Harry Potter and The Sacred Text 2.09 – The Writing on the Wall: Innocence
Vanessa: Chapter Nine: The Writing on the Wall.
(Intro music begins)
“’What’s going on here? What’s going on?’ Attracted no doubt by Malfoy’s shout, Argus Filch came shouldering his way through the crowd. Then he saw Mrs. Norris and fell back, clutching his face in horror. ‘My cat! My cat! What’s happened to Mrs. Norris?’ he shrieked …”
Vanessa: I’m Vanessa Zoltan.
Casper: And I’m Casper ter Kuile.
Vanessa: And this is Harry Potter and the Sacred Text.
(Intro music fades)
Casper: Every time I travel outside of the U.S. and return back to America, there’s this very frightening moment where I get off the plane and I stand in line for immigration. Now, I have a British passport, I have a Dutch passport, I have a visa for the United States, you know, I have all the paper work that I need. But every time I get in that line my palms start sweating, I start getting nervous, I remember that maybe I have some cheese in my bag which is probably illegal, and I get really flustered and really scared. And by the time that I arrive at the custom agent’s little box area I am a, like, sweating sweltering mess. And I look so guilty I’m probably a highly sought-after criminal, that’s how I look. And it doesn’t help that in America the border guards are very stern and, you know, it’s supposed to be this great moment of welcome, and it feels more like an interrogation. I’ve had a couple of times where, because my paperwork is a little complex, I’m taken to a side room and they have to background check me, and I feel like I’m going to be put on a plane home again any time soon. And it’s always so frustrating because I’m innocent, but I feel so guilty! And it feels like I’m being treated guiltily. And I have to, like, hold on to this knowledge that I’m innocent in a very fiercely protective way because part of me feels like I’m not anymore. And I really feel like we can see that theme of innocence, or more like contested innocent, in this chapter of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Because, you know, suddenly there’s all this suspicion about who is the heir of Slytherin. You know, Harry starts getting treated differently by people like Justin Finch-Fletchley, and there’s rumors starting to go around the school grounds. And I’m just really interested in thinking about what makes someone innocent, and how do we know, and what’s the benefit of treating people with innocence. And I think there’s a whole bunch of questions that we can explore together today, Vanessa.
Vanessa: My grandmother would say if you feel guilty you’ve probably done something wrong, Casper.
Casper laughs
Casper: I mean, we’re all guilty of something.
Vanessa: Exactly. Casper, I think that that’s a fantastic story, and something that we see in this chapter and something that we see in the world a lot, of people giving false confessions. And innocence is complicated, and it can become confusing when you’re in a tight spot. And especially, I mean, in the story that you’re telling and in this chapter when the stakes are so high. So, I’m excited to talk about innocence with you.
Casper: Vanessa, it’s time for our 30 second recap. And I believe you’re going first. Are you ready?
Vanessa: Of course. I’m always ready.
Casper: Alright, here we go. Three, two, one.
(Ticking noise)
Vanessa: So it turns out that Mrs. Norris has been petrified, and Filch and Snape of course immediately blame Ron, Hermione, and Harry. Everybody then thinks that Harry is the heir of Slytherin, and also there’s like a rumor about the Chamber of Secrets. So Hermione asks Professor Binns, I think, to tell the story of the Chamber of Secrets. He’s like, “Salazar Slytherin started a chamber and that’s what the rumor is, but it’s just a rumor” and, um –
(Buzzing noise – 79 words in 30 seconds)
Casper: That was pretty good, but it didn’t get to the crucial things.
Vanessa: That’s not true. It got to all the crucial things, it was just a little sloppy.
Casper: Like my cooking has the crucial things, a little sloppy.
Vanessa: That’s my cooking too! That’s actually my life. I like to say I’m a type A-minus.
Casper laughs
Vanessa: It’s true.
Casper: That is the greatest description I’ve ever heard.
Vanessa: Casper, are you ready to show me how it’s done?
Casper: I’m gonna do my best, yes.
Vanessa: Okay, on your mark, get set, go.
(Ticking noise)
Casper: So, Snape discovers them, or, no, someone discovers them. And they’re taken to Lockhart’s office, and everyone’s there, and it’s bad. And why does Dumbledore bring them? Good question. And there they learn things. Then in Binns’s classroom, and we learn about Chamber of Secrets, Salazar Slytherin founded it over a thousand years ago, we don’t quite know when. But he doesn’t like muggles, and so there’s a break and he hides a monster in the Chamber of Secrets. “But it’s not real, it’s just a story,” says Binns. And then we learn about polyjuice potion, because there’s a plan to become Slytherins.
(Buzzing noise – 102 words in 30 seconds)
Casper: A little elbow in butter moment there.
Vanessa: I don’t know what that means, but we’re just gonna leave it up to the listeners.
Casper: Vote for me!
They laugh
Casper: Vanessa, as we dive into this theme of innocence, I wanna start with a moment in the text where Harry, who, you know, first he’s accused of being the heir of Slytherin and writing this horrible writing on the wall and petrifying Mrs. Norris, Filch’s cat. And Snape detects that there’s something that Harry isn’t quite telling the truth about, and he’s like “well, why were you there, not at dinner?” And Harry’s like, “I was at the Death Day party, you know, please, no, we’re fine, we’re very innocent.” And then Snape says, “yes, but why then did you go upstairs if the Death Day party was downstairs?” And we all know that it’s because he heard these voices, right? And Harry decides not to tell the truth about that, and instead to make up kind of a silly lie saying that they were tired and they wanted to go to bed without dinner. And Snape immediately knows that he’s not telling the truth. And, to be honest, that is kind of like how I feel at that immigration station, where I’m like, “okay, my flight was via Denmark, does that mean I have to write ‘Denmark’ on the list of countries that I visited?” You know, I feel like I have to hide certain things, and I just don’t know what’s sensible to share, even though they’re perfectly innocent reasons. But I’m worried about how it’s gonna look, or how it’s gonna sound. And so I’m just keen to figure out with you, like, why do we sometimes tell untruths to hide truths, even if those truths that we’re hiding are perfectly innocent?
Vanessa: First of all, I think that the reason for these things is a keen sense that perception is reality. Even though you know that technically you weren’t doing anything wrong, it’s like having your hand caught in the cookie jar, and you’re like, “no, really I was putting more cookies in.” But there’s just this awareness of, like, ‘but I know this looks bad. I know it looks bad, even though nothing bad was happening.’ But part of me wants to say that it’s just thousands of years of religious training that we all feel a little bit guilty all the time. There’s the idea of original sin, there’s the idea that we’ve disappointed God all the time, there’re just really these cultural norms around feeling implicitly guilty all the time. One of my favorite lines in one of my favorite novels Jane Eyre, I will misquote now, is that people think that being unlucky is contagious and deserved. And I think that’s true. When something where I’m really the victim of a situation happens, I always try to figure out what I did that participated in that things happening to me, and what I could have done differently. And I feel shame around it. And I think it’s because on some deep level we feel guilty even when we’ve done nothing wrong.
Casper: I mean, that’s so true. And I think that, I’m just thinking now about the physical space of an immigration process. Like the fact that you have to line up for a long time, and the fact that someone else is there in a uniform and a screen, and they’re lifted up in all of the systems of power and you’re made to feel small and like you don’t understand the ten different forms that you have. Just like Harry doesn’t understand these voices that he’s hearing. And you’re just made to feel like, ‘I don’t have control in this situation, I’m guilty, I’m bad.’ I mean, this is helping me think about well maybe next time I’m in that line I’ll just be like, ‘I made a bad decision about taking cheese with me, but I’m not a bad person.’
Vanessa: And taking cheese with you is usually a good decision.
Casper: Cheese is always tasty.
Vanessa: The moment in my life that that reminds me of is if I go to a doctor because something hurts, and then the problem is when you’re in these situations the experts have the right language and you don’t. Right, with an immigration officer, they know what they mean by ‘did you visit a country,’ but you’re like ‘I don’t know what that means.’ And so a doctor will be like, “describe the pain.” And I’m like, “you know words to describe pain, I don’t.”
Casper: It hurts!
Vanessa: It just hurts here! And then I’m like, ‘should I even be here? Am I being dramatic? Maybe there’s nothing wrong with me. Maybe there’s really something wrong with me. Maybe it’s a tumor.’ Whereas they have all of the information and expertise. So I feel like these things become exacerbated when there’s a power differential, and when you don’t understand the potential consequences of what you’re confessing to. If Harry understood that Dumbledore would just help him, I think that obviously he would be more apt to share that information. But you don’t even understand if you’re doing something wrong.
Casper: Gosh, the more I think about it, Vanessa, the more I’m beginning to think that another reason why Harry doesn’t want to share that information really relates back to the sorting hat moment because Harry knows that there is something inside of him which is Slytherinesque, and I’m not sure he trusts himself fully that it’s good. Like, he knows that he’s innocent, but underneath that there might be this doubt that actually is there something that is guilty?
Vanessa: Am I the one who wants to go around killing people?
Casper: Right!
