hogwarts, I’d want to be Sorted into Slytherin. But not because I like power or ambition, because I see myself as cunning or ruthless, or even because I like the idea of being a “bad girl.”