Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #468, Rubeus Hagrid’s Punch Out! (OOTP 31, O.W.L.S.)
Show Intro
Andrew: Welcome to MuggleCast. Before we get started with today’s episode, we wanted to share an email from Mahira, which captures the current events of the last week and how it relates to the story that we love so much.
Micah: She says,
“One of the joys of rereading Harry Potter is how both we and our world change each time we reread the books. It was interesting listening to last week’s chapter with Hogwarts’s rebellion against Umbridge during a week where protesters demanding justice for George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and the countless others who have been the victims of police brutality against Black people in the United States.
I think this chapter (and other parts of Order of the Phoenix) demonstrates many of the types of protest we’ve been seeing this week. In the United States we’ve seen everything from peaceful protests to targeted destruction of property (e.g., the Minnesota Police Station… I’d compare that to the Weasley twins), book clubs/sharing resources for learning about the history of racism against people of color (Dumbledore’s Army?), donating to bail funds for those arrested while protesting (McGonagall helping Peeves), full-on destruction (Peeves), violence against police (attacking the Inquisitorial Squad), direct interference with oppression (the Niffler in Umbridge’s office), and even facing arrests and punishment for standing up against injustice (e.g. the four successive classes of students in detention).
Obviously, these aren’t perfect connections, and I do not want to minimize the nuances of systemic racism in the US. However, I think this chapter speaks to how rule-breaking, deviance, and refusing to participate is often justified when the deviance is against an unfair system. As someone with both rule-following tendencies and social justice orientation of Hermione Granger, I think this chapter points to times when we should no longer comply with injustice and the many ways we can stand up. There have been plenty of pieces by Black activists on philosophies of protest for civil rights (Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail is maybe my favorite starting point) that better articulate how we can recognize and stand up for what is right. However, as someone who grew up with Harry Potter, there is something comforting in finding examples in my favorite series.”
Eric: Thank you, Mahira.
Laura: Yeah, thank you so much for that. We wanted to take a moment to make some space here on the show to recognize what has happened to people like George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others, and say that we stand against white supremacy, and there is no place for it in this show community. And we’re very, very encouraging of our base to take advantage of the resources and educate yourselves; we’ll provide some of that in our show notes. Some of it has been up on our social channels this past week; you can definitely find it in this week’s show notes.
Eric: Damn straight.
Laura: Yep.
Eric: No, I mean it, really. And that’s to break the tension, but honestly, it’s true. We all believe that. We feel that way.
Andrew: Black lives matter.
Eric: Black lives matter!
Laura: Yep.
Andrew: Also, we wanted to let everybody know that we recorded this episode prior to J.K. Rowling tweeting about trans people again. We find her latest comments transphobic and hurtful to the LGBT community, and they came at the worst possible time for a variety of reasons. We will be addressing what she said on next week’s episode.
[Show music plays]
Andrew: So welcome to MuggleCast, and on today’s episode of the show, we will be discussing Chapter 31 of Order of the Phoenix, “O.W.L.s.” Are we saying it that way? Or are we just going to say OWLs?
Eric: I like O.W.L.s; I really do.
Andrew: Okay, sure.
Micah: You have to say it like Umbridge, though, in the movie.
Eric: [imitating Umbridge] “Ordinary Wizarding Levels. OWLs!”
[Andrew and Laura laughs]
Laura: Oh my God. Please don’t.
Andrew: I’ve been meaning to say, Eric, your impersonation of Umbridge was very, very good.
Eric: Oh, thank you. It was very well received. I can’t remember the last time I got so many emails about a particular thing that I said on the show.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Wow, look at that.
Andrew: This is Eric’s acting chops coming in.
Micah: This was positive feedback, too, it sounds like.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, I’m going to have to go on tour as an Umbridge impersonator.
Andrew: You’re making Umbridge likable. I almost said great again, but likable.
Eric: I feel a little uncomfortable. But it was positive feedback, and I really liked… we should do more of those read-alongs where all of us pitch in for big scenes.
Laura: I agree.
Andrew: Ah, that was a great idea on my part.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Speaking of that…
News
Andrew: Anyway, so let’s look at the latest chapter readings over at WizardingWorld.com, speaking of readings. The latest ones are Whoopi Goldberg… Micah, your mom was right.
Micah: Yeah, how about that?
Andrew: And then the next chapter was read by Fantastic Beasts stars Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol, and of course, they play Jacob and Queenie in the Fantastic Beasts movies. They should have been on the set right now…
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Andrew: … but instead they’re in quarantine like everybody else, and now they’re rereading a book from 20 years ago.
Eric: Seeing them, I actually feel like I’m really starting to miss that film franchise. I feel like right about now is the time when I would want to be getting that first teaser of completed footage and really starting to get excited about a third entry in the franchise.
Andrew: Yeah, I was thinking about that, too, because when they start filming, they might share some more details about the plot or maybe the title. And we’re going to have to wait a little while longer, though my understanding is they have gotten approval… I saw a news report they’ve gotten approval to start, or they’ve laid their guidelines out for how they’re going to film safely, and they’ve been approved by the government.
Laura: Ooh.
Micah: I know there’s a big focus for Fantastic Beasts 3 taking place in Rio, but I’m sure people have been following the news; Brazil has skyrocketed in its number of cases of Coronavirus, so I wonder how that is going to impact filming if, in fact, they plan to do anything on location.
Andrew: That’s a really good point. I bet they would cancel their shooting over there. I mean, they may try to keep all filming at Leavesden in light of Coronavirus. How about they just rewrite Fantastic Beasts 3 again, use all those Harry Potter sets that are over in the Studio Tour…
Eric: Yeah, why don’t we just get a closeup of Hogwarts the whole movie? It’s just all set at Hogwarts, and it’s Dumbledore and Newt picking up on their conversation from directly when the second one ended. Dumbledore tells all.
Micah: I just wanted to go off something that was said about seeing Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol. I think the other piece of this is we didn’t know what to expect when a new franchise was created, but I think you can tell the passion with which these actors and actresses talk about and read the Harry Potter series; even Eddie Redmayne when he did his chapter. But if folks haven’t gone and listened to any chapters yet, I highly recommend this chapter with Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol. I know we were talking about it during the week, but Dan Fogler, the voices that he adds to every character…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: He really gets into it. He is a modern day Jim Dale or Stephen Fry. He really embodies all of it.
Andrew: Wow.
Micah: Even his Madame Hooch. He’s into it the entire time.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Better than Whoopi?
Micah: Yeah, sorry. 100%, I would say, just completely committed to the characters. And there’s a couple of Gillywater moments too, which are funny.
Andrew: Oh, cool.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Well, you mentioned Coronavirus, and right before starting recording this week’s episode of MuggleCast, I was on WizardingWorld.com and I also just noticed this, so I thought I would mention it: There are going to be officially licensed Harry Potter face coverings, face masks, coming I guess sometime this summer. I guess it’s not too much of a surprise. And speaking of things reopening, Universal Orlando is starting to reopen, and of course, that’s where the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is, and face masks are going to be required. So I wonder if they’re going to try to sell these at the parks, and if so, they’re going to be hot sellers. But they need a little hole in it to sip your butterbeer through, though I guess that would defeat the purpose.
Eric: [laughs] Yeah, they’ve definitely done… on the soft open I saw at Universal, the frog chorus and the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students all have masks now as part of their…
Andrew: What?!
Eric: Yes, as part of their uniforms.
[Andrew hums a muffled “Double Trouble”]
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: They must sound awful! Do the frogs have face masks?
Eric: I’m not sure.
Micah: It actually sounds better, Andrew.
Andrew: [laughs] Does Hagrid have a face mask on Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure?
Eric: I don’t think everyone does. But it was interesting; there were photos that came out of the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. Beauxbatons are wearing mostly an entire head scarf, and it’s black, not blue, so I feel like it’s probably the first generation of what we’re seeing.
