Yesterday I watched the Harry Potter reunion with my parents. At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. The books were always a giant part in my childhood and personality and I loved the movies as well, even when I was annoyed about things they left out or didn’t portray correctly. I also loved the cast, because they played these characters so so good.
But in the last couple of years I began to feel a growing distance towards the series, which I never thought to be possible. Suddenly, it wasn’t this warm place anymore where I could find comfort, but it instead annoyed me. And I have to say, I only have one person to blame for that, which is the author herself. First the publication of „the cursed child“, which, again, is nothing against the brilliant production or any of the actors on stage, but the fact that j.k.Rowling wrote something so utterly bizarre and called it canon made me distance myself from the whole wizarding world. And then there was everything that came after, every discriminating thing this person has said out loud, her opinions and statements in the last couple of years, including her hatred against trans people and her trying to make the books out to be more diverse and tolerant than they ever were, all this made me distance myself. And I noticed how many times her own horrible and dicriminating opinions found themselves in the books in one way or another.
And because of all that, I was surprised how much this reunion made me feel and relive, how I teared up from the start, from seeing all those actors and actresses again and to see them all interact with each other with so much love, all that made me so happy and nostalgic at the same time..
I‘m glad, that we got this reunion. They didn’t include j.k. as much as i had feared they would, and so I could just enjoy this reunion and cry over all the wonderful people involved in the movies, that passed on in the last couple of years.
And finally, I feel more connected to Harry Potter again, and that feels pretty good.
