Interesting video, thanks for sharing. For those who don’t want to watch, it’s just a list of all ways JKR showed she’s been in favour of free speech for a decade (actually now 2 decades) through the Harry Potter stories, mainly film 5, with Umbridge held up as the primary antagonist. This is all a revelation to the video maker who says didn’t notice this when she watched as a child. It was all glaringly obvious to me, but then I read HP books as they came out when I was a teenager, in the backdrop of living in an abusive family. The Nazi and WW2 parallels, warnings against fascism and authoritarianism and Umbridge’s narcissistic character (sweet as pie persona on the outside and viciously evil on the inside) were very stark to me. Especially with the styling of film 5 when it came out, with its 1930s influence in the propaganda, Umbridge’s outfits, and soldiers marching through the Ministry. There’s a similar narrative to Umbridge/abusive adults running through Roald Dahl’s books, who of course served in the world wars as a pilot.
Interestingly the video maker didn’t pick up on the parallels between the Jews/Holocaust victims and the narrative around Mudbloods and treatment of house elves, except to briefly mention the statue of oppressed muggles in the Ministry of Magic. There was a whole section of free speech advocacy and equal rights for all in the storyline with Hermione setting up SPEW, which ultimately freed Dobby from the Malfoys in book 2.
I’m not usually in favour of too much dwelling in the past, but the VE events lately just bring to light to me how little the younger generations understand the terror of fascism and the values we must stand up for to prevent it happening again. This was drilled into me through sitting through many remembrance Sundays services as a child in the 90s. This video is a prime example of that lack of awareness and how quickly memory fades.