Micah: Eric, what about your dance partner, Celestina Warbeck?
[Laura laughs]
Eric: She famously refuses to wear a mask. She’s such a diva.
Andrew: Ah, what a diva.
Eric: Somebody did say that she did not have a mask on.
Laura: Oh my gosh.
Andrew: Does the Blast-Ended Skrewt’s you-know-what have a face covering?
[Eric laughs]
Micah: That could have used the face covering way before Coronavirus.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Oh my gosh. They should absolutely put a giant mask on that thing’s butt.
Laura: That would be hilarious. I really feel strongly that they should.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I wonder, too, if they had legitimate discussions about if they could create the Bubble-Head Charm and utilize that on people as a way of…
Andrew: Legitimate discussions? [laughs]
Micah: Yeah, in place of masks. Could they come up with something that would have looked consistent with the Potter series, but would still protect the people who are working there?
Andrew: Right.
Eric: They would have got giant fish bowls and put them on staff.
Andrew: Yeah. That’s an interesting idea, though.
Eric: Kind of like breathing into a plastic bag. [laughs] Wouldn’t want to do it for too long.
Andrew: Right, yeah. Little dangerous.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I will just note that the companies partnering with Wizarding World have committed to making a variety of donations to charities actively supporting first responders, underserved communities, and others impacted by the spread of COVID-19.
Eric: So I was suggesting… I thought you were going to say at first that this was the first perk of Wizarding World Gold, of being a member, is you’re going to get a face mask sent to you.
Andrew: [laughs] No.
Eric: Okay.
Andrew: It should be. I mean, I haven’t used…
Eric: Yeah, what’s been going on over there?
Andrew: Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Eric: All right.
Listener Feedback
Andrew: All right, we have an email now. This is from Sophie.
“Just listened to your latest episode and thought it was funny that punting means something different for British and American, because punting means something even more different here in Australia! It means gambling (or betting) on something, particularly in sports such as football or horse racing. So reading the books here it sounds like Filch is betting on students who will make it across the swamp or not! I did know the British term, however, as I actually went ‘punting’ around Cambridge on a holiday once, so I could self-translate. Who would have thought there were so many meanings to one word?”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, that’s crazy.
Laura: I think I like the Australian reading of this best of all.
Andrew: Betting?
Laura: Yeah. [laughs]
Andrew: This might be the most confusing scene worldwide in the Harry Potter books. Nobody knows what’s happening.
Eric: [laughs] It’s all lost in translation.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: It’d be… it actually sounds like the Australian definition would be something that Fred and George would actually do, not Filch. Bet on students who can actually make it across the swamp. Tie a whole thing into it.
Andrew: True.
Eric: Yeah, that could be a point of connection between the twins and Filch. They’re all betting men.
Andrew: Well, before we get to Chapter by Chapter, this week’s episode of MuggleCast is sponsored by an app that can greatly improve your life; it’s BeachBody on Demand.
[Ad break]
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Andrew: Okay, and let’s move on to Chapter by Chapter now, and we will start, as always, with our Seven-Word Summary.
Eric: It’s been a while since I’ve had to start one of these things.
Andrew: Uh-oh.
Laura: Pressure’s on.
Andrew: Don’t say Harry. Don’t say Harry. Don’t say Harry.
Eric: Exams…
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Micah: … can…
Laura: … cause…
Andrew: … severe…
Eric: … headaches…
Micah: … and…
Laura: … visions.
Andrew: Perfect!
Laura: Woo!
Micah: Nice.
Andrew: If everybody doesn’t give us an A++ for that, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Laura: Yeah. That was outstanding, y’all.
Eric: I’m quite proud of that, actually.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: There was not even one mention of a Harry Potter character in that, so think about how much restraint that takes.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Micah: All right, exams are here. It actually fits quite well because we’re in the month of June.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Micah: And normally I feel like right now a lot of students would be – if not for Coronavirus – sitting their final exams. But we’ll get to that in a little bit. The chapter starts out with a little bit of tough news for Ron, but Ron is able to get over it pretty quickly, and that is that Harry and Hermione, they weren’t at the Quidditch match. They didn’t see him win the cup for Gryffindor. And yeah, it’s a little heartbreaking for Ron at first, but he is able to quickly get over it, because Harry and Hermione have this story about Grawp.
Eric: Yeah, Ron’s victory has really emboldened him, or it’s just kind of set him straight. He has spent most of the book really down on his wits and happiness because of his failure to really win at Quidditch, but now that he’s done it, it really feels like he’s a new man, and his first order is to completely forgive Hermione and Harry for leaving the match just because… and he gets immediately invested in the story of Grawp and is equally outraged as they are when the story is finished. And there’s a couple examples I’ll touch on later of Ron behaving almost not Ron-like, because he’s super zen. He was the MVP last week that I gave to him, and I just say, Ron, great job at defending the goals.
Andrew: [laughs] I would be really bummed if I were Ron, because of course, this was his big moment, and his best friends weren’t there to see it. I wouldn’t care about this Grawp story, I don’t think.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I would care, but I would still be bummed. It wouldn’t cancel out my bummed-ness over them missing it.
Laura: Right, and they’ve let him go on for days about the match under the assumption that they were there.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: That’s kind of embarrassing.
Andrew: “Yeah, Ron, that was such a great save.”
Eric: Well, they’re the least two people that would need to have seen it to believe it, right?
Andrew: True.
Eric: They always support Ron. I think it helps that the whole darn school saw it, besides Harry and Hermione.
Andrew: It’s too bad cameras don’t capture these games like games would be captured in the real world.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: I mean, even in high school, they’re typically filmed by the AV Club. But of course, that can’t happen here in the wizarding world. Maybe now it does, so Ron’s friends don’t miss any more of his matches.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: It does set him up well for the future, and does give him that boost of confidence. Even if it’s only for this short period of time, it’s nice to see Ron with a little bit of confidence, because we’re so used to him feeling sorry for himself in a lot of ways.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: But he’s able to be so objective with all of this stuff. He says to them after they tell the story of Grawp, he says, “Have we ever come off better from mixing with one of Hagrid’s monster mates? Remember Norbert? Remember Aragog?” Here’s Ron laying down the smackdown of “We’ve never enriched ourselves or come off better by dealing with Hagrid’s messes. Why should we start now?” And I think it…
Andrew: That was a genius observation.
Eric: Absolutely.
Micah: It sounds like one we made on last week’s episode, so I don’t know; maybe Ron listens to the show.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: It makes you wonder, what if Ron said that to Hagrid? What would Hagrid have said?
Micah: Ooh. Maybe Ron is responsible for what happens at the end of the chapter, because he’s angry that Hagrid took Harry and Hermione away from the Quidditch match.
Andrew: [laughs] “Grawp is different, Ron. Don’t worry; nothing will go wrong.”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: One interesting observation that’s made by Harry in the beginning of this chapter, when Ron is going through and really just talking Quidditch, right? He’s explaining how strategically he went about doing what he did, and they’re out there by the lake, sitting under the beech tree. And it’s really a throwback to James, and Harry is able, for a very brief moment, just to kind of enjoy it, watching Ron as if he was watching his dad.
Eric: [laughs] That is an interesting turning point in the Harry internal debate evolution between him and who his father was, to be able to look at Ron and be like, “Oh, he’s being very James-like right now,” and not being upset about it.
Andrew: It was sad to see, though. It just reminded Harry of his father, of that memory he experienced, and it was also kind of beautiful, because Ron was feeling as confident as James did back in the day.
Eric: I’ve got to say, they’ve got to plant more trees at Hogwarts, because this is the one beech tree that…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: I mean, this is the same beech tree that was there in the ’70s that James was under. There’s no other beech tree. Every time they go out on the Hogwarts grounds, they’re always under the beech tree. There’s surely a line of people waiting to sit under this tree in the shade.
Micah: Right, and the only other tree that’s there will try and attack you.
Eric: [laughs] Exactly. We need more peaceful trees at Hogwarts.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Shade nightmare. No shade available.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: It’s just like the Wizarding World in Orlando. There’s no shade there. At Diagon Alley there is, but not the other one.
Eric: There’s probably a Shield Charm for the skin, I would say.
Micah: I was going to say, you need to go to Knockturn Alley if you want some air conditioning down in Orlando.
Eric: [laughs] I’m sure that’s true in the books as well.
Micah: But Harry does make use of everything that’s going on to notice that nobody has really pursued Snape teaching him Occlumency, and remember, this is something that Remus and Sirius talked with him about, and Hermione has been consistently nagging him about over the course of the last few chapters since Snape has stopped lessons with him. And yeah, this is not good given what happens at the end of this chapter.
Eric: Yeah, but Harry is like, “Oh, I can skate by. Nobody’s paying attention to me and my Occlumency that I’m supposed to be having.” It’s kind of a shame, but I think we’ve really all been there, especially as a teenager; when you have just slightly too much on your plate, you’re able to skate by in inaction and kind of bask in other people being distracted.
Micah: Absolutely. I couldn’t imagine Harry, even if he was taking lessons with Snape and progressing, focusing on Occlumency with all the exams that he has currently in front of him. And look at Hermione; she’s a mess throughout this chapter.
Eric: Poor her. But it’s true, if he’s supposed to empty his mind before every lesson, how are you going to do that when this is the time of year when you really have to retain information and regurgitate and do all this stuff with your head? It just… Harry wasn’t good at it to begin with; he’s not going to be good at it now during exam season.
Laura: Yep, it’s really the perfect storm.
Micah: Well, before we get to talking about the exams themselves, we do get a little bit of career advice from Draco Malfoy…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Oh, perfect.
Micah: … when he says, “You know what? At the end of the day, these tests, they don’t really matter. It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.” And I just have visions of corporate nepotism and other things pop up when I heard this, because I do think there is something to that. And I think there’s a reason why J.K. Rowling included it in the story, and particularly that it comes from Draco with his father and his influence at the Ministry.
Eric: Oh, yeah. Maybe Lucius is buying Draco a cushy seat somewhere with all that gold.
Andrew: Well, and it also reminds me of what’s been going on recently with this college admissions scandal with Aunt Becky and a bunch of other celebrities bribing schools to get their kids into college. [laughs] It’s awful.
Eric: Well, and there’s also something Dudley-ish about it. Draco is like, “Oh, we’ve had Griselda Marchbanks over for tea. She and Father are real close.” Like, oh, come on, man.
Laura: And then Neville is like, “I don’t think that’s true.”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: He totally calls fake news on that moment.
Eric: He does, he does. And Ron, with ever the worldview, is like, “There’s nothing we can do about it if it is true,” to Harry, when he’s like, “Is Draco really cheating his way to the top?” Ron is just so peaceful right now that he’s won. He’s still riding the high of his victory, and nothing can perturb him.
Micah: Yeah, it’s quite a moment, because I think that we probably can all identify at least one person that, whether it was college, whether it’s been at the office where we work, where we know somebody who is there not necessarily because of the work that he or she has done to get there, but because of just who they are. I know that you deal with that all the time, Andrew, with Brooklyn.
Andrew: [laughs] I was trying to come up with a joke about one of you three, but I couldn’t.
Laura: Yeah, because we’ve all worked really hard to get where we are, and Andrew is like, “Ugh, I can’t undermine them.”
Andrew: There’s no jokes here.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: I think some very real topics not just in this chapter come up, but in this book, right? And that’s why it is so interesting to be having this conversation about education and some of the things that happen at the end of this chapter, given both current events, but also just the fact that we’re adults, and so we see this all through a different perspective than we did when we first read Order of the Phoenix.
Laura: Yeah, I definitely distinctly remember – especially when I was in grad school – you recognized who was there based on their academic work, and who was there because of money, right?
Micah: Totally.
Laura: And those differences very much stand out. I’m sure, Micah, you probably had something similar in your own program. Yeah, it’s discouraging, though, because you’re like, “Education should be here for the betterment of people,” and instead, you have some portion of the population that’s very privileged financially and is able to buy their way through in order to pad their resume, and I think that’s what Draco represents here.
Micah: I’ve always wondered if Draco is a good student, though. I know in this moment it seems like there’s a bit of nepotism going on, but I wonder how good his grades actually are.
Eric: I feel like somewhere recently we read that they were near Hermione-esque levels. Even though Lucius gives Draco a run for his money, Draco’s grades, I think, are pretty good. I can’t remember where I heard that, but I really think that he’s actually getting good grades in school despite being a total prat.
Andrew: Yeah, I’ve gotten the impression he values a good education.
Eric: Yeah, I think this is just bluster, and it’s the kind of thing we tell ourselves as well, like, “Oh, it’ll be okay; this is not that pressing,” when in fact, internally, we’re freaking out about it.
Micah: Yeah, well, I wonder how would we react to taking two straight weeks of standardized testing?
Andrew: Sounds terrible!
Micah: I know, right? I remember back to… at least in New York state, we had Regents Exams. I’m not sure what they’re called in other states, or if there’s standardized testing that are put forth by the state. But there was always a lot of pressure going into these exams, because they were determining your future, right? They were going to have an impact on whether or not you got into a college, and if you did, what college were you going to get into. And it also makes me think a lot about the PSATs and the SATs, which I know are more universal across the US, so I would just be curious to hear others’ experiences.
Laura: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I grew up in a few different states, but no matter where you went, standardized testing was the law of the land. And in a couple of cases, like in Texas and Georgia, if you did poorly enough on your yearly standardized test, it could hold you back. In some cases, when you took those exams, it was just for state funding, which is a whole other conversation…
[Eric laughs]
Laura: … but there were some cases where it actually determined whether or not you were able to go on to the next grade. So if you came in and you had a bad day taking this standardized test, it could completely impact your entire next year of schooling.
Eric: In Pennsylvania they were called the PSSAs, and I remember doing them… I think they were successive mornings in the week, but I do remember we had enough prep that we would come into school, the first couple periods of the day would be devoted to testing in the cafeteria, and then we’d go about our days. But I feel like, if I can remember how I felt during this testing, I felt invigorated to… because all the studying that I was ever going to do was done, and then it was like, “Here’s just where you sit down and show us what you know.”
Andrew: Right.
Eric: You just get rid of your knowledge, and I kind of liked that. And of course, the knowledge escaped my brain, went onto the paper, and never came back.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Right. Yeah, that’s what happens. You cram, and then you do well, hopefully, and then you forget all this information.
Laura: Yeah, so it’s like… I mean, we could have a whole episode talking about the effectiveness of standardized testing, but one thing that I would like to highlight here that I think is a little different… I mean, OWLs are clearly a form of standardized testing, but what’s different from the US, of course, is that these are written exams and practical exams, where students have some control over the content, right? Whereas when you’re taking a standardized test in the US, it’s questions and a Scantron, and you bubble in your answers, and you’re either right or you’re wrong. So I think what we’re seeing here is a little bit better, but two successive weeks of exams is a lot…
Andrew: So much.
Laura: … especially when you’re telling a 15-year-old – think about where you were mentally at 15 – “Hey, if you screw this up, it completely determines your career trajectory for the rest of your life.” That’s a lot of pressure.
Eric: I also wonder if it’s different because it’s a boarding school, right? They live here, so two weeks… having all their exams spread out over two entire weeks feels actually like a dream to me.
Andrew: That’s a good point.
Micah: Just because there’s so much additional time? I mean, my exams were similar to this, where you would get that entire day just to focus on that particular exam, so you weren’t going to class before or after, which I think is a good thing, because you shouldn’t have to be distracted by other things when you’re focusing on these exams and how important they are. But it was interesting, what Laura said earlier, about how these exams are more open to interpretation, so it’s almost like they have more of a college feel to them, where… not to say that… of course, there are things you take in college where there’s a right and a wrong answer, but I think the ability to just write… I’m thinking to Harry’s History of Magic OWL, right? His answer is not literally going to be the exact same thing as what Hermione or Draco or anybody else writes. So there is that flexibility and thought, and that doesn’t exist, really, when you’re taking more of those standardized tests, to your point.
Eric: Except the essay portion. I had an old English teacher who went down to Florida every year to read essay submissions of I think the SATs, the reading portion by students nationally. So there were a couple of opportunities for independent thought, but even then, I think the scope was really limited. And it’s not like we’re shooting spells or having to run an obstacle course or anything, which I think is always the coolest part about reading about Harry taking tests.
Micah: Well, and much like the real world, there’s a black market for drugs that will enhance your abilities for taking these tests or for cramming late nights.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Drugs and other tools, yeah.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: You have Baruffio’s Brain Elixir, as well as Dingle’s powdered dragon claw. Those are a few that are mentioned. And I think Baruffio’s Brain Elixir you can actually brew in Wizards Unite, if I’m not mistaken.
Laura: Yep.
Andrew and Eric: Oh!
Micah: So it is a real thing.
Laura: That is a thing.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Wow. So are you cheating in Wizards Unite?
Micah: Oh, no, you’re enhancing your ability to to defeat Confoundables.
Andrew: I see. Okay.
Micah: Yeah, and Dingle’s powdered dragon claw is, I think, a bunch of dung droppings, from what Hermione said.
Eric: Doxies, yeah. Doxy droppings.
Micah: Yeah, so you don’t want to take that. Or maybe you do. I don’t know, maybe it gives you a nice little kick.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Again, there’s obviously direct comparisons that can be made to young people who do take a lot of things to be able to stay up and study throughout the course of the night prior to an exam.
Eric: Oh, God. 5-hour Energy.
Andrew: 5-hour Energy, Monster, just some good old coffee… when we’re kids, we stay up late, we’re bad with time management, and then, of course, test time comes, and we have to cram it all in at the very last moment. Except for Laura; I’m sure she planned out her schedule appropriately.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Her and Hermione were in bed by 10:00 p.m.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: No, I wish. I was the person who would stay up all night cramming before an exam as well.
Andrew: I would stay up all night playing Banjo-Kazooie or Super Mario 64 and then at 1:00 a.m. I’d be like, “Oh, right, I have a geometry test tomorrow. Hmm. Oh, well.”
Eric: [laughs] Yeah, yeah. “I know what I know, and I don’t know what I don’t know.”
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: What is the circumference of Mumbo Jumbo’s head?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: See, if they asked you that, Andrew, you would have been fine.
Andrew: Good reference. 100 reference.
Eric: Eight pixels.
Micah: [laughs] Eight pixels, nice. Well, yo’veu got drugs, and you’ve got cheating too. So there are bans that are on certain items during these exams. I feel like this is where maybe a Fred and George item would come in handy. But McGonagall specifically says there are no Auto-Answer Quills, Remembralls, Detachable Cribbing Cuffs, or Self-Correcting Ink allowed. Now, the first thing that came to mind is, are these allowed normally?
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Like, they’re only not allowed during OWLs, but you can use them any other time for another exam?
Laura: Well, I mean, Neville’s gran sent him a Remembrall in Philosopher’s Stone, so apparently.
Andrew: But was he using it to cheat? He wasn’t using it to cheat.
Laura: No, he’s too innocent.
Andrew: It depends on the use.
Laura: He’s too innocent to use that to cheat.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I think the teachers probably keep an eye out for these various devices during a normal term, but then it’s a lot more serious when you’re trying to cheat during your OWLs.
Eric: Yeah, it’s the same way in that any major test you’re kind of… at the end of the day, it’s up against you and the knowledge you’ve collected. In any situation, there’s some things that will help get you prepared, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to face it. And I think that the Hogwarts students, in the fifth and seventh years… because seventh years are presumably sitting NEWTs at the same time, based on study patterns and things that we see in the hallways and the corridors. But at the end of the day, it’s really about individuals’ ability to test, to show their knowledge.
Andrew: So anyone want to admit to cheating?
Eric: No, I’d rather not admit to cheating.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: That’s an admission in and of itself.
Andrew: Yeah, since teens are listening, maybe we shouldn’t encourage it, of course. But I will say, one time I cheated that I was very proud of was in – this was in college, by the way – a history of rock and roll class. [laughs] And during the test, there was this listening portion where he would blast music, and we had to identify the name of the song and the artist. And come to think of it, how could you study for that? There’s a million songs out there.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: But anyway, what I did is I had my iPhone 1 or whatever, and opened up Shazam and used it to cheat on the listening portion of the test.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: Andrew.
Eric: Modern technology foils…
Micah: That’s massively impressive.
Laura: I’m so disappointed.
Andrew: [laughs] Oh, whatever, Laura. See how proud of me Micah is?
Micah: I’m impressed.
Andrew: Thank you. Yeah, I was proud of that.
Micah: See, what I find so interesting about it is that today the ability to cheat has to be so much…
Andrew: Oh, it’s so easy.
Micah: The resources are so much more readily accessible than they were when I went to school, right? When I was in high school, we didn’t… cell phones were just…
Andrew: [in an old man voice] “There were no cell phones!”
Micah: There were no cell phones, yeah, exactly. Or if they were, they weighed 40 lbs.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And it looked like you were calling outer space or something.
Andrew: Right, you couldn’t hide that under your desk. [laughs]
Micah: Yeah, so I just… I’m interested to know… you’re saying you have, literally, an app that can give you the answers to a question. Your situation is a little bit unique, but I also just think that having phones available to you… I’ve got to imagine that’s something that teachers are always asking students to put away these days, but who knows? If you have a teacher that’s not really that attentive or aware, I would assume you could probably get away with quite a bit.
Eric: Well, and think about even if a teacher confiscates phones, there’s Apple Watch now, right? You could presumably do things with the watch.
Andrew: [whispers] “Hey, Siri, what song is this?”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: Yeah, I mean, I’ve definitely seen teachers who will on testing day have a basket on their desk and tell everyone to come put their phones in the basket, but how do you…?
Micah: Did you do that to your students?
Laura: No, no, because I taught fairly small classes, so there wasn’t really going to be much of a chance to get away with something like that. I also think that… I have a personal feeling that when you do stuff like that, it automatically tells your students you don’t trust them, and I just think that doesn’t set a very great precedent, personally.
Micah: Right.
Laura: But for the teachers that do do that, I think about… how do you confiscate someone’s watch?
Andrew: Right.
Laura: Like, “Give me your phone, and your watch.”
Andrew: “And your watch.” And I mean, now there’s these rumors about Apple working on glasses, and it’s going to be able to put information right up on your glasses in a heads up display, so cheating is just going to get worse and worse. I think what teachers just have to do – and now, I’m not a teacher, so what do I know? – but when a teacher walks around the room, that’s effective, I think. It might stress out the students a little bit, like, “They’re staring at me,” but you make sure they don’t have their phone out; they don’t have any notes out. I mean, students now, they have to take tests from home due to quarantine and COVID. If I’m taking a test at home, I’m cheating. Sorry.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Well, and a lot of teachers switch it to be an open-book test, right?
Andrew: Right.
Eric: We did have a couple of those where it was not so much pressure to cram, but to be able to access the resources… those tests were the best, because it was really about if you knew how to find the information, and that is something I was always more infinitely better at.
