Over at Buzzfeed, Krystie Lee Yandoli has 13 notions about Harry Potter — The Boy Who Lived and the Wizarding World he inhabits — and how his story is connected to practices of social justice.
It’s a list (never give up; avoid blind allegiance; check your privilege), so it doesn’t reproduce too well in this venue, but there is this gem about why picking your buddies is at least as important as understanding what you’re up against:
There needs to be an element of assurance and reliability between people who organize together for justice. Dumbledore trusts Snape, Harry trusts Dumbledore, and everyone else trusts Harry; there’s clearly a trickle-down effect in who others have confidence in. It’s important to know who you can count on in dark times when everything seems bleak.
Of course, any decent connection from Potter to matters of justice merits mention of Dolores Umbridge, the cloying, unredeemed, hatchet-wielding corporate toady and desirer of power we first meet in “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” For my money, it was the adaptation of the fifth book that remains the most potent in the eight-movie franchise because it spoke most clearly to how easily power is subject to corruption and misuse.