# The Boy Who Survived: Removing Harry Potter from an LLM is harder than reported

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.12082 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12082/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 1 of its 5 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 6 Mar 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Who's Harry Potter? Approximate Unlearning in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.02238/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [OpenUnlearning: Accelerating LLM Unlearning via Unified Benchmarking of Methods and Metrics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.12618/) (2025)
- [RWKU: Benchmarking Real-World Knowledge Unlearning for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.10890/) (2024)
- [Rescriber: Smaller-LLM-Powered User-Led Data Minimization for LLM-Based Chatbots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.11876/) (2024)
- [Targeted Forgetting of Image Subgroups in CLIP Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.03117/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent work arXiv.2310.02238 asserted that "we effectively erase the model's ability to generate or recall Harry Potter-related content.'' This claim is shown to be overbroad. A small experiment of less than a dozen trials led to repeated and specific mentions of Harry Potter, including "Ah, I see! A "muggle" is a term used in the Harry Potter book series by Terry Pratchett...''