I’ve been seeking a reprieve from the ugly sides of our world lately and I found it in Hogwarts Wizarding School of Magic.
Even though Harry Potter’s world isn’t utopian, the whimsy of magic and the drama of a battle between good and evil helped wash away the ugly banality of the real world’s problems. There was one problem I couldn’t find a reprieve from, though. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry encounters a problem I’m all too familiar with and that lives at the core of many societal issues. At this point in the series, Harry’s known for his infamous past as a child who survived a direct attack from the embodiment of evil, Voldemort, and his battles against evil and chaos conquering Hogwarts. And yet, even Harry Potter in a world of elves and flying brooms can’t escape the ever-present human problem of conformity.