Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #731, The Great MuggleCast Bake Off (HBP Chapter 9, ‘The Half-Blood Prince’)
Cold Open
Micah: You probably don’t bake a cake the same way I do, or Andrew does, or Laura does. We all follow different instructions, and maybe we add our own little flair to it, and maybe it tastes great, or maybe it doesn’t taste great.
Laura: All right, well, I think we need to have the Great MuggleCast Bake-Off now.
[Everyone laughs]
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the world of Harry Potter. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: And we’re your Harry Potter friends, talking about the books and the movies and the upcoming TV show, so make sure you press that follow button in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. And this week, why not try to follow some directions you found in someone else’s used Potions book? What’s the worst that could happen? It can’t make your Potions grade any worse. Chapter by Chapter continues with Chapter 9 of Half-Blood Prince, “The Half-Blood Prince.” And helping us with today’s discussion is Slug Club level supporter over on our Patreon, Audrey. Welcome to the show, Audrey.
Audrey: Thanks, Andrew. I’m happy to be here.
Andrew: Now, we’re going to ask you for your fandom ID. I think I know what your Hogwarts House answer is going to be based on the sweater you’re wearing tonight, but please give us your fandom ID.
Audrey: [laughs] All right, so my fandom ID: My favorite book is Goblet of Fire, my favorite movie is Deathly Hallows – Part 2, my Hogwarts House is indeed Slytherin, my Patronus is a chow dog, my favorite Hogwarts school subject is Care of Magical Creatures, and a cauldron of – I hope I pronounce this right – Amortentia would smell, for me, like fresh hay, clean leather, jasmine, and salty popcorn.
Andrew and Laura: Oooh.
Andrew: Think you should go to a movie theater with a cowboy. That’d help you check a couple of those boxes, at least.
[Everyone laughs]
Audrey: That would do it.
Andrew: Well, it is the holiday shopping season, and we want to remind our listeners that we have special deals you’ll want to act on right now. First, our Patreon keeps this show running as smoothly as the surface of Harry’s cauldron, and we have our best offer of the year: Get 20% off an annual membership. Just visit Patreon.com/MuggleCast and sign up for an annual subscription at the Dumbledore’s Army or Slug Club level; this will guarantee you next year’s gift, plus a year of ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, access to our member-only Potter communities, a chance to cohost MuggleCast one day like Audrey is right now, and so much more. This offer is only available to new or former patrons. Again, that’s Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and you can click the promotional banner at the top or use code “HOLIDAY” at checkout. Don’t forget, you can gift memberships as well, so if you want to ask Santa for a Patreon membership as a gift, you can do that now. Just go to Patreon.com/MuggleCast/gift.
Eric: In bonus MuggleCast this week, we are going to be figuring out who will be getting what for their Secret Santas on three occasions. One is Christmas at Malfoy Manor in 1997, the others, Dumbledore’s Army Christmas 1995, and Hogwarts staff meeting 1992. So all three of these occasions, we’ve randomly assigned – and I mean random – Secret Santas to all of these characters, and are going to be talking about their gift-giving expertise. It’ll be a really fun thing to listen to this holiday season.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. So check that out over on the Patreon. And also, just one more holiday promo: You can get 20% off all merchandise at MuggleCastMerch.com right now. You can get cozy this winter with a MuggleCast hoodie, maybe Laura’s pants, or a long sleeve tee, and all of these offers run now through December 19, so please act now.
Chapter by Chapter: Pensieve
Andrew: And now let’s jump into Chapter by Chapter. Like I said, Chapter 9 of Half-Blood Prince, “The Half-Blood Prince.”
Eric: We last discussed this chapter on MuggleCast 389, titled “Quirky Walrus,” which was airing on October 15 of 2018.
Dumbledore: What you are looking at are memories. This is the most important memory I’ve collected. It is from MuggleCast Episode 389.
[Sound of memory uncorking]
[Sound of plunging into Pensieve]
Micah: Is Hagrid even qualified to teach a NEWT-level course?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: I mean, I don’t want to rag on Hagrid, but…
Andrew: Too late.