Andrew: And let’s be honest, that’s what we’re going to do after we graduate. We’re not going to remember every single thing, and we’re going to Google. We’re going to look in books to get our answers. So in a way, it’s the most practical type of test. That prepares you for the future.
Laura: Yes, I agree. It is more reflective of life. To that point, I would just like to bring up we all remember being in high school in this country and our math teachers being like, “You’re never going to walk around with a calculator in your pocket.” Well, guess what?
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: We do.
Eric: Let’s say our math teachers’ names out loud right now. Yeah, Mister… [laughs]
Andrew: I had a crush on mine. I won’t speak poorly of him.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, no, but you’re right. Math was always hard for me to grapple with when it came to test time, because it’s like, “We’re going to be using calculators anyway in the future. And do I need this math? No, of course not.”
Micah: Yeah. I mean, I understand the need to have this wide scope of learning, but what I like about the OWLs is it’s really being able to set… it’s not just a blanket statement where you always hear, “Oh, well, you have to take these tests in order to be successful in life,” right? But I do think the OWLs, at least, are setting up these students for a career path that they’re interested in as of right now, whereas I don’t necessarily think that that’s what a lot of standardized testing here in the US does. You’re just taking it to take it. And then just to wrap up the cheating piece, I mean, I’ll speak for myself, but I would say probably most people – at least going back to pre-cell phone – you would always look over at the person next to you at some point or… not every test, but you’d do it.
Andrew: Yeah, “Which letter did they fill in?” [laughs]
Micah: Yeah, exactly. So I think that’s fair to say.
Andrew: I’m glad you said it.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And I have no problem saying it.
Laura: I did not.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Well, that’s because you… Laura, you were always at the front of the class, so you didn’t…
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Yeah, I can’t argue that. I was a goody two shoes.
Micah: So if you turned around, it would be noticeable. Yeah, the teacher would notice.
Eric: [laughs] Well, goody two shoes speaking, Hermione is confiscating other people’s coping mechanisms here. She’s going around, and she’s really… but in the case of the Doxy dropping, it’s probably for the best. But she’s really… in addition to freaking out about her own knowledge level… and I really appreciate Ron – again, with the save – at some point, tells her, “Hermione, we said and agreed that we were not going to do this. You’re not going to talk about every test after we’ve taken the test.” Because she can’t let go, which is great. I mean, people… I feel bad that she’s so high-strung. But she also is doing the job of two prefects right now, because Ron, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to be taking it as seriously. He is more of “Let the children do what the children will do,” and Hermione is just like, “No, Ron, this is wrong.”
Micah: But I feel like I’ve done that after exams, though, too, where… right? You just… you want to talk about the test.
Eric: Yeah, you want to…
Micah: You want to know how you did, what did your friends answer, what did your colleagues answer…
Laura: Yeah, I think Hermione is a little bit obsessive here, though, because she wants to talk through every question.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: And I’m like, I don’t know how you have the kind of photographic memory where you can remember every question that was on there.
Eric: I wonder if they’re more like those quizzes with two or three questions that just take a while to answer.
Andrew: I don’t know.
Micah: Maybe, but it’s clear Hermione has anxiety. She has nerves about all of these exams, as do Harry… I don’t know, Ron seems like he’s just kind of… maybe he’s still coming off that Quidditch high, but he’s pretty calm throughout most of the chapter. But Harry, he’s dealing with some stuff himself. But switching gears here, let’s talk about the actual OWLs. And we’re introduced to Griselda Marchbanks in this chapter, and the trio are overhearing a conversation with her and with Umbridge, and you can tell she’s definitely team Dumbledore.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: “Where is he?”
Micah: And how old is she, first of all, if she sat Dumbledore’s exam with him?
Eric: That’s actually really old.
Micah: That’s what I want to know.
Eric: Wow.
Micah: But, and take this as you will…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: There’s a quote from her that… as they’re talking about Dumbledore and Umbridge is saying that the Ministry will… at some point they’ll track him down; they’ll get him. And she responds by saying, “I really don’t think so. Dumbledore did things with a wand I’ve never seen before.”
Andrew: Ha. That’s my only comment.
Micah: This is a very humbling moment in front of the trio for Umbridge.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. Griselda Marchbanks is somebody that Umbridge can’t outwardly or directly oppose, so she’s just forced to kind of sit and smile and change the subject.
Andrew: Well, and you know Umbridge hates that people are missing Dumbledore and wondering where he is, and then saying, “Oh yeah, there’s no way you’re going to be able to find him.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: “He does things with that wand…”
Eric: “That man…”
Micah: Do we want to jump into some of these individual OWL examinations?
Andrew: Yeah, I think we can breeze through these pretty quickly.
Micah: There were some cool moments, I think, in some of them. Others were just kind of touched on. But the first one, Charms, there’s a question specifically on Wingardium Leviosa, and it’s a really nice throwback to Sorcerer’s Stone.
Eric: Yeah, I found it surprising that these OWLs – but I guess not surprising, when you think about it – that these OWLs are really all-encompassing. It’s not just the stuff they’ve learned in their fifth year, but it’s everything they’ve learned at Hogwarts in their formal education up to this point. So the very first question… it also seems to be maybe arranged chronologically based on when they learned it, so I kind of like that idea of “Here’s your most basic form of magic, the stuff you covered in year one,” and then it’s gradually going to get more complex.
Micah: The other one I would call attention to is Defense Against the Dark Arts. We know that this is really the one that Harry has been waiting for because… and I think us as readers, too; we really wanted to see not just how Harry was going to do, but really what the reaction of the room was going to be, in particular on the practical examination, right? We don’t care about the written side of things, because…
Andrew: Boring.
Micah: It’s just not as cool, right? You don’t get to see stuff happen. And it’s actually Malfoy who kind of gives Harry the confidence that he needs in this moment. And I was actually disappointed – and I know this is going off on a little bit of a tangent – that this wasn’t in the movies. It speaks to Harry’s education throughout the course of the series, and how important Defense Against the Dark Arts is, and I thought it would’ve been a really cool moment, not only if Harry had cast a Patronus Charm, but if others in the room that were a part of Dumbledore’s Army did the same thing. I know they do it all in the Room of Requirement, but just there are so many scenes that are meshed together in the movie, right? When they’re taking the OWLs, the OWLs actually end with Fred and George disrupting them and them escaping. And the OWLs are presented really as just one examination, as opposed to however many this is over the course of two weeks. But Professor Tofty is mightily impressed with Harry, and he’s even willing to offer bonus points for a Patronus Charm.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Yeah, so I think Malfoy was kind of right in his assertion earlier in the chapter. Harry is offered the opportunity for bonus points based on Professor Tofty being familiar with Harry’s reputation.
Andrew: That does seem pretty unfair.
Laura: Yeah!
Andrew: Hermione would kill for a bonus point.
Eric: [laughs] I think she has.
Laura: And to see a Thestral.
Andrew: Oh, there we go.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Two birds with one stone. Yeah, but it was really cool to see Harry conjure that Patronus, and so easily too. It just reminds you how far he’s come from having to practice a lot to being able to do it quickly on command. He didn’t know he would be asked to do that, and then he just busts one out no problem.
Eric: Well, and it’s a throwback to the courtroom scene earlier when Umbridge really thought she had him, but the first time that the room really broke was when Madame Bones, I want to say, asked Harry about his Patronus, like, “Wait, you can produce a full one, right?” And it’s just… Umbridge cannot stand Harry’s competence in this subject matter on a good day, and I think the unpleasant reminder of what happened in the courtroom… everybody’s always asking Harry to conjure a Patronus when he’s in front of Umbridge. It’s also a good moment for a twist in the book because Harry looks at her stupid, dumb face to conjure the Patronus, and it works, and then he looks at her a little closer, and she’s actually smiling, and he’s like, “Oh, shoot. What’s she planning?”
