The original Harry Potter books have become a set of sacred texts
If you haven’t yet heard, HBO is unleashing a Harry Potter TV show sometime in the latter half of the decade. I’ve heard varying takes on this, with some sources saying 2026 while another I read even said 2027.
Frankly, I don’t know who’s telling the truth here, and I don’t care. It’s a TV series I don’t plan on watching, mainly because of the direction it’s heading if confirmations regarding the early cast members are true. Part of me is concerned that the series will be so unfaithful to the source material that it’ll completely change the way many think of the franchise.
The Libertarian Book Reviewer is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This is why the books, in their original or at least slightly revised forms, are becoming more sacred by the year. We’ve already seen something similar happen with Snow White recently, showing us that fans crave authenticity over forced diversity. As they should.
The biggest mistake so far with the Harry Potter TV showI recently read a piece from a blatantly leftist outlet (yes, I read such material) talking about why the new TV show should cast a white actor for Severus Snape instead of Paapa Essiedu.
While the author cherry-picked racism from fans’ criticisms in other series and used a carefully-crafted sample of posts on Twitter/X to drive their point home - along with playing the usual racial minorities are the victim game when audiences simply crave authenticity - at least they were on board with keeping Snape white.
Oh, and if you want to see the victim game being played, look no further than one of my all-time favorite videos:
Of course, they’ll cite DEI and pretend all the ‘good’ it’s done for the world. But they also fail to consider the drawbacks. I’ve read many posts on the topic, but a recent one from Jon Miltimore is the best example here.
Being that Hollywood can’t help but continually race swap major characters is bad enough as opposed to coming up with new ideas and franchises that place black, Hispanic, or Asian actors at the forefront, for the most part, anyway, we knew this was coming. And personally, I’d have supported it had they cast someone like Jorge Garcia (who is Chilean) to play Rubeus Hagrid.
But here’s the kicker - Garcia has in the past looked like Hagrid without even trying and could probably still pull it off. Couple that with the fact Garcia is a great actor who played one of the most memorable characters on Lost back when it was a thing, and I would’ve 1,000 percent been on board with it.
Either way, we knew a swap was coming. But casting a black man as Severus Snape is about the absolute worst mistake the show’s producers could make. It’s like they never read the books and explored the character’s backstory. If you haven’t, let me give you a rundown.
Severus Snape’s backstory is one of the series’ most tellingAlright, so Severus Snape was born to Eileen Prince and Tobias Snape, the latter of whom was rather neglectful and abusive. Further, Snape grew up in an area called Spinner’s End, located in Cokeworth.
He was rather poor, something we saw during the Pensieve scene in Chapter 33 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, entitled The Prince’s Tale. Snape met and was immediately smitten with Lily Evans before they even started their school career at Hogwarts.
While at Hogwarts from 1971 to 1978, Snape immediately became the target of relentless bullying, spearheaded by James Potter and Sirius Black, arguably the most popular boys in school. We saw the sheer extent of this bullying in Chapter 28 of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Snape’s Worst Memory.
Thanks for reading The Libertarian Book Reviewer! This post is public so feel free to share it.
In the scene, James spots and harasses Snape simply because Sirius complained that he was bored. James went as far as to magically suspend Snape in midair, asking the onlooking crowd of students who gathered if they wanted to see them remove Snape’s pants.
Lily, still friends with Snape at the time, tried to stop James. But Snape, in a rage, stated he didn’t need a “Mudblood’s” help. Just for context, Mudblood is akin to a racial slur for those who are Muggle-born. Of course, this caused Lily to sever ties with Snape, and she ultimately ended up dating and marrying James, a relationship that started in their seventh year.
You could probably see where this is going…Not only does Essiedu not resemble Snape in the slightest, and I’m going way past skin color here as he’s way too good-looking to play the character, but Snape’s overall backstory could wind up with the following:
Having a black character growing up in a broken, abusive household
A black character bullied relentlessly by two popular white characters, assuming white actors are playing them
A white girl/woman choosing that same white man to date and marry despite that relentless bullying over a black character who loved her
Yeah, so you can see why the red flags are going off here. And the above is an ‘including, but not limited to’ list. I can write an entire book on why this might be the worst idea any production, past, present, or future, has come up with.
Harry Potter is already more diverse than you think…If you’re new to Harry Potter, you’ll know that the series has a great deal of ‘representation,’ if we’re going to use the word for it. There’s Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, Lee Jordan, Kingsley Shacklebolt (a fan favorite, by the way), Blaise Zabini, and Dean Thomas.
A black actress also stood in for Lavender Brown until Jessica Cave got the role in the movies. And to be honest, I always pictured and still picture Lavender as black, and this was before the first movie was released in 2001.
Then there’s Cho Chang, Harry’s first love interest and probably the driving force of why I find East Asians so attractive. Hey, I ain’t gonna lie here. Let’s not forget the Patil twins, Parvati and Padma, who are Indian. And it’s also been implied, at least through the movies, that Professor Aurora Sinistra was black.
The Libertarian Book Reviewer is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
If anyone were to sit there and say with a straight face that the series lacked diversity, they’re either lying or more forgetful than Neville Longbottom. Still, if you had to race swap a character from the books (or movies), why not go with one whose skin color isn’t mentioned or implied in one way, shape, or form in the books?
If there’s no implication beyond the shadow of a doubt, then it’s fair game. But as for Severus Snape, it’s pretty clear that he’s been white since J.K. Rowling first concocted the character. And I like I said previously, Essiedu is too good-looking to play Snape, whose features would scare even the bravest souls running for the mountains surrounding the school.
Harry Potter books just became even more sacredI remember reading the Harry Potter books for the first time, and then going back through them after I watched the first couple of movies and picturing the characters the way they looked in the films. Every five years or so, I’ll dig them back out and revisit the series, so the next time around, I think I’ll take the purest route and picture them the way Rowling originally sketched them out.
There’s just something sacred about sticking to the original version of the way the author envisioned such characters. So, I guess I’ll be in for a (relatively) fresh take of Potter when intuition tells me to open the books back up.
Oh, and I’m sure some Lefty will probably cross this article and deem me a racist for possibly saying something they don’t like in this essay. But, as I’ve always said, it pays to play chess (and yes, I do have a Wizard’s chess set), because you always need to be two or more moves ahead of your opponent. So, let me give you the rundown of some character backgrounds in my own work:
Elementals of Nordica: Sion Zona - Half-Middle Eastern-equivalent to our own world
Shia Eaglesky - American Indian equivalent
Chronicles of Rondure: Mina Hirai - East-Asian equivalent to our own world
Sentrys (yes, Sentrys) of Terrene: Sabre Kjaergaard - olive-brownish skin tone
Terrian Chronicles: Liza Fury - Bisexual
At the end of the day, those of us critiquing this new series and others like Snow White are critical of DEI, as opposed to organic diversity and inclusivity itself. And in a very, very memorable article I read recently, Dave Emmanuel put it this way:
“If an organization’s human resource framework prioritizes qualifications, merit, and achievement with no regard to race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation such a framework is in fact a de facto DEI policy.”
The “good” DEI, that is. Plus, it’s organic, as opposed to artificial, and the latter is what you get from DEI programs overall. And trust me, you’re looking at a guy who, even if I have to be vague about it, has seen its artificial take in action.