Vanessa: Yeah. I really like that, Casper, because I think that Harry must be worried. Like, ‘if I hear this voice and Ron and Hermione don’t hear this voice, then is it just something inside of me that wants to enact this violence? Did I accidently hurt Mrs. Norris without even meaning to?’ And he knows that he has powers that he doesn’t understand the full extent of, so being concerned about ‘what can I do without any control?’ I think is a question that probably weighs heavily on Harry. But that, to me, leads to, you know, another meaning of innocence which is that naïve sweet innocence of children. And I feel like Hermione embodies that in this chapter. She is just innocently really curious, and her typical Hermione academic way is to what the Chamber of Secrets is. And so she does what she always does, which is asks a question of a teacher. And there’s just so much innocence in that, of like, ‘knowledge can help us figure this out, and if I just have the information I’m gonna be able to come up with an action plan.’ And then she does.
Casper: I love that you see innocence in that classroom exchange between Binns and Hermione. And for context they’re in another boring History of Magic class, and everyone’s falling asleep, and then suddenly Hermione’s like, “I have a question, I’m gonna ask Professor Binns.” And Binns is kind of overwhelmed that anyone is engaged in the classroom, which was kind of a sweet moment. But where I saw innocence in that exchange was that Binns is so trusting of Dumbledore, because he explains to Hermione and the rest of the class, “there is no Chamber of Secrets, it’s a myth, it’s a story, we deal with facts, not made up imaginations.” And so he’s very frustrated with Hermione, how seriously she’s taking this. So there’s this kind of innocent trusting-ness that the people who’ve searched the castle haven’t found it, therefore it doesn’t exist. And even the way that he thinks about history is kind of naïve and innocent. He’s like, “history is about facts,” and we all know that history is a multiplicity of stories and many different perspectives on things that have happened. And so there isn’t one history. So it feels like Binns not only is stuck in his ghostly approach to classroom management, but also stuck in an old version of what the subject of history is about.
Vanessa: It reminds me of when people say, “oh, it’s fine that the government is tracking everything on my phone, I know I’m innocent.” Or trusting that political forces or social forces are, like, gonna do the right thing. I find myself not ever actively thinking it but on a subconscious level if someone gets arrested it’s, “well they might not have done the crime that they are being accused of, but, like, on some level they must be guilty or why were they there?” And I know that that is profoundly untrue, and that there isn’t justice in these forces. But I just think that we’re so conditioned to trust authority figures, and trust that the system is doing what it should do, and we don’t stop and see that that’s not true until, you know, the Chamber of Secrets gets opened and people start getting attacked.
Casper: You’re so right, Vanessa. We see in the text how, you know, as soon as people are accused, they’re treated differently. And Justin Finch-Fletchley avoids Harry in the corridor because he’s suspicious, and Filch immediately accuses Harry of being the killer of Mrs. Norris just because he’s found at the scene. So we see how quickly those kind of accusations and rumors develop. But there is something, you know, on the other side of that, especially when you’re dealing with bigger systems. You know, if you get lost in a system, a big list of names for example, you do get pulled aside at immigration. Sometimes, you know, it’s a slip up, not a conspiracy. Because mistakes do get made. And so, how we balance between that thin line of wanting to be generous and presuming innocence and at the same time not being naïve, that’s a really tricky line to walk.
Vanessa: You know, I’ve had miscommunications at immigration, but I so deeply know I’m innocent. I’m like, ‘I’m a short woman with all my papers in order,’ and I think I over-trust the system. Like what trouble could I possibly get into. So I think that identity politics, you know, starts to come into play too.
Casper: I think you’re so right. I think these themes of identity are so intertwined with how we think of innocence and guilt and how smart we need to be about knowing how to maneuver around these systems. You know, right now I know of Muslim friends who are changing dates to return to America before Inauguration Day, because they can’t be naïve about the situation of a president who said that he will ban any Muslims from coming into the country.
Vanessa: Or, you know, the ways that black young men are sort of trained to: as soon as you get pulled over by a cop put your hands up. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, you know you don’t have a gun in the car, just put your hands up.
Casper: That’s exactly what this is about. I mean, there’s one more place where I really see innocence in the text, and that’s poor Mrs. Norris.
Vanessa: Yeah, she’s guilty.
Casper laughs
Vanessa: She deserved to be petrified. Unintelligible… she’s a cat.
Casper: She’s the first character that we see petrified, and I think each of the people that we’re gonna meet who are petrified are innocent in some way. And so I think it’s important to say that in so many situations, you know, whether it’s climate change or other issues, the people who are most impacted first by the issue are often the most innocent in creating it.
Vanessa: Yes, and actually I was kidding about Mrs. Norris deserving this. But it is interesting. She’s still an innocent victim even if I dislike her. And I think that’s something really frustrating about innocent victims and the way that we perceive them, is that if they’re not totally innocent and like saints, then we have a harder time seeing them as someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ta-Nehisi Coates recently said (that) you can be a jerk and still not deserved to be killed. And we often conflate the two. And so just because I hate cats doesn’t mean that Mrs. Norris is not a totally innocent victim in this moment.