Nineteen Years Later
And now for something completely different! Well... not completely. In this little extra bit we discuss some of the common criticisms of the Deathly Hallows epilogue.
Today is Nineteen Years Later!
All is well.
This transcript was provided by our excellent volunteer transcription team! Thanks to:
Transcriber: Abbey
If you’re interested in joining the team, send us an email!
[Theme music (Wolfstar by the Whomping Willows: You know we really love you/It ain’t our place to judge you/You’re feeling scared about it/Naturally/There’s no point in hiding/So feel free to start confiding/If you need a good friend/You can count on me/You can count on me/You can count on me)]
Sequoia: Oh, what are… what are you doing in my house? Buddy?
Kim: Hey, buddy. Hey.
Sequoia: Why? What are you…? Why are… why are you here?
Kim: I brought something for us to talk about.
Sequoia: Oh god, why?
Kim: Because…
Sequoia: It's not time. It's Wednesday.
Kim: Yeah. We're gonna talk about something else today. No fanfic.
Sequoia: No fanfic?
Kim: Yeah. See, I brought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows because it's almost epilogue day.
Sequoia: Oh! It's…
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: It's nineteen years later.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: It's nineteen years later.
Kim: Yeah. We…
Sequoia: Shit, dude.
Kim: We have hit that date, which seemed so far away in 2007.
Sequoia: Right. At… when we were young and impressionable. Were we impressionable? I don’t know.
Kim: I don’t… I don’t know. I don’t know. So I thought… I thought it could be fun for us to sit down and have a little chat about… about our feelings about the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows epilogue.
Sequoia: Which is actually really controversial.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: This is a controversial topic.
Kim: Yeah, it super is. I mean…
Sequoia: People usually love it or hate it. I… I don't know many people who fall in the middle.
Kim: Yeah. It… it… it really sparked a lot of opinions, especially at the very beginning. I don't know. I feel like I've mellowed towards it with time. I liked it at the beginning, though. I didn't hate… I never hated it.
Sequoia: I always liked it.
Kim: I thought it was kind of weird how some of it went down.
Sequoia: Okay. [Kim laughs] My favorite… my favorite criticism of the epilogue is, like, urgh, why would Harry name all his kids…
Kim: Because…
Sequoia: ‘Cause he’s fuckin’ like…
Kim: Because he's an idiot!
Sequoia: That is…
Kim: Like Harry would name his kids after people he knew because he's a sentimental idiot.
Sequoia: Like, a hundred percent.
Kim: Like, that’s…
Sequoia: That is not out of character.
Kim: No, that's a hundred percent in character. And also, I feel like maybe it's a little out of character for Ginny not to have been like, what the fuck's wrong with you? We're not naming our kid after Snape!
Sequoia: Yeah, I feel like that's the one where she might have been like, mmm… but honey, can we just not do that?
Kim: I guess she got to pick the next one's middle name.
Sequoia: Lily Luna. She probably picked Luna.
Kim: I would guess that she picked Luna.
Sequoia: Yeah. So…
Kim: But Harry got the other one?
Sequoia: But still.
Kim: He got all the first names and… I don't know.
Sequoia: He's… he defeated the Dark Lord!
Kim: Oh! Oh, I'm sorry! He would… he totally would like pull that card out all the time, also, he's like, I'm the chosen one!
Sequoia: [laughs] I’m a hero!
Kim: Ginny’s like, oh my god, I have to go play Quidditch.
Sequoia: Exactly. So I know… you know, I can see… I can buy all of it.
Kim: Oh, yeah, sure.
Sequoia: Especially… well, I mean, I definitely see where you're coming from on the Ginny maybe not being okay about the Snape one.
Kim: I feel like no one should have been okay with that, though.
Sequoia: Especially because, well, Ginny actually went through the…
Kim: Yeah!
Sequoia: …her seventh year of Hogwarts…
Kim: Yeah!
Sequoia: …with Snape as the headmaster. And Harry didn't have to do that. He didn't have to endure that.
Kim: [laughs] It's just… it's just so confusing to me. I mean, this… this speaks more to like characterization of Snape than anything else, which maybe we don't want to get into today.
Sequoia: Too much! Too much.
Kim: ‘Cause we could go for hours and hours and hours about that. [laughs] But yeah, it just… I don't know. I feel like…
Sequoia: Yeah. She might not have been down with that name. But as far as, like, that being one of the number one criticisms of the epilogue…
Kim: It… No, it doesn't make sense to me.
Sequoia: I don't buy it. No.
Kim: No.
Sequoia: That's definitely in character.
Kim: No. Yeah. No. I… yeah, I like the epilogue. I… so at the very beginning, like before book seven came out, I was strongly in the camp that Harry should die. I wanted Harry to die in book seven. I was like, wait, this needs to be like super serious literature. And in order for that to happen, the hero needs to die.
Sequoia: Right.
Kim: [laughs] As I’ve gotten older…
Sequoia: All good books… [laughs]
Kim: Yeah, right?
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: Right?
Sequoia: No, I definitely see where you were coming from. I wanted… I thought like a really central character has to die.
Kim: I mean, so many people did die.
Sequoia: Yeah, but none of the like… you know.
Kim: None of the trio. Yeah.
Sequoia: Yeah, none of the… none of the trio died, which was like… I was like, eh, I could have seen her killing off Ron, but I thought that would have been a big…
Kim: That would have been too much. I wanted Harry to die.
Sequoia: I wanted Ginny to die.
Kim: Oh, yeah! Ginny should have died. [both laugh]
Sequoia: [laughing] Wait, why? [both keep laughing]
Kim: Just gotta start my Ginny bashing again.
Sequoia: [still laughing] Why are we doing that now?
Kim: I can’t… at this point, I can’t stop. [laughs]
Sequoia: It's too… it’s because we've been reading too much fanfiction.
Kim: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Sequoia: But honestly, I was like… I was like, okay, here's what's gonna happen. Ginny is gonna die and Harry's gonna watch her die. Voldemort's gonna kill her. And then he's gonna be like, nooo!
Kim: Oh. That’s so cliché. I'm sorry.
Sequoia: I know! But that's… I was like, somebody's got to die.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: And I feel like this is the way that it's gonna happen. And…
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: …in the… in the end, like, a lot of people died. But…
Kim: Yeahhh.
Sequoia: It was like… it was like killing multiple people just to like… be like, well, I killed all these people. I know I didn't kill like Harry. Like, you know, he should have died. But you know.
Kim: You know, as… as… as I've gotten older I have… I don't feel like Harry should have died at this point. He had such a shit childhood that I just want him to be happy.
Sequoia: Yeah, yeah.
Kim: Honestly.
Sequoia: That's true. That's true.
Kim: Like, Harry Potter started as a children's book series, right? And so it's okay for the main character to survive and to live happily ever after, I think.
Sequoia: Which he really doe… like, the epilogue does show him…
Kim: He deserves it.
Sequoia: …like, having this wonderful family. And…
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: …you know, like… you know, he's sending his kids off to Hogwarts without a worry.
Kim: Yeah! I… now that I'm older, I feel like I like that a lot. Like, that is what I would want for him. I don't know. Maybe it's just because that's what I want for…
Sequoia: Dawww.
Kim: No, I don't want the kids though. Jesus. [laughs]
Sequoia: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there are several valid criticisms of the epilogue as well, which don't make me…
Kim: Like what?
Sequoia: The… the way that they do the whole interaction with Draco. [Kim sighs] And how it's like… it just seems really like it's forced into there.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Like, it didn't need to be there. There was no reason for that interaction to occur, you know?
Kim: Yeah, it's just like a nod. Like a, ‘sup.
Sequoia: Yeah, they're like, hey, look who’s over there, and then Draco’s like, ‘sup. And then they're like, oh, look at his kid. He looks like a jackass.
Kim: I mean… [both laugh] I meaaan…
Sequoia: Yeah. And then, you know. I think it is… it’s… it’s…
Kim: I think it’s… it's… it’s…
Sequoia: …funny.
Kim: It's kind of good just to see that they're… they've all, like, moved on from the war, and that Draco didn't necessarily suffer any punishments for his part in it, but at the same time, maybe he fuckin’ should have!
Sequoia: He totally should have, and you know, like, maybe he did. Like, nineteen years is a long time.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Maybe he… there was some kind of a punishment or something. But like… and he still seems like an asshole, because they're like…
Kim: Oh, for sure.
Sequoia: Oh, god, look at him over there. Don't… don't… don't look too much, don’t everybody don’t look at once. You know, like… [both laugh] They’re doing that thing, and he's like, looking all pissed off.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Like he is.