Micah: I don’t think he’s qualified to teach regular courses, much less a NEWT-level course.
Andrew: I think that they have no other options when it comes to Hagrid. He’s the best that they’ve got, so just let him do his thing. But I’m also trying to think right now… does anybody really pursue Care of Magical Creatures outside of Hogwarts? You know what I mean? Does anybody go on, that we know of, to take a position in this type of field? I don’t think so. So maybe Dumbledore also kind of sees it as like, “Well, do we really need somebody seriously teaching this class in a highly professional manner?” [laughs]
Eric: Yeah. Nobody’s pursuing to be… nobody’s trying to be a Magizoologist, just like Newt Scamander, and I think…
Andrew: Right, Newt wrote that book, and they were like, “Well, we don’t need anybody else to work in this field. Newt’s got it all done.”
[Sound of exiting Pensieve]
Dumbledore: This memory is everything.
Micah: [in a nasally voice] Well, I think that was a great clip.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Do you think you sounded nasally? I don’t think you sounded… you definitely sounded younger; I don’t know about nasally.
Micah: Younger, okay. I’ll take that.
Andrew: Wow, we were brutal. And playing that right now during the holiday season? Oof. So sorry, Hagrid.
Laura: Rough.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Eric: Well, as we get into this chapter discussion, it’s the first day of school. Does that make any one of us want to say anything in particular?
Micah: Welcome back.
Eric: And…?
Andrew: No, Micah.
[Laura laughs]
[Micah’s “Choo-choo” sound effect plays]
Micah: Well, no, you say that when you’re on the train. What do you mean, when you’re at school?
Andrew: But it’s also the first day of Hogwarts.
Eric: What’s it doing at the top of the doc? Somebody put it in the discussion.
Micah: No, no, no, no.
Andrew: I added it.
Eric: Okay.
Andrew: Oh, train ride only. Okay.
Micah: “Train wreck” is more like it.
Eric: Oh, oh, all right. Well, anyway, it’s the first day back at school, and something that stood out to me throughout this chapter is that there are actually a few good teachers at Hogwarts. Harry has kind of a mixed result first day back, and I wanted to highlight some of the different teaching styles and methods of the teachers we come across today, starting with McGonagall. Now, we don’t have Transfiguration class with McGonagall today, but all the Gryffindors nevertheless meet with her in the Great Hall before the first period, and she’s assigning them their timetables, but it’s this malleable thing because she still needs to have a conversation with each of them about their OWL results. And Micah, I know you were a little concerned about efficiency here.
Micah: Yeah, when I was reading it, I just didn’t understand why there was no way for them to confirm OWL results and issue schedules before the start of term using, I don’t know, magic?
Andrew: [laughs] Wait, what?
Eric: To name a method?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: Now, I will say, I did think about this a little bit more, and perhaps McGonagall didn’t know that Slughorn was going to be coming to Hogwarts, and that switched things up a little bit with… we see it with Harry and Ron in this chapter, where they weren’t planning to take Potions, and then they end up taking Potions. So I could see that, but she goes through a lot more than just that, with Neville and with other students, so I don’t know. It’s just…
Laura: Yeah, I feel like with that, it would be just a magical find/replace situation. So I think this is just for the plot; this is so that McGonagall can have some of the conversations that she’s going to have, specifically pumping Neville up and throwing some shade at his grandmother. I think that’s why this is here.
Andrew: I do think that if they used magic for literally everything in their lives – which it kind of seems like they could – then what are they going to do all day? So this kind of keeps them busy; it keeps their brain active.
Eric: Yeah. I just think it’s cutting it kind of close. They have to get off to their first period, and if they’re still adding and dropping classes that morning, that’s…
Andrew: Well, what’s Hogwarts without some chaos? We’ve established this many times over the years.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: I forgot the students forgot to add to the chaos quotient for the year so that the school can keep running as disastrously as it does. Anyway, we mentioned this a moment ago, but McGonagall remembers that Harry was on track to be an Auror, that that was an aspiration for him. So she, in her conversation with Harry, asks him why he’s not taking NEWT-level Potions. And this just reminds me of the very excellent chapter from the last book, “Career Advice,” where she goes toe to toe with Umbridge and says, “If it’s the very last thing I’ll do, I’ll make sure this boy becomes an Auror.” Some teachers might say that; she’s walking the walk. She’s living it now. The fact that she checked in with Harry, who for some reason – say maybe an owl got lost – wasn’t aware that he’s still eligible to take Potions this year… to what was said earlier, I think this was a last minute switch with Slughorn and Snape, maybe. But it’s good that McGonagall is here, because otherwise he would have missed out, Harry. And Ron.
