In Harry Potter, Who's Your Knight in Shining Armor?

We wouldn’t want to have a beer with Stanley Shunpike. Does that mean we shouldn’t trust him?

At the beginning of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry meets Stanley Shunpike on The Knight Bus. We see Stanley through Harry’s eyes: A sniggering teenager with “large, protruding ears and quite a few pimples.” With all of his gossiping and uncultured manner, we’re not meant to like him very much. And later in the series, it is easy for the Wizarding World to believe that Stanley is a Death Eater.

But, as Harry suspects and we come learn, Stanley never was a Death Eater. It was just easy to distrust him, because he was rough around the edges.

What are we looking at when we distrust or dislike someone? Is it what’s on the outside, or what’s on the inside?

Harry Potter and the Sacred Text is a weekly podcast reading Harry Potter, the best-selling series of all time, as if it was a sacred text.

We ask the questions: What if we read the books we love as if they were sacred texts? What would we learn? How might they change us?

www.harrypottersacredtext.com

Animation: Hannah O'Neal
Writers: Vanessa Zoltan, Ariana Nedelman with Casper ter Kuile
Voiced by: Vanessa Zoltan