not that this hasn’t been done before, but i believe the expression is smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em? so here, for your entertainment, is a non-exhaustive list of things in harry potter that make you go hmmm

“welcome, children, to ye olde wizarde school in merry englande! you will notice that the vast majority of those around you, both students and teachers, are white. anyone can be born magical, even if their parents aren’t! but it’s just usually white people, for no reason at all”

HERMIONE: i’m the smartest, cleverest, most capable and most ruthless witch in my entire magic school, and i’m including the teachers in that count! but this book is about my friend, harry potter, whose homework i do and who listens to me roughly three times out of ten

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE: oh, what, me, gay? yes, yes, of course i was gay. terribly gay. tremendously gay. gay as a three dollar bill, that was me! it’s just that i was ONLY gay on all the days of my life that were NOT depicted in this story

CHO CHANG: i’m an East Asian character named cho chang!
PADMA PATIL: i’m a South Asian character named padma patil!
KINGSLEY SHACKLEBOLT: i‘m a Black character with the last name shacklebolt!

THE GOBLINS: we’re short, hook-nosed bankers who control all wizarding money and speak in a guttural language called gobbledegook! what’s that? we sound like a grossly antisemitic allegory for jewish people? but how can that be when we love money so much?

THE HOUSE ELVES: oh boy. oh man. you mean NOBODY was like “maybe it’s not a great idea to write a group of sentient beings who vocally love being enslaved into your children’s fiction?” not one person said that? seriously?

PROFESSOR BINNS: and now children it is time to learn about grindlewald and his invasion of europe, which was pretty clearly, uh, the holocaust
ANTHONY GOLDSTEIN: weird day to be me, anthony goldstein, the only jew at hogwarts

WIZARDING SOCIETY: we judge and oppress people based on their magical blood status, something made up and invisible. it’s just like racism, we swear!
KINGSLEY SHACKLEBOLT: i am the only adult character in this entire series who isn’t white.

THE DURSLEYS: we have locked the small orphan you left for us inside of a cupboard
DUMBLEDORE: well i don’t see why you wouldn’t
THE DURSLEYS: we let him out sometimes to cook age-inappropriate dishes for us
DUMBLEDORE: ooh, creative use of an orphan. five points to privet drive

“this is grindlewald, who attempted to subjugate and rule all of europe on the principle that it was fine to harm vulnerable people if it was for the ‘greater good.’ don’t look too closely at how well his values align with the author’s current views!”

THE ENTIRE WIZARDING WORLD: we have one gay wizard amongst us and that man is albus dumbledore (on days of the week when you’re not here). that’s it!! that’s all we need!! sorry, what was that word you just said? lellabean? lis-be-an? never heard of her

HARRY: the dursleys abuse me, why do i have to keep living with them?
DUMBLEDORE: they keep you safe.
HARRY: but they... abuse me? isn’t this a book for kids, man? shouldn’t we avoid equating safety with —
DUMBLEDORE: they keep you SAFE

NYMPHADORA TONKS: hello! i’m a character who is uniquely able to change her body into whatever she wants it to be, and i’m proud to say that i’m CIS and i’m STRAIGHT and i’ve NEVER used my literal, actual body morphing powers to explore gender in ANY way

REMUS LUPIN: so like, i’m a werewolf, and the way wizarding society treats werewolves is an allegory for the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, but don’t get yourself confused — i’m not GAY or anything. only dumbledore is gay, and only on days not depicted here

ST MUNGOS: we’re magical healers, so we have healing magic, which we could use to do basically anything, since this is a fictional book
ALSO ST MUNGOS: anyone with cognitive issues is DOOMED and UNCURABLE and must spent their lives in a WARD

HARRY: so you live in the pipes?
BASILISK: ssssss
HARRY: and you have for a thousand years?
BASILISK: ssssss
HARRY: but didn’t jkr very publicly say that wizards just pooped themselves where they stood until like. 300 years ago?
BASILISK, SLITHERING HASTILY AWAY: SSSSSS

HARRY: albus severus, i seem to have named you after —
ALBUS SEVERUS: a teacher who bullied you, an orphaned student, for 6 years bc he loved your dead mom so much, and an old man who spent every available moment lying to & manipulating you?
HARRY, SIGHING: yeah. those guys

HARRY: do i really have to go back to the dursleys this summer?
DUMBLEDORE: of course you do harry. how else will we get your self esteem so low that you’ll be unthinkingly willing to die for our cause when it’s time?
HARRY: what?
DUMBLEDORE: what?

JK ROWLING: i wrote these books for children and they are beloved so i must be a good person
HARRY POTTER BOOKS: isn’t our moral like. “resist ideologies that punish people for who they are?”
JK ROWLING: sure, sure. so long as those people aren’t trans that’s fine

anyway that’s all i have within me today, i am absolutely sure i missed a variety of stuff, harry potter has a lot of problems and that was true even before the author started ripping into trans people all the ding dang time

(also i hate doing this but it’s where we are — i‘m unemployed, ohio denied me unemployment while it was happening, and being trans while job hunting in 2020 sucks! if you have it to spare, i would hugely appreciate any help venmo @ dylanthyme / http://ko-fi.com/dylanthyme  )

ah, the time has come to mute this thread. thank you so much for reading & for your support, unless you just came here to get mad at me on behalf of an extremely rich lady you don’t know personally who is certainly just fine. in that case: uhh i hope you’re okay?? good luck