Audrey: Yeah, I think it’s really interesting how much McGonagall is having to do here, and I really feel like – and I could be forgetting this from a previous book – but Hogwarts could really benefit from a career counselor or a guidance counselor.
[Eric laughs]
Audrey: I had one in college; okay, I came in as a freshman, and I said, “I want to graduate with this degree,” and they said, “Okay, you need these prerequisites that you’re going to get in your first two years, and then your junior and senior year you’ll have those prerequisites done, and you can do these classes.” And then when I wanted to switch majors two years later, they said, “Okay, well, here’s what you’ve got done, here’s the things you need to catch up on, and here’s what your path looks like.” And I feel like that’s a role they could definitely have at Hogwarts that would go very far for a lot of the students, especially the ones that don’t know what they want to do.
Eric: Yeah, makes sense to me. But yeah, regarding Neville, it’s really interesting, because Neville is not somebody that McGonagall has ever been warm to. Neville is not an exceptional student – that is well known, well documented – but McGonagall actually pays him a compliment, and it has to do with what happened at the end of last year at the Ministry. And regarding his class schedule, she encourages him to take Charms. She is not as critical of his OWL grades as Neville’s gran apparently is, and McGonagall offers to fight her.
[Andrew and Audrey laugh]
Eric: So it’s pretty good stuff, honestly. McGonagall is a great teacher.
Andrew: Well, and I think you see this come up a lot in the Muggle world, too, where your parents want you to go down a certain path in life, and it’s really nice to see McGonagall being like, “Follow your heart, not what your grandmother wants you to do.” And that’s a sign of a good teacher, a good role model.
Laura: Yeah, especially someone who’s also not trying to force you down their particular path of expertise. She’s totally comfortable being like, “Yeah, this isn’t really it for you.”
Andrew: Yeah, it takes a special person to be a Transfiguration teacher, Neville, and I’m afraid you just… you’re not cut out for it.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Well, yeah, she just knows his strengths, and again, she tells him he can’t take Transfiguration because she knows he wouldn’t be able to… or she feels he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the course load, and I’m like, “That’s the kind of teacher that all of these teachers should be, frankly.” I wish we saw more of the teachers checking in with people in this way.
Micah: Definitely. And we get a pretty good balance, or maybe you would even argue imbalance, as we start to go through this chapter. McGonagall, and you have Snape, and then you have Slughorn, and you really get a sense for their teaching styles, and you see not just maybe what their teaching styles are, but how they are as human beings too.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: And we won’t mention it too much, but Hagrid waves at the kids, and I think he’s expecting to see them.
Micah: Well, sorry.
Eric: Audrey, you had one other point about sassy McGonagall?
Audrey: [laughs] I love when sassy McGonagall comes out, because she’s kind of the sleeper sass in the books. But I like that she said, “Just because Augusta failed her Charms OWL, the subject’s not necessarily worthless” to Neville, reminding him that his grandmother did fail her Charms OWL. So I thought that was really funny.
[Andrew laughs]
Audrey: So in the same breath that she was saying, “Transfiguration, not for you,” she also lifted him up and said, “But look, you did something that your grandmother didn’t do, and you don’t always have to follow her path.” She’s kind of encouraging his “That’s your dream, Dad, not mine” moment.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. And again, to what Andrew was saying, our parents have these opinions on these subjects or these disciplines, and might not be our wishes.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: The fact that Neville scored that highly on his OWL shows that he is actually really good at Charms.
Andrew: Here’s an example four of us can relate to: Do you remember telling our parents, “Yeah, I’m doing a podcast; I want to do more of that”? They’re like, “Uh, okay, kid. Yeah, sure, whatever. But stay in school, please.”
