Harry Potter fans failed the Harry Potter test

Every week on my “Dangerous Laughter” podcast, I speak with people whose ideas deserve a hearing, whether the cultural gatekeepers approve or not.

Sometimes the guest is a politician. Sometimes a journalist. Sometimes a historian. Last week, it was Solomon Schmidt, author of “A Pen to Change the World: The Life of J.K. Rowling,” a biography that should have been among the easiest books in the world to promote.

Somewhere along the way, ‘He Who Must Not Be Named’ stopped being a fictional villain. For too many people, it became the woman who imagined him.

Instead, its reception has become a case study in modern publishing cowardice.

Schmidt told me that organizations serving independent bookstores declined to carry advertising for the book. Harry Potter fan communities that once celebrated every Rowling project have shown little interest in discussing a biography of the woman who created Hogwarts. Media outlets that ordinarily rush to cover major literary releases have largely looked away.

Consider the absurdity.

J.K. Rowling is not an obscure novelist seeking her first break. She created the most successful book series in modern publishing history. Her novels have sold hundreds of millions of copies, been translated around the world, inspired blockbuster films, and introduced a generation of children to the joy of reading.

That achievement should make her an obvious subject for serious biography.

The resistance has nothing to do with literature and everything to do with politics.

Rowling stopped being judged primarily as one of the world’s most consequential living authors and became a political litmus test. For many cultural gatekeepers, her views on sex and gender now outweigh everything she has written, accomplished, donated, or inspired.

Readers do not have to agree with Rowling to recognize what is happening. They need only ask one question: When did we stop being curious?

What struck me during my conversation with Schmidt was how straightforward his motivation was. He was not looking to pick a fight. He noticed an obvious gap.

How could the woman behind Harry Potter, arguably the defining literary phenomenon of the past 30 years, not already have a definitive modern biography?

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Charles Dickens has biographies. William Shakespeare has biographies. J.R.R. Tolkien has biographies. C.S. Lewis has biographies.

Yet the creator of the most successful publishing franchise of our lifetime has become too radioactive for many people even to discuss.

That should disturb anyone who claims to love books.

Understanding Rowling’s life also helps readers understand Harry Potter. Her experiences with poverty, depression, rejection, and single motherhood were not incidental details. They shaped the stories.

They informed Harry’s loneliness, the Dementors’ vivid embodiment of depression, and the books’ recurring lesson that courage usually carries a personal cost.

Biography is not endorsement. It is exploration. Our cultural institutions increasingly refuse to recognize the difference.

The irony is that Harry Potter warned us about this long before social media existed.

Throughout the series, the Ministry of Magic spends almost as much time controlling information as protecting people. The “Daily Prophet” becomes less interested in reporting facts than preserving approved narratives. Dolores Umbridge does not need to burn books. She simply decides which voices deserve to be heard and which should disappear.

Sound familiar?

Millions of readers understood those lessons while turning Rowling’s pages. Some seem to have forgotten them as soon as they closed the books.

My own new book, “The Curse of the Bearded Lady,” appears to have little in common with a biography of J.K. Rowling. One is political satire. The other is literary history.

Both, however, ask the same question: What happens when powerful cultural institutions stop encouraging debate and begin discouraging curiosity?

We are finding out.

I do not expect everyone to agree with Rowling. I do not expect everyone to buy Schmidt’s biography. I certainly do not expect everyone to agree with me.

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Agreement was never the point.

Readers should be free to encounter ideas, arguments, and complicated people without first receiving permission from self-appointed cultural referees. Publishing once trusted readers to make those judgments for themselves.

Too many gatekeepers now prefer to make the choices in advance.

History has never been written exclusively about saints. Fortunately, the people who change the world are usually complicated. They achieve remarkable things. They fail publicly. They contradict themselves. They change. That is what makes them worth studying.

J.K. Rowling is one of those figures, whether her critics approve or not.

The final irony is almost too perfect.

Rowling spent years teaching millions of young readers to question authority, resist propaganda, and think for themselves. Harry, Hermione, and Luna never accepted an official narrative merely because someone powerful delivered it.

Perhaps that explains why the books still endure. They encourage independent judgment.

That may be the most dangerous magic left.

Somewhere along the way, “He Who Must Not Be Named” stopped being a fictional villain. For too many people, it became the woman who imagined him.