Laura: Yeah, I wanted to highlight there’s also really what I think is a beautiful connecting the threads moment between Prisoner of Azkaban in this book, but also just this story in general. We see the repercussions of Harry’s private lessons with Lupin and Snape reflected during exams in this chapter. So obviously, Harry’s private lessons with Lupin in Prisoner of Azkaban totally paid off here, whereas his private lessons with Snape really screwed him over.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: Especially as we get to the end of the chapter. He could have taken a few more of them, that’s for sure.
Laura: Yep, and he could have had a better teacher for sure.
Micah: But speaking of Snape, how about Potions? Snape is nowhere to be found during this practical examination. And I think this speaks to something we said in a previous episode, where Harry actually feels like he didn’t do half bad, and I think that’s because Snape is not present in the room; he’s not hovering over him or looking at him, and I think that that’s able to bring down Harry’s anxiety levels a little bit and allow him to focus on what he’s doing. Now, does he do great? We know from Half-Blood Prince he doesn’t achieve the highest level, but he certainly did better than expected.
Eric: Yeah, and it’s just so interesting that Snape is absent. I think we’re meant to take it to believe that he’s still avoiding Harry, and in this case, I think he has to avoid all the Gryffindors in order to avoid Harry. But all the other teachers are kind of around when their exams are being taken – Umbridge is there for the DADA; Hagrid is actually looking through his window during the Care of Magical Creatures OWL later – so the teachers are taking an interest, and they’re… at least for what I presume to be moral support. But Snape is gone, and it actually works in Harry’s favor, as you said.
Andrew: It’s interesting; Snape didn’t do it, though, to avoid stressing out Harry. Where was he? Was he helping Dumbledore? Did he just not care about the kids?
Eric: I mean, I think he’s just still angry at Harry, right? He doesn’t want to be in the same room as him. And we don’t know if Lupin told him, “You’ve got to teach the boy Occlumency,” and we don’t know if Snape actively is avoiding that. But he’s avoiding Harry, I think, at all costs, it seems.
Laura: I could also see Snape just not caring to be there. What’s he going to do? What does he bring to being present during an exam that he can’t help anybody with? So he’s probably like, “Mm, that’s a waste of my time.”
Eric: [laughs] Yeah, he spent the whole year teaching students or trying to get them up to the level, and they either are or they aren’t.
Micah: Right. And I will say, I appreciate the fact that J.K. Rowling actually went into detail on all of these OWLs. I know we’re jumping, really, to the ones that stand out, but it just speaks to the fact that for us as readers, we’ve been with the trio, really, in all of these classes over the course of the last five years, and now we’re finally getting to see the payoff. There’s no just, “Oh, I’m going to skip over Transfiguration or Herbology”; there’s actual detail given to all of those individual exams.
Laura: I thought we could touch on Hagrid in particular watching the examinations happen. He’s sort of nervously watching from his cabin window, right? And I felt like, at least in my reading experience, it felt like Hagrid’s reason for watching the exams take place was a bit different from the other teachers, and I think it’s because Hagrid knows that how his students perform on their Care of Magical Creatures Exam is going to be directly reflective of how effective the Ministry sees him as a teacher, whereas they may not do that to the other Hogwarts teachers, with the exception of Firenze, of course. So just another example of discrimination happening in this book.
Micah: That’s a really great point. Well, let’s talk a little bit then about what happens to Hagrid at the tail end of this chapter, and to your point, Laura, there is a level of discrimination that is going on here beyond just evaluating him and his ability to teach, and this plays out in front of all of the students that are taking the Astronomy practical. And it’s really a heart-wrenching scene, because not only do you have him being attacked unaware, you have McGonagall step in to try and help and her be attacked as a result of that. And it just seems that this whole plan that’s put in place by Umbridge is really not to expel him as a professor; it’s to attack him for who he is.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s really hard to watch. And one thing I was curious about was the fact that they came to his door in the middle of the night. Of course, Harry is taking his Astronomy test; he’s perfectly positioned to watch the whole thing go down.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: But perfect timing. Did she strike in the middle of the night to get him when he least expects it? That’s my guess.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. But just the sheer amount of people she brought with her, surely that’s unnecessary. And I think that it’s not…
Andrew: Is it, though? Because he still got away, so I think she knew they needed some manpower.
Eric: But if you’re talking about a respect of your colleagues, you would… if you’re going to sack somebody, you would presumably… you’d bring maybe another witness, but not six other witnesses. She expected force, and therefore that was what it eroded into.
Laura: Yeah. Well, also, she wasn’t just going down there to sack him; they were clearly trying to take him by force.
Eric: That’s the interesting part. What is the crime here? [imitating Hagrid] “I won’t go to Azkaban!” But I’m like, why are…? I thought this was supposed to be about his incompetence, and maybe it’s about the Nifflers in the office that Lee Jordan put in there, but I just don’t understand the logic of what this whole confrontation is about on the superficial level.
Micah: I think it’s a show of force; it’s a show of power on the part of Umbridge. And yeah, she’s not going there to sack him; as I said earlier, she could have easily done that the following morning by just notifying him, right? Hagrid is expecting to be let go at this point. I mean, that’s why we have the whole scene with Grawp play out. I think that she’s probably hoping to get some information from him that could be helpful in locating Dumbledore, and she has Ministry support here, right? Dawlish is there, and so she actually has Aurors who are assisting her, much like going back to the scene in Dumbledore’s office. I just think this was about clear intimidation, fear… and we know who she is as a person. Hagrid is a half-giant. She has no respect for Hagrid just because of that fact alone, and then the brutality with which she and these Ministry officials attack… Hagrid is defenseless in a way, right? He doesn’t have the ability to do magic, so it’s not like he can respond in the same way. At least, he’s not as effective at it; we know that. So this was the perfect surprise tactic, I think, to the point that was raised earlier. The middle of the night, just going to ambush him, essentially.
Laura: Yeah, it’s also interesting to see Hagrid’s progression here as a character, because we see – this is also a connecting the threads moment back to Prisoner of Azkaban – there’s this attempt by the Ministry to, I think, indirectly discriminate against Hagrid because of Lucius Malfoy’s influence, right? So at the end of Prisoner of Azkaban, they’re literally invading Hagrid’s space in order to execute Buckbeak. They’re doing the same thing but amplified here at the end of Order of the Phoenix. But in Prisoner of Azkaban, Hagrid is compliant. He disagrees with everything they’re doing, and he’s trying his best to build a defense for Buckbeak, but in the end, he complies with everything the Ministry asks him to do. And at this point, he’s like, “Uhh, no more. I’m done with you fools. I’m out of here.”
Andrew: Yeah, there’s an uprising happening, and he feels like he’s a part of it. He’s part of the rebellion. It was interesting – sorry to steal your note, Eric – that the spells are bouncing off of Hagrid, and that was cool to see, given everything that’s going on.
Eric: Yeah, I never quite feel like I’ll fully grasp why that works, but it works.
Andrew: Because he’s got thick skin. I think that’s what’s said in the book, right?
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I mean, literally thick skin.
Eric: Yeah, but a spell would penetrate your skin, surely. The Death Curse isn’t going to stop because you’ve got a little bit more skin cells on top.
Andrew: Well, and that jacket is heavy duty. I mean, that’s pretty thick too, so between the two…
Eric: [laughs] Yeah, the comparison that Hagrid is thick-skinned is also true with dragon hide; a lot of substances in the Harry Potter books that are made of dragon skin and dragon hide are better at withstanding hot temperatures or better at withstanding spells. That’s just… it’s almost cartoonish, though, the way that six Aurors, if they’re all like Dawlish… Dawlish is definitely there; six Ministry officials are just shooting spells at him, and they’re bouncing off or not affecting him. Meanwhile, McGonagall comes out to stop the whole situation, and four of those spells at once shot at her – which is an excessive use of force – unprovoked. They level her, though. They absolutely lay her out cold. And Hagrid, meanwhile, with his not only full, half-giant skin, is able to somehow take all of them on and land some punches and then run away into the forest.