Eric: We’re now starting the trend of any time we’re impersonating our younger self, we’re going to [in a nasally voice] hold our noses like this.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Even if it was only six years ago, we’re holding our noses to talk about ourselves.
Laura: I do think it’s really interesting that Augusta refers to Charms as a soft subject, because I think you hear this a lot in the Muggle world too. There are certain types of disciplines that people tend to stereotype and scapegoat as being easy A’s and soft subject matter. I think a lot of the times social sciences, unfortunately, get that bad rap, and it’s really not fair. I don’t think it’s fair to Charms either to consider it soft.
Micah: Yeah, our Head of House teaches Charms.
Laura: Right!
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Well, for Charms specifically, though… I do agree with you, Laura; in general, a lot of those social sciences… no, those are big disciplines worthy of as much or more respect, in fact. Liberal arts, too; give all the funding to liberal arts. But no, for Charms, we just don’t see enough of the class to think of it as being anything, I think, competitive. If you’re… even when Flitwick is preparing the school for the final battle, the kinds of stuff he’s doing – which no one but an accomplished Charms professor could do – are still having to do more with, I don’t know, making it glitter in the sky, and not so much vivisecting your enemy. [laughs] So it just kind of… Charms is viewed as soft because you can conjure hot chocolate, and people just think of it for whatever practical application they themselves have used Charms for, and so they’re maybe not understanding that somebody who can do that easily is actually as accomplished.
Micah: Yeah, but they play a very big role in Sorcerer’s Stone. Without a lot of charms, the trio wouldn’t have made it very far.
Eric: That’s a great point.
Laura: Yeah. I think this is all probably because charms are not seen as probably a hard defensive strategy, nor are they an offensive strategy. So I guess because it’s not the most assertive subject matter, that might be why people look at it… but again, it’s another example of people overlooking something that has plenty of value; it’s just not as black and white, I think, as sometimes people try to make these things out to be.
Audrey: Yeah, comparing it back to – Eric, you mentioned – liberal arts in school, I think people just maybe that aren’t as creative don’t value Charms, because you can get creative with a charm and that can be a defense strategy.
Laura: Right.
Audrey: Look at Wingardium Leviosa in Sorcerer’s Stone. I mean, I wouldn’t personally have thought to levitate the club and hit the troll in the head with it, but it worked.
Eric: Great point. We also get a mention of Divination. So it looks like Firenze, the centaur, is here for another year; he passed Dumbledore’s rigid scrutiny that he applies to all his teachers here at Hogwarts, and he’s done a good enough job that Divination is now being co-taught with Trelawney and Firenze. Of course, I was joking about Dumbledore caring about the teaching quality, but it’s nice to know that Firenze isn’t homeless now that Trelawney is able to come back full time, and it looks like they’re actually splitting the course load, which gets mentioned. None of the trio are taking Divination anymore; they’re happy to see the back of it. But it’s interesting that how they’re splitting it… they’re splitting it by year, which I don’t know about you guys, but I feel like if I had year three Divination with Trelawney, year four with Firenze, year five back with Trelawney, year six with Firenze… I feel like that would be too much whiplash to the years, and I wonder if there’s not a better way they should be splitting that.
Laura: Yeah, also just whiplash in terms of approach, because we’ve seen the approach of Trelawney, and in the last book we got to see the approach of Firenze, and they are wildly different in terms of the way they view the discipline.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah. If there were any other two professors teaching one course, it may have been different, but yes, to your point, Laura, they are opposite one another, and there’s a debate about the quality of Trelawney’s teaching to begin with. So yeah, that would be a lot of whiplash, juggling these two over the course of your Hogwarts career.
Eric: I know in particular, Parvati is very upset.
Laura: She is, yeah. When McGonagall confirms for her that, “Sorry, you’re going to have Trelawney,” she walks away looking kind of disappointed, which I thought was so interesting because for the longest time, Parvati and Lavender have really thought the world of Trelawney. And I guess they got a better teacher last year, but also I think this is just another characterization of Lavender and Parvati being ultra-feminine to the point where their priority would be having the hot teacher because he’s hot.