Kim: Yeah. [laughs]
Sequoia: It just is like weird and seems unnecessary…
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: …to be there. So, like, that's a criticism that I find valid. But that also, I don't really care.
Kim: Yeah. I mean, I feel like I'm… I had so much of an emotional attachment to so many of the characters that the epilogue could have been, like, hundreds of pages long, just detailing what everyone was up to. And you know, that would have been fun.
Sequoia: Yeah, so and so got this job.
Kim: But also stupid.
Sequoia: And did this. Yeah.
Kim: We're not reading The Silmarillion here.
Sequoia: [laughs] Oh, god. Yeah.
Kim: And then Newt, son of… Luna.
Sequoia: Yeah. Son of blahlahlah. Yeah.
Kim: What are her kids’ names? Luna’s kids?
Sequoia: Luna’s kids are… Rolf… no, she marries Rolf.
Kim: Does she marry… I have no clue.
Sequoia: They’re Lorkin and Lysander. [Kim snorts] Don't… I… I don't know. I… I can't…
Kim: I have… I have so little knowledge of the, like, extra material.
Sequoia: I know way too much about the next generation. [Kim laughs] I like am embarrassed about it, actively.
Kim: Do you… are you like a huge fan? I need to know.
Sequoia: Of the next generation?
Kim: Yeah. Do you… do you read a lot of…?
Sequoia: Yeah, okay!
Kim: I mean, we… we… we… the… the date… the end date that we set for the podcast means that we can't cover any next generation fanfiction yet.
Sequoia: Which I think is smart and good, but I read a ton of next gen fanfiction after seven came out.
Kim: Yeah? Yeah?
Sequoia: Yeah, a ton of it.
Kim: [whispering] Ahhh, yes!
Sequoia: And like… which is why I was so excited about Cursed Child, but we're not talking about Cursed Child right now. Ughhhhahhhh!
Kim: No, no, we are absolutely not talking about that, because… because…
Sequoia: We can’t go there because it will be not like a fifteen minute little fun extra bit. It will be a five hour long…
Both: …tirade! [Sequoia laughs]
Kim: Oh my god. Yeah, no, we're not going to touch that right now.
Sequoia: But like the epilogue itself, like, the kids seem, you know, James seems, like, really Jamesy. I don't know.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: He seems like very much like James Potter and not as much like Harry Potter, which is probably why he… you know, he seems to relate to Albus a little bit more. He's like, okay, yeah, James go get on the train, whatever. Bye.
Kim: Yeah. Stop… stop… stop…
Sequoia: Stop.
Kim: …doing whatever it is you're doing.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: Where did you get that from? Oh my god. [both laugh]
Sequoia: Yeah!
Kim: Yeah, James is kind of like a spoiled little asshole, which I like a lot.
Sequoia: Yeah. And I… I like that he was able to grow up that way, I guess.
Kim: Yeah, exactly! Yeah. So he grew up like rich and privileged and he's kind of an asshole. I love it.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Daddy's famous!
Kim: [whiny voice] Yeah. Yeah.
Sequoia: Yeah. And also, I guess, you know, their Mom's a famous Quidditch player and their Dad's saved the world. Like, what do you… how else do you fuckin’ grow up, I guess.
Kim: Yeah. Yeah. I like a lot of the epilogue, I guess is what I would say.
Sequoia: Yeah, I like a lot of it. There's some silly dialogue, which I like because it contrasts so well to like… you finish book seven and like…
Kim: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Sequoia: …everything is just like, oh my god, so many people just die.
Kim: Everything's awful.
Sequoia: Yeah. Like, it's uplifting…
Kim: I’m really sad.
Sequoia: …but is it uplifting? Like, I'm still sad.
Kim: Not only that, this is like the end of a… gosh.
Sequoia: Era. It’s…
Kim: What would it have been for us? It would have been most of our lives at that point. Back in 2007. This was… this was a many year journey that we had all taken and…
Sequoia: Yeah. I mean, I… yeah, it had probably been… wow, it had been a long time.
Kim: Yeah, exactly.
Sequoia: Yeah. So yeah, there was a lot to be sad about. I remember just, like, sitting there sobbing over it.
Kim: Oh, for sure!
Sequoia: Like tear staining the pages.
Kim: Yeah! No. I think there are tear stained pages…
Sequoia: Yeah!
Kim: … in this copy right here that I've got in front of me.
Sequoia: Yeah, me too, as well.
Kim: Let's not… let’s not…
Both: Let’s not look.
