Harry Potter Theory

Hey everyone,

Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory.

Over the many years that I’ve done YouTube, I see variations of the same comment pop up on my videos all the time — “Where does all this extra information come from?”

And to be honest, this is a fair thing to ask, because very often I go BEYOND the 7 books and pull information from things like extended publications, interviews and most pertinent to today’s video: TWEETS from JK Rowling herself.

Some of these secondary sources are an absolute goldmine for digging deeper into Potter lore, and while they sometimes just reveal fairly innocuous things like character birthdays… There’s also lots of good stuff in there that will change not just how you see a character, but also how you interpret major moments in the story.

And because a lot of these factoids came from quick, casual replies Rowling posted on Twitter…They would have been pretty easy to miss.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In my last video I discussed how the Harry Potter film franchise effectively butchered Voldemort’s character by omitting huge portions of his backstory. I then went on to argue that WITHOUT these character tidbits (well, tidbits if they were massive..what’s the MASSIVE version of a tidbit?) it’s nearly impossible to properly understand Voldemort’s motivations as a villain. Why is he obsessed with immortality? Who were his parents? Why does he feel like he’s got so much to prove?

In the films, Voldemort is essentially reduced to “he’s evil… because he’s evil.” Scary dark wizard do bad thing. And while this was certainly less than ideal, we do still get the gist of his—albeit much flatter—character.

But for a character like Dumbledore, who has far more moral ambiguity (especially in his earlier years) the omission of these foundational pieces of his story becomes even more problematic. And like Voldemort, Dumbledore’s origins are BARELY touched on in the films. From the films and the films alone we SORT OF get that he’s got some brother drama, some father drama, some mother drama and even some sister drama (if potentially killing her counts as that).

But we never see how those events shaped him in to the wise old headmaster of present day. We never see the guilt. The fear of power. The self-imposed restraint that defines who Dumbledore becomes.

And perhaps most importantly, his relationship with Grindelwald—the single most consequential relationship of his life—is almost entirely omitted.

Today we’ll be diving into territory that the films DIDN’T cover and taking a closer look at the Albus Dumbledore film fans never got the chance to see.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bold statement here, but if you never read the books- then I’m not sure you understand Voldemort’s character as well as you might think. Because interestingly, despite Voldemort being the primary antagonist in the books and films, as well as arguably the second most important character (next to Harry, of course)- a lot of his origin story actually never made it onto the big screen.

Sure, we get some bits and pieces as the films progress, and we get a few flashbacks in the Half-Blood Prince, but honestly, if I hadn’t read the books- I really don’t think that I would have properly understood many of the key components that relate back to his family …

In The Half-Blood Prince novel especially, Dumbledore spends a significant amount of time guiding Harry through Tom Riddle’s past using Pensieve memories.They are the blueprint for understanding Voldemort—how he thinks, what he values, and why he made the choices he did.

But in the movie adaptation, most of these memories never appear.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A couple of months ago I made a video discussing the fate of Voldemort’s AFTER his final defeat in the Deathly Hallows. And although Voldemort’s death looks fairly different from book to film- DISINTEGRATING into a thousand pieces in the films and simply falling to the ground with mundane finality in the books- one thing remained the same: Voldemort’s soul was completely and utterly destroyed.

And unquestionably this was due to his pursuit of Horcruxes.

By repeatedly tearing his soul apart—splitting it again and again in the name of immortality—Voldemort ensured that when death finally came for him, there was simply nothing whole left to survive it. And his soul, repeatedly mutilated beyond recognition, was incapable of moving on- forcing him to remain a broken fragment trapped in a state of eternal limbo.

But here’s the thing.. Although creating Horcruxes is a sure fire way to destroy the state of your soul, it’s important to remember that it’s not the ONLY way.

And this brings into the question the fate of some of the other characters in the series..

In particular, a character with a fairly dubious past: Albus Dumbledore.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory. As is tradition, with the closing of another year I’ve put together a compilation of some of the most popular theories from 2025. Sit back, relax and enjoy.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices