20 years later, ‘Harry Potter’ is still relevant
It’s been 20 years since “Harry Potter” has hit the bookshelves in the US. Since then, JK Rowling’s young adult series has expanded to a film series, a spin-off film series, companion books and a play.
Fans of the franchise have expanded media/mediums of the story in all sorts of directions, including podcasts to keep the ‘Harry Potter’ series relevant are the podcasts created to honor the ‘Boy Who Lived.’ Here are three that any fan of the series would enjoy.
Harry Potter and the Sacred Text
For some, the ‘Harry Potter’ is very much a sacred text. And in the case of Vanessa Zoltan and Casper ter Kuile, used that as a way to create a weekly podcast centering around the boy who lived.
Each episode covers a chapter through a particular theme, such as the theme of gratitude for ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’s’ fifth chapter.
What is great their method of choosing a theme for each chapter is that it allows for discussions that otherwise might be overlooked. Such as when they were disusing the gratitude, Zoltan and ter Kuile point out how Harry and Sirius had a certain level of gratitude for being able to complain who had a worse summer because of being locked up in their respective homes.
These themes, which run in topic from ‘anger’ to ‘beauty’ to ‘glory’ lends the podcast to explore the series into a deeper context.
Potterless
Michael Schubert’s podcast Potterless has provided me – and other listeners – the opportunity to experience the series almost the way we did upon our first reading.
How Schubert has managed this is by reading the series for the first time as a guy in his mid-20s. This has provided Schubert to point out certain plot holes that fans may have overlooked. For example: pretty much everything to do with Quidditch: why there aren’t any alternates on the teams or how the scoring system at times makes no sense.
With Potterless, I’ve often found myself laughing at some of Schubert’s theories. One of the funniest theories he’s came up with was he fell for the red herring of Barty Bagman being the villain in ‘Goblet of Fire’ that fans still mock him for it after a year’s worth of new episodes.
The Real Weird Sisters
The Real Weird Sisters’ podcast is hosted by real-life sisters Alice Asleson and Martha Krebill.
What this weekly podcast does well is that Asleson and Krebill bring in a sense of humor the only true lovers of the ‘Harry Potter’ series, such as how Hermione would be clutching a stitch or poking fun at Fudge.
Beyond their usual weekly episodes on ‘Harry Potter’ chapters, Asleson and Krebill have done several episodes in which they sort characters from movies and TV series such as ‘Game of Thrones,’ ‘How I Met Your Mother,’ and ‘Hocus Pocus.’
These Sorting Hat special episodes provide a way for fans to get an extra kick to hear where characters from their favorite shows or movies would be in Hogwarts houses.
Not to mention that Asleson and Krebill, along with the other podcasts I’ve mentioned, have a way of connecting ‘Harry Potter’ series to their day-to-day lives in one way or another.
This is a part of the magic of the ‘Harry Potter’ series: that even after 20 years of the first book being published, the series is still impacting people’s lives.