Sequoia: We don’t need to… we don’t need to… [both make cagey noises] But yeah, like, it was so sad. And then in the epilogue, you get these nice like…
Kim: Beats of the characters just, like, living their lives and being happy and doing well. And seeming well adjusted too.
Sequoia: Exactly, yeah.
Kim: Like, Harry and Ron and Hermione all seem like they've come out pretty well.
Sequoia: Yeah, they're all able to like joke, and…
Kim: Which is nice to see. Yeah.
Sequoia: They have well adjusted children.
Kim: Yeah. Definitely.
Sequoia: We get a little bit of Teddy Lupin in there too.
Kim: Which is like… just like in the background there.
Sequoia: He's still there!
Kim: He's alive.
Sequoia: He's… he’s there! He did… they did it.
Kim: Yep. They… he survived.
Sequoia: He's okay. He's okay.
Kim: He's probably okay.
Sequoia: Makin’ out, so he's probably fine.
Kim: [mumbling] Yeah, he’s got a girlfriend. He’s fine, you know. Whatever. [laughs]
Sequoia: Yeah, it's very, like, light hearted, and… and I like that about it.
Kim: It doesn't give us a lot of information about what the characters are doing with their lives. So we can kind of fill it in ourselves. Like…
Sequoia: Not only that, it's like it's focusing on the general condition of their lives.
Kim: Yeah. So they're doing well, but we don't know what they're up to. So…
Sequoia: Right.
Kim: It was nice to be able to fill that in. I mean, now there's like stuff that Jo's said. Jo.
Sequoia: Jo, our BFF? Jo.
Kim: Yeah. Our good friend, Jo. [both laugh]
Sequoia: [singing] Hey, Jo!
Kim: I’m so sorry we're doing this. No, I got off track. Sorry. Yeah. So I like that. I think the only person's job who you find out is Neville’s, right?
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: Yeah. The only person you know what's happening, like, jobwise, is Neville. And I don't know, I think it's cool that you can see that he's doing well, but you don't… and they're all doing well. But you just don't like know exactly what it is. I don't… I don’t know where I was going with that thought.
Sequoia: No, I… yeah. I definitely agree that, like, it's cool to just, like, be able to not have to worry about anything else. It's just like, here are these people. Here's their general, like, state of being. They seem to be fine.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Everything's fine.
Kim: Yeah, I think it hits all the right points without providing, like, overload of information.
Sequoia: I do like the little Neville tidbit a lot, though.
Kim: I love it.
Sequoia: Just ‘cause like…
Kim: ‘Cause he would.
Sequoia: Also they’re, like just… you know.
Kim: It's just like he's really successful in something that he's good at. And that’s really nice to hear about him.
Sequoia: Yeah! And they’re like friends, and their kids know him.
Kim: Yeah!
Sequoia: And you know, it’s just, like…
Kim: Yeah! Really nice to see after his…
Sequoia: It’s really good to hear. Yeah.
Kim: …his childhood was so terrible.
Sequoia: Yeah, after much of his life was just so like… [both sigh]
Kim: Poor Neville.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: Poor Neville.
Sequoia: Yeah, so there is a… I love it. I love the epilogue. It’s very…
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: I don't know, it's heartwarming and blah, blah, blah. And like, people can rag on it for that. But…
Kim: I don't know why you would.
Sequoia: Why? Yeah.
Kim: Sometimes things are nice!
Sequoia: Like, the epil… it’s here to show us everything's fine! Why can’t everything just be fine?!
Kim: [laughs] Sometimes things are nice, and they go well, and that's okay.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: So just accept it.
Sequoia: Why’s everybody gotta ruin everything?
Kim: [laughs] Yeah.
Sequoia: Yeah, I also feel like, you know, from a fanfiction perspective, it was given a lot of criticism for being fanfictiony. Like, people really came down on it specifically for resembling fanfiction.
Kim: You know, in light of the other next generation stuff that's come out that is similar to fanfiction.
Sequoia: [clears throat] That is fanfiction and not canon. [both cough meaningfully]
Kim: I would disagree with that sentiment, ‘cause we have seen how bad it can get.
Sequoia: Yeah, for sure. And like, I think the reason that people felt that way was because of, you know, the things that we've talked about. That, like… Harry naming his kids what he named his kids and people were like, urgh that’s just some fanfiction garbage!
Kim: You know.
Sequoia: And I’m like, no, that's just some accurately characterized Harry Potter stuff here.
