On April 12, HBO made it official: We’re getting more Harry Potter. Not necessarily new Harry Potter – the reboot of Warner Bros. TV will adapt the plot of the seven main books and refresh the content of the first eight films in the franchise. According to the release, author JK Rowling will serve as an executive producer on the “decade-long series.”
Which begs the question: what would a Harry Potter show even look like in 2023? What could “Harry Potter, but again” accomplish that the originals didn’t? And do we think the new Harry Potter TV show means there will be more than one school of magic serving all of Asia?
In some ways, solving those questions may seem unimportant to the story of the boy who lived and his battle against he who must not be named. But for today’s audiences, it’s really the only promise left for the franchise, as Warner Bros. it milks into merchandise, games, movies, books, and now TV shows: a wizarding world that really matters today.
Harry Potter has become a particularly thorny subject since author JK Rowling created countless of them statements against transgender people. Her actions have colored public perception of the Harry Potter books and their adaptations: what was once seen as pivotal, loved, and formative for (at least) an entire generation of children is now something of a third rail. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to separate the author from her political statements and actions, which have clouded the air around the franchise – which begs the question of what Harry Potter could, or shouldare.
This particular adjustment has also made Rowling’s level of involvement very apparent. In the release for the Max Original show, Rowling said, “Max’s commitment to preserving the integrity of my books is important to me, and I look forward to being a part of this new adaptation that brings a degree of depth and detail will allow. only provided by a long television series.
It seems Rowling plans to adapt the series close to the source material. But even that raises questions about What exactly the show will add details. Over the years, Rowling has shared additional information about characters, making the series seem retroactively inclusive. There’s the fact that Rowling stated in a fan Q&A that Dumbledore is gay just a few months later Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published, although she famously left this information out of the books. For a while it remained largely unexplored in the Fantastic Beasts also movies.
But sometimes the material contained in the books is even more questionable. Character names – such as one of the few main characters of East Asian descent who is referred to as “Cho Chang” – and the tokenization they represent emphasized how shortsightedly white Rowling’s fabulous Britain (or at least its wizards) were. (Again: this is a world where four entire continents have the same wizarding school needs as a single country in Europe.) People have questioned the depiction of house-elves or werewolves in the books, and Jon Stewart recently made headlines for pointing it out how the Goblins of Gringotts play in anti-Semitic caricatures.
Photo: Warner Bros.
These are things that readers – especially young ones – might not even notice at first blush. But now these details are increasingly difficult to ignore and are in dire need of an update.
A new Harry Potter show could certainly rectify some of these things. A show would have more screen time to bring in more of the subplots worshiped in the books – more Nearly Headless Nick, or Fred and George heroics! More general Hogwarts shenanigans! A TV adaptation could also allow the story to add more characters of color to the main cast, even recasting the lead roles with people of color as Harry Potter and the Cursed Child did. Characters of color who were more known for their one-off lines could become protagonists, even if Harry Potter is still the white boy from the book cover. The world of Harry Potter can be reimagined and subjected to more scrutiny.
But honestly, wanting more of Harry Potter right now is enough to drive anyone crazy. Fans’ issues with the franchise are ingrained, whether at the grassroots level with the books or in more recent releases like Hogwarts legacy, which was embroiled in its own share of controversies. Even a company the size of Warner Bros. seems poised to join (although so many of the shows and movies that got the go-ahead with the HBO Max rebrand announcement were based on existing IPs).
Most tellingly, when announcing the new Harry Potter show, Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content, chose not to answer whether Rowling’s opinion, which widely criticized as transphobic, would influence the series. “I don’t think this is the forum,” said Blooms. “That’s a very online conversation, very nuanced and complicated and not something we get into.” He added that the priority is “what’s on the screen”, which is an “incredibly affirming and positive” story about “love and acceptance”.
Photo: Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images
But characterizing the discussions of transphobia and racism in Harry Potter as one “very online conversation” dismisses these topics as not serious. Rowling’s politics have caused some fans to stop spending money on new releases related to the franchise, to avoid supporting it in any way. There are new kids every day in new generations finding Harry Potter, whether through movies or books, and the ideas emphasized in these new releases and adaptations are important.
These ideas complicate a series dear to fans, and they deserve to be addressed if the series has any hope of being relevant. A fantastic world where gender is rigid and entire cultures have to imagine themselves wedged into a single school of wizardry doesn’t seem fantastic at all. It may be impossible to completely untangle Rowling from the series she created. But with her so involved in reimagining her story for TV in a new era, it’s hard to imagine Hogwarts looking like anything other than a very specific kind of wish-fulfillment.