What does it mean to call someone a hero, and how much of what we believe about heroism in the Harry Potter series was shaped for us before we ever thought to question it?

In this Prof Responds episode, Professor Julian Wamble sits with the community's response to the Heroes and Half-Bloods episode, working through three themes: the impossibility of a clean definition of heroism, the double standards of heroic accountability across age and blood status, and whether heroism freely chosen and heroism thrust upon someone are really the same thing. 

The reflection asks something harder: how much of our understanding of Harry Potter heroism is actually ours, and how much were we socialized into by the text itself?

Harry Potter Survey