A really good listen - The Witch Trials of JK Rowling
Podcast presenter Megan Phelps-Roper and JK Rowling
I feel I should start this by saying I have never read any of the Harry Potter books (though my eldest daughter was a diehard Potterhead - apparently that’s the term for a Potter devotee). Nor am I one of JK Rowling’s 14 million Twitter followers.
But of course neither am I remotely unaware, either of the gigantic success of the novels and how much JK (real name, Joanne) was revered and adored as a result, or of the deluge of outraged criticism and the subsequent monumental backlash against her when she weighed into the transgender conversation with a series of tweets which, as she describes it, “dropped a hand grenade into Twitter”, back in 2020.
Just as so much about what has happened since those infamous tweets has prompted all manner of heatedly opposing opinions and feelings, so this controversial, seven part, podcast, which shot to the top of the podcast charts when it was released earlier this year, has won admirers and detractors in equal measure.
Clearly, as I’m recommending it to you, I’m in the former camp. Which doesn’t mean to say I think The Witch Trials of JK Rowling is perfect. I certainly share some of the reservations about its supposed impartiality (the title alone points to that), and about the muddiness and meandering of some of the arguments it presents. But I also can’t think of a podcast I’ve listened to with such absorbed interest, learnt quite so much from, or which has challenged my own beliefs and views to such an extent. Hence why I think it’s well worth your time and attention.
JK Rowling is as well known for being an essentially private person as she is for being the author of the best selling book series in history. Since lobbing her explosive tweets into the Twittersphere, she has repeatedly refused to give interviews , staying resolute in her determination to be read but not heard. Until now.
Because the backbone of this podcast is a remarkably candid and lengthy interview between Rowling and the host and presenter, Megan Phelps-Roper.
Why the writer should have chosen Phelps-Roper as the person to whom she breaks her silence is certainly tied into her back story. Megan grew up in the virulently homophobic and militantly extremist Westboro Baptist Church, of which her grandfather was the nefariously outspoken founder. Joining Twitter in the late 2000s, she began to engage with critics of the church and gradually came to change her views and eventually to leave the church altogether (a journey charted in a Louis Theroux documentary).
As a result of her intimate understanding of what it’s like to have strongly held, and deeply hate filled, views which you passionately believe to be right, since leaving the church Megan has been committed to seeking out, questioning and absorbing to as wide a range of viewpoints and opinions on current and contentious issues as she can. As she writes in the podcast introduction, she understands “the value of good-faith conversation and the role it can play in bridging even the deepest divides.”
Whether her questioning of Rowling on her opinions is as challenging as it could or should be is for you to decide. Rowling certainly shares more detail and information about parts of her life, including her violent first marriage, and her feelings about the stratospheric level of celebrity that she was catapulted into as her books became global best-sellers, than she has before.
And whether you like or agree with her views (and for the sake of remaining impartial in my recommendation, I’m not going to say here whether I do or not), I’d challenge you not to agree that they are exhaustively thoroughly researched, carefully considered, as passionately held as they are unfailingly measured and articulately expressed.
But the interview and conversation between the two women is only one element of this much more wide-ranging podcast. Because what Phelps-Roper does - again with a degree of success that you will need to decide - is to put the whole Potter phenomenon, the rise in influence and reach of social media, and the burgeoning, and increasingly polarising, debate around gender and sex, into broader historic, political, social and technological context, through her own summaries and interviews with an extensive cast of contributors.
You will, of course, reach your own conclusions after listening to The Witch Trials of JK Rowling and I wonder if they will be any different from the ones you thought they might be. I hope you find it as engaging and interesting and thought-provoking as I did. And that you’re able to listen to it with an open mind and willingness to be challenged. As JK Rowling says in one episode “We should distrust ourselves most when we are certain.”
THE WITCH TRIALS OF JK ROWLING is available on all podcast platforms including Spotify
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