Summary
The S.P.E.W. plotline’s divisiveness might cause HBO’sHarry Potterremake to make some changes, but this would be a mistake. While the house-elves of the wizarding world are clearly a problem, it’s not one that the upcoming TV show can really fix. Even the attempt would risk doing damage to the foundational themes ofHarry Potter, and is a slippery slope, especially for what is supposed to be a book-faithful adaptation. Instead, HBO’s TV remake can lean further into the lessons that the house-elves ofHarry Potterare meant to explore.
S.P.E.W., or the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, is an organization founded by Hermione in theHarry Potter and the Goblet Of Firebook. She came up with the idea after realizing how normalized house-elf enslavement was in the wizarding world. While Hermione’s idea was good,the way S.P.E.W. was presented has been heavily criticized, especially in recent years as the series is analyzed more closely.HBO’sHarry Potterremakemay be tempted to fix the perceived issues with this and other controversial aspects of the books, but it’s important that it does not.
An Estimated Timeline For Each Season Of HBO’s Harry Potter TV Remake (Based On Warner Bros' New Release Window)
Warner Bros has revealed its hopeful release window for the Harry Potter TV remake, which allows us to estimate what years each season will stream.
The Harry Potter Books Never Fixed The House-Elf Problem (& Neither Should HBO’s Remake)
The Commentary Is More Effective If The Problem Isn’t Solved
One of the greatest frustrations regardingHermione’s S.P.E.W. plotline is that theHarry Potterbooksnever took a clear stance on whether house-elf enslavement was right or wrong. Hermione, being disgusted with this wizarding world practice, was treated like something of a joke. She would bring up her mission to good characters like Hagrid but would be shot down with comments that typically pointed out that house-elves enjoyed their enslavement. This was shown to be true on several occasions, withHogwarts' elves even getting angry with Hermione and her attempts to free them.
This made readers uncomfortable for obvious reasons. There was never a moment inHarry Potterin which Hermione was overtly proven right. There was never a revelation in which wizards or house-elves realized slavery was bad—the problem was never solved. HBO may be tempted to add such a resolution to make this plotline a little less controversial. However, the fact that Hermione’s S.P.E.W. never made any headway wasn’t theHarry Potterseries lending support to concepts of slavery but was instead an important reflection of real-world issues.
The Prejudices Of The Wizarding World Are Important To Harry Potter’s Themes
Unconscious Bias Isn’t An Easy Problem To Solve
From beginning to end, theHarry Potterseriesfocused extensively on prejudice and bias. Two individual cultures were explored within the series—wizarding and Muggle—and both had their own ideas of what was normal and acceptable. Hermione was raised in the Muggle world, so she had an outside perspective on many normalized aspects of wizarding culture, including house-elf enslavement. However,characters like Ron or Hagrid, who had only ever lived in the wizarding world, struggled to see what was wrong with the concepts they had always known.
Social problems, especially those related to implicit and unconscious bias, aren’t so easy to solve since they are deeply ingrained in a culture.
In the real world, it takes more than a handful, or even a large group, of people noticing a normalized issue within their society for change to happen. Social problems, especially those related to implicit and unconscious bias, aren’t so easy to solve since they are deeply ingrained in a culture. Often, even an oppressed group subconsciously believes they deserve the oppression. This is precisely what the S.P.E.W. plotline ofHarry Potterreflects.House-elf enslavement was so normalized that even good wizards (and house-elves themselves) couldn’t see the problem—so the problem wasn’t going away in a couple of years.
HBO Might Be Tempted To Fix Other Harry Potter Book Problems (But It Absolutely Should Not)
The Moral Lessons Of Harry Potter Should Be Left Alone
The answer regarding the validity of Hermione’s S.P.E.W. movement must remain ambiguous in HBO’s Harry Potter remake since this drives home the essential theme that even good people can carry harmful unconscious biases. However, this isn’t the onlyHarry Pottersubplotdedicated to this or similar moral lessons and themes.Nearly the entity of Harry’s story is a lesson on moral ambiguityand how no person or social issue can be defined by black and white. Dumbledore and Snape’s treatment of Harry, the conflict between Goblins and wizards, and the discussion of blood purity are all prime examples.
TheHarry Pottermovies, being limited on time, were forced to cut many of these issues out entirely, and the deeper aspects of the story suffered as a result. HBO aims to create a book-faithful version of Harry’s story, and this goes beyond just reintroducing a character that had been cut. It means digging into the moral themes ofHarry Potterand maintaining the nuanced and subtle ways that these are expressed to audiences. As far as S.P.E.W. goes, this means leaving the significant problems of house-elves status in the wizarding world unsolved (for now, anyway).
Season 1 of HBO’sHarry Potterremake is expected to begin streaming in 2026.
Harry Potter
Cast
Harry Potter is HBO’s remake of the iconic Wizarding World film series that consisted of eight films between 2001 and 2011. Each season adapts a book from JK Rowling’s popular series and provides more book-accurate details than the movies did.