Andrew: Yeah. The attack on McGonagall was really sad to see, and again, right in front of students. Umbridge must have known she would be doing this in front of kids. That might be something to add to the suck count.
Eric: Well, it’s 11 o’clock at night; does she really think that? I mean, they are sitting…
Andrew: Well, because the OWLs are going on; that’s why I say that. I mean, under the cover of darkness, I guess. And then as Eric mentioned a couple minutes ago, we do find out that Lee Jordan used the Nifflers. That was him who set the Nifflers free, and he got them from the Weasley twins. The lesson here, panel, is we’ve got to start reading ahead. On the other hand, it’s kind of fun that we forget what happens in the immediate future, the little things. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I like being surprised by it. Thank you to everybody who corrected us and told us in advance that this was coming.
Micah: Just a few emails that came into the inbox about Nifflers and Lee Jordan.
Andrew: We actually have not read the Harry Potter books before. Surprise! We’re going through these for the first time, out of order.
Micah: Out of order. [laughs]
Eric: It’s such a small fact, but I really… I don’t know what Lee was thinking, honestly. And he says Fred and George gave him their couple. What are Fred and George doing with Nifflers?
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: And where were they hiding them? Because, like I said last week, I feel like they would get out of wherever they were and wreak havoc over Hogwarts all the time.
Eric: It’s what Nifflers do, yeah.
Micah: I think, though, unfortunately, it does give Umbridge at least another reason, whether justified or not, to go after Hagrid, because he is a Care of Magical Creatures professor. But look, I think people would notice if Hagrid was coming up to the school, dropping Nifflers in Umbridge’s office. Again, the same thing with him getting out of the Quidditch match with nobody seeing him. He’s a half-giant at the end of the day; people are going to notice what he’s doing.
Eric: But can we talk again more about this attack on McGonagall? Because she may not be Headmistress – Umbridge is Headmistress – but she’s the Deputy Headmistress; she’s the Head of a Hogwarts House. The fact that she’s coming down the hill with the intention to stop just the violence and try and talk something out… she clearly is there as a peaceable person. She’s not brandishing a wand or anything. And the fact that – not Umbridge; I doubt Umbridge even fires a spell because she’s so incompetent during all this – but the fact that Umbridge’s soldiers shoot at and lay McGonagall flat for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, hello, that speaks to a lot of what’s been going on in the real world.
Micah: Yeah, I think to the point of the email at the top of the show, there’s always a way to connect current events to what you’re reading when the themes are so relevant, as they are in the Harry Potter series. They’re timely, but they’re also timeless, because this has been an issue that has been going on for 400 years in our country. And I would just say that the attack on Hagrid, actually, that reminded me of the incident on – the murder, I should say – of George Floyd. And the police – in this case, the Ministry – and their abuse of power, attacking a defenseless individual with the intent to harm him, and the underlying racist tendencies towards, in this case, a half-giant… and we’ve learned a lot over the course of the Harry Potter series about how there are strong discriminatory policies in place against different types of people, and that is no different than what is is happening right now in our country.
Eric: And they know Hagrid is unarmed because they snapped his wand. They know he doesn’t have a wand; he hasn’t had a wand since he was 12 years old. They know he’s unarmed. He’s big, he scares them, but he’s unarmed. There is no need for six of them. Yeah, so after that whole evening of exciting events…
Micah: Yeah, I don’t think there’s an easy transition from that off to what happens at the end of the chapter, just that Harry has one more OWL to sit, and that is History of Magic. And this is when his mind really starts to drift. He’s clearly consumed by what happened the night before, and we’re talking about not only the Head of his House, but a close ally in McGonagall, who was attacked and is now, for the foreseeable future, out of the picture. Hagrid, also an ally, is now out of the picture. And so those who Harry can really trust and rely upon who are adults, the list is dwindling, and I don’t even know who else would be a reference point for him right now if he needed something.
Andrew: At the school, yeah. And it was a really awful moment, of course, and then was it Lee Jordan who said…? They just watched McGonagall get attacked; then seconds later, he’s like, “Well, I’m off to bed.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: How can you go to sleep after that? One of your teachers, a very good teacher, was just attacked. Two of them. I thought that was a little silly. But anyway, yeah, so Harry is feeling sleepy after a rough night. It’s time for Voldemort to strike.
Eric: I had some questions about the vision that Harry sees. Of course, it’s all designed to get Harry to come to the Ministry to the Department of Mysteries and take the prophecy off the shelf, but Harry hears Voldemort telling Sirius to grab what is the prophecy. He says, “I cannot grab it, but you can.” I think this is fundamentally just wrong, right? Because the prophecy can be grabbed by the people to whom the prophecy is being made about.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: So Harry and Voldemort, either of them could grab it from the shelf. The very notion that Voldemort needs Sirius to, to which Sirius replies, “Over my dead body,” or “You’ll have to kill me,” is wrong, right? It’s just wrong information.
Andrew: But it doesn’t matter if it’s correct. Voldemort is trying to lure Harry to where they are.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Andrew: But here’s the thing that gets me: If the adults had actually just filled Harry in on what the heck has been going on this year, Harry may have actually been educated on prophecies, known that Sirius could not touch it, and then would have been able to suspect that Voldemort was making up what was happening.
Eric: It would have given him an extra bit of ammo to say, “Wait, I should stop and think.”
Andrew: “This can’t be right.”
Eric: Exactly, yeah. Looking back, my question for the panel – and maybe even for the listeners, if you want to write in – what would have been the whole problem with telling Harry from the onset, or everybody, that the weapon that everybody’s been so damn secret about was a prophecy? Say they reveal what it was from the get-go. You have no book; you have no Book 5, I mean. But besides that, what? What was so protective about the fact that it’s a prophecy? Only Dumbledore knows what the contents of the prophecy are, but everybody assumes roughly what it’s about, right? If you were to tell the wizarding world in general, “Oh, there was a prophecy made,” nobody’s going to be able to extra get it all of a sudden; it’s still going to have the highest levels of security. So what would have been the harm in them saying at the beginning of the year, “Voldemort is trying to get it into the Hall of Prophecy, and this is why, because there was a prophecy”?
Andrew: Right, and then educate him on prophecies. What also cracks me up is Voldemort says in this vision, “We have hours ahead of us and nobody to hear you scream,” basically telling Harry, “We’re going to be here for a while, wink wink.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: “Coast is clear.”
Andrew: “Take your time! Come on in! We’ll be here.”
Eric: Figure out how to get your ass to London with Hogwarts in a police state.
Laura: Yeah, I have a feeling this may be a case where we find out some more context about this in future chapters, so we might start getting some emails from people being like, “Well, actually, they couldn’t tell Harry because of X, Y, and Z.”
Eric: I’m willing to take that risk.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Eric: I genuinely think it’s a little bit of a… I mean, do you have an inkling, Laura?
Andrew: Yeah, Laura, what do you know?
Laura: I’m not saying that I know anything. I mean, just thinking about what we know about Harry’s character, he probably would have been goaded on to try and find the prophecy or try and fight Voldemort if he were led to believe that it had been prophesized that either he or Neville, but ultimately he, was the one that had to defeat Voldemort. And if he had found that out at this point in the series, it really could have messed up the trajectory for the rest of the books.
Andrew: Yeah, I understand the characters may have had their reasons for not telling Harry; I’m just saying that Occlumency was a total waste. If Harry actually knew what Voldemort was up to, at least bits and pieces of it, maybe he would have been able to look at this vision he was having and realizing that Voldemort was trying to play a trick on him.
Eric: Yeah, and I mean, he spent all year dreaming about the room and what’s in the room and all this stuff. If they just told him, there wouldn’t have been that yearning. The only reason Harry ends up going is because he’s been so turned on and interested and intrigued by the mystery of it all, all year long. They could have removed that component, and you get a much calmer Harry with a much less dire need to go to London.
Laura: Yeah, the thing is, though, Harry’s brain is a two-way radio in this book, and given the fact that he’s not performing very well at Occlumency, I can see why they would be hesitant to tell him too much, because if he’s not very good at shutting off his mind, anything they tell him is a risk.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. I think it’s just… look, we know it’s a prophecy, because what is Voldemort…? Voldemort can’t know that they know that he’s looking for the prophecy? They know, and he knows they know because they keep stationing guards outside of the room, so he knows from the… I don’t see it as a lost scenario. And then Dumbledore should have taken Harry under his wing, or somebody, earlier on for Occlumency. But I don’t want to nitpick the book, obviously. It’s just an open question.
Micah: Yeah, there’s no question, though, that more could have been done to help Harry in this situation, because now he’s just at a point where he’s so vulnerable and he has nobody to rely upon to give him the information that he needs. At the very least, they could have given him more information when he was talking about the things that he was seeing, instead of just saying, “No, you’ve got to close your mind.” So I do agree with that point. And as it relates to prophecies, though – and I’m sure we’ve talked about this on the show at some point – but what would happen if somebody else grabs it? Is there just magic preventing…?
Andrew: It’d explode.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: No, I don’t… yeah, I think there’s magic preventing anybody but the two people who the prophecy is about from touching it.
Eric: Well, they go crazy. That’s what happened with Bode, right? He actually touched the prophecy. I think it was Bode. But Bode was Imperiused to touch the prophecy, and it scrambled his brain. It’s a big deal. But I don’t think that’s because it was a prophecy; I think that’s because of the protections on it.
Micah: Right. Well, and then who puts them there in the first place? Do they just pop up when a prophecy is made? Or do you have the Unspeakables?
Andrew: No, in Book 1 baby Harry went and put the prophecy in the Department of Mysteries.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Eric: For safekeeping. It was on a much lower shelf back then.
Micah: That makes sense. No, it just seems a little silly in practice to me. But also, yeah, I mean, we’ll get into it in future chapters about how Harry should have been a little bit more just aware of the fact that Sirius would never have put himself in that type of situation, despite how reckless he could be at times.
Andrew: I would guess they magically appear there. When the prophecy is made, it just magically appears over in the Hall of Prophecies.
Eric: I believe that. Pretty interesting work on the part of the Ministry to guide them there, to have it be in the ether that if a prophecy has been conducted, it would show up in London. Or maybe it was always where prophecies showed up, and that’s why they built the department around it. We have some pretty interesting questions to ask when we get into the various departments through the next couple chapters, so I am looking forward to that. But speaking of prophecies, I predict that the Umbridge Suck count will pass 100 in the next episode. That’s my prophecy.
Andrew: Oooh, everybody get ready.
Micah: I think that’s probably the last real chance we have, though, isn’t it?
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Well, we’d better get tallying.
Micah: Before she gets centaured?
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Well, we have at least four for this chapter. Laura, do you want to take us through a few of these?
Laura: Yeah, so first of all, being present at the Defense Against the Dark Arts exams to intimidate students, particularly Harry. F that.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Andrew: Agreed.
Laura: And then getting her henchmen together to try and overtake Hagrid in the middle of the night.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Laura: And then Stunning McGonagall with an excessive use of force, no warning. Her Deputy Headmistress.
Andrew: Augh! Does that deserve two?
Eric: That deserves two.
Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: [whispers] Yes.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Eric: We’re really trying to break 100.
Andrew: And then doing these things in front of students. I know it was late at night, but I really think that Umbridge knew that some students would be able to see this from up at the Astronomy Tower, due to them taking their OWLs.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Andrew: So that’s 93, so we have seven more to go. We were confident that we would get over 100. We’ll see.
Laura: Oooh, seven more to go.
MVP of the Week
Andrew: Okay, now it’s time for MVP of the Week.
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Andrew: I’m going to give it to McGonagall for trying to help Hagrid, for being a strong woman and getting knocked down like that. That sucks. But good on you, McGonagall, for fighting the good fight.
Eric: I’m going to give it to Ron for his level-headed approach, his new world view following his Quidditch victory. Two weeks in a row, Ron, you ‘da real MVP.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I’m going to give it to Professor Tofty for encouraging Harry in that moment to cast the Patronus Charm and stick it to Umbridge.
Laura: I’m going to give it to Hagrid. Need I say more?
Andrew: [laughs] No, you need not.
Micah: We didn’t talk about… oh, actually, you know what? This is a retroactive Umbridge Suck count…
[Andrew gasps]
Micah: … but Fang.
Laura: Ohh.
Micah: There is animal abuse in this chapter.
Andrew: Ah!
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Andrew: Thanks for catching that.
Micah: There we go. Hagrid has to drape poor Fang over his shoulders.
Eric: Okay, we’re at 94, you guys. We got this.
Rename the Chapter
Andrew: Now let’s rename the chapter. Order of the Phoenix Chapter 31, “Ordinary Wizarding Lawlessness!”
Eric: Starting to sound like a security nightmare.
Micah: Uh-oh.
[“It’s starting to sound like a security nightmare!” sound effect plays with sirens]
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Okay, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 31, “Rubeus Hagrid’s Punch Out.”
Andrew: [laughs] I like that one. That was better than last week’s.
Eric: Thanks.
Micah: I will go with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 31, “Naughty Nifflers.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 31, “Knock ’em, Sock ’em Hagbots.”
Andrew: Nice.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: Okay.
Laura: That’s for all you ’90s kids out there. [laughs]
Andrew: Well, that was a fun discussion. If anybody has any feedback about what we had to say on today’s episode, send it on in via the MuggleCast contact form on MuggleCast.com, or email MuggleCast@gmail.com. You can also use that email address to send us a voice memo, and you can also reach out to us the old fashioned way with a telephone. Our number is… 1-920-3-MUGGLE; that’s 1-920-368-4453. You’d think I’d have that memorized by now, but I don’t.
Eric: I was just thinking, when’s the last time we mentioned the PO box too?
Andrew: PO Box, yeah, if you want to send us a goat…
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: … or you have some feedback; you’d prefer to hand write it. Where can they send that?
Eric: It’s 4044 North Lincoln Avenue, Box #144, Chicago Il, 60618. Again, thanks to all of the people who sent us… I know Sonia sent something recently to us, and we got a couple of things.
Andrew: Well, yeah, the tweet printed on the canvas. Yeah, and the face masks. All kinds of things coming in there, so thanks to everybody who reaches out via the PO Box.
Quizzitch
Andrew: It’s time now for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: Last week’s question: Who is the head of the Wizarding Examinations Authority? The answer, of course, is Griselda Marchbanks. Congratulations to DarthFerrax, SupSarahhh, Samwise Potter Skywalker, Reese Without Her Spoon, Stech Me a Picture, Caitlyn the Greatlyn, Robbie Stillman, Sarah a.k.a. Weensie, BonkersBricks, Count Ravioli, and Jason King. Okay, next week’s question: What curse is Umbridge prepared to use on Harry?
Andrew: Hmm, I think I might know this one, actually.
Eric: Oh, well, you should submit the answer to us over on Twitter at MuggleCast using hashtag Quizzitch.
Andrew: All right. And by the way, people might be asking, “When are you having your next live Quizzitch?” It will probably be towards the end of July. Hint hint, wink wink. What anniversary is at the end of July? Thank you, everybody, for listening to this week’s episode. We will be back next week. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: Bye, everybody.
Eric, Laura, and Micah: Bye.