Kim: Yeah, yeah. Like Hermione and Ron didn't name their kids after people. Their kids are named, like…
Sequoia: Normal shit.
Kim: …how they would name them, you know.
Sequoia: Like, old… old timey names.
Kim: Whatever, yeah.
Sequoia: But like, that's fine.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Hermione! You know, like she… she's gonna name her kids, whatever. She's got a weird name.
Kim: Yeah. So they didn't name their… I mean, yeah, I think the names are fine.
Sequoia: Yeah. So I think it came… it came under a lot of fire for that. And I had read, you know, a lot of fanfiction at that point that took place after the final battle.
Kim: Mhm.
Sequioa: Or, you know, as far as the epilogue had gone. Nineteen years later, twenty five years later, whatever.
Kim: Uh huh.
Sequoia: And this doesn't actually really resemble it.
Kim: A lot of that stuff is Hermione teaching at Hogwarts and then hooking up with Snape, as far as I've seen. So… [laughs]
Sequoia: Do not get me started about Hermione/Snape.
Kim: Soooo…
Sequoia: I don't want to talk about it or acknowledge its existence.
Kim: Soooo… [both laugh]
Sequoia: Yeah, there's a lot of… you know, a lot of the fanfiction from before the seventh book came out about stuff that's in the future is very centered around, like, what are they doing?
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Who are they married to?
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Da da da da da. You know. Which is not what the epilogue is.
Kim: No. It's just like a brief window on their lives, I would say, which is nice. Anyway.
Sequoia: But you know, I think it's nice that he tells him that he can pick. He tells Albus that he can pick.
Kim: Yeah!
Sequoia: If he wants.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: It's weird that he didn't tell his other kids that, but I guess James is just like, ahhh, whatever!
Kim: James wouldn’t have cared. James is like, I’m James! I’m the son of Harry Potter! I’m a GryffinDOR! Look at me! Everyone! Is everyone looking at me? [Sequoia laughs] No? Why isn't everyone looking at me? Noooo! [laughs]
Sequoia: Nooo! Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I guess that makes sense. They still got their youngest kid that has yet to go.
Kim: Yeah. Anyway.
Sequoia: Anyway. Yeah. I think… I li… I like it.
Kim: Oh, yeah. For sure. For sure.
Sequoia: And if you don't like it, that's also like a valid thing, but…
Kim: Yeah. Send us some messages about why we're wrong about this.
Sequoia: Tweet at us!
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Being like, the epilogue is pure trash.
Kim: Yes!
Sequoia: Here are the five reasons.
Kim: Yes. Tell us why we're wrong. I would love to hear it.
Sequoia: I… yeah. I would really like to get into some discussions about it.
Kim: Fights! Let's get in some internet slap fights about the epilogue. [both laugh]
Sequoia: Sounds like a great way to spend nineteen years later.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: But…
Kim: Yeah. You get to spend it with meeee!
Sequoia: Oh, Jesus. [both laugh] Yeah. So we want to do more stuff like this. This sort of little short thing that we've done for you today.
Kim: Yeah!
Sequoia: They will be available for you to access via our Patreon that we're going to be launching…
Kim: Oooooooh.
Sequoia: …with episode fooouuur!
Kim: Oh my gosh, this is scary.
Sequoia: Yeah, it’s very scary. But you know, we just wanted to like…
Kim: Yeah, so we're going to be putting out a bunch of bonus content like this. And we're also going to be putting up some, like, stories that we have written/are writing. Maybe some other audio content and who knows what else? Yeah.
Sequoia: Yeah, it will grow and evolve with time, but that'll get released with our fourth episode. So keep a lookout for that. Especially if you liked this weird little short thing that we did.
Kim: Or if you like the podcast, you know.
Sequoia: Or if you like the podcast, or if you just like us.
Kim: I can't imagine anyone does that.
Sequoia: As people. A lot of people like me.
Kim: Oh.
Sequoia: Sorry.
Kim: So that’s just me. [Sequoia laughs] It’s just me. I mean, every work needs a villain.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: That's what…
Sequoia: There's only two of us, so. [both laugh] All right.
Kim: Our thanks as always to the Whomping Willows for the use of our theme song. It's their amazing song Wolfstar. Yeah.
Sequoia: This is a monumental historic day in Harry Potter fandom. So here's this thing. Thanks.
Kim: Bye!
Sequoia: Bye!