Micah: What’s interesting, too, about both of these professors is they’re being kept at Hogwarts for their own protection, so it’s interesting that they’re co-authoring this subject.
Eric: That’s a very interesting point.
Micah: I mean, I guess Dumbledore could let Firenze go back into the forest, but it probably wouldn’t be the best.
Eric: No, yeah. I think to your point, Firenze is as cut off from his people as Trelawney is from anywhere else she could go. Let’s get into the Defense Against the Dark Arts class – this is our first one to be taught by Severus Snape – and this is going to go for me in the category of bad teachers, horrible teachers. Snape is as bad as ever. Just in one example: Snape does his thing, he gets up in the class, he usually is asking a question anyone in the class can answer, he asks a question, only Hermione knows the answer, and instead of praising her for a correct answer, he first doesn’t even pick her. He looks around the room; he’s pausing, dragging things on. Then he audibly sighs and says, “Okay, Miss Granger,” she gives the correct answer, and he berates her for saying that her answer is too close to what it says in the DADA book. Now listen, the uses of nonverbal spells was the question. When he clarifies, his explanation is also not, pretty much at all, any different than what Hermione said, so she was right. And Harry notes anyone else – any other teacher in the school – would have given Hermione ten points for a correct answer. Not Snape.
Micah: And we see that happen in the next class with Slughorn, also a Slytherin.
Eric: Yes! Yes!
Micah: So not all Slytherins are Snape.
Andrew: Yeah, Hermione shouldn’t be discouraged from reading the book and having an answer that she prepared and remembered. This is something to be celebrated, not punished for.
Laura: This is just Snape being Snape, though.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: This is not the first time we’ve seen him be this way in class, not the first time we’ve seen him ignore Hermione when she was the only person with her hand up.
Andrew: But maybe, just maybe, he was going to be in a better mood now that he has the role he has so yearned for over the years.
Eric: That’s the hope, isn’t it? That’s the hope.
Andrew: Go ahead, Audrey.
Audrey: I was going to say, I mean, Laura, you said that it’s not the first time this has happened; it happened in the very first class with Snape, the very first Potions class. She’s raising her hand, and he keeps calling on Harry, and Harry finally is like, “I think Hermione knows the answer,” and then he calls her a know-it-all, I believe. So I mean, it happens. It’s been happening for six years.
Eric: Yeah, they’re all used to it. It’s just any thoughts that Snape would be easier now that he’s getting everything he ever wanted out of being able to teach this class, yeah, sorry, no luck. Not for this group of students. And what’s particularly alarming, I think, for me, out of this whole class, is that Snape is dissatisfied that Harry has not been cursed, I guess, halfway through, or jinxed. And I’m going to read it directly from the book. We all know what’s happening, but it says, “Ron, who was supposed to be jinxing Harry, was purple in the face, his lips tightly compressed to save himself from the temptation of muttering the incantation.” So Ron, bless him, he’s trying nonverbal spells. “‘Pathetic, Weasley,’ said Snape, after a while. ‘Here – let me show you -‘ He turned his wand on Harry so fast that Harry reacted instinctively; all thought of nonverbal spells forgotten, he yelled, ‘Protego!'” Snape is going to just attack Harry, and it’s only by the benefit of Harry’s much honed defensive magical reflexes that Harry doesn’t get hexed by Snape. But this gives Harry his first detention of the year.
Andrew: This is a guy who was just fighting with Lord Voldemort a few months ago, so you can understand why Harry would instinctively react like this.
Eric: Yep.
Andrew: So it’s outrageous and frustrating for Snape to use Harry as a guinea pig. I mean, he should know that Harry has been through countless, at this point, traumatic experiences.
Micah: Not only Voldemort, but I think that Harry is just legitimately triggered in this situation, and that he has every right to be, considering how Snape treated him during Occlumency lessons in Order of the Phoenix.
Laura: Yep.
Micah: And Snape is just looking for any opportunity to make Harry look foolish, so I say good on Harry for stopping Snape in his tracks.
Audrey: I think if Snape were a good teacher, which we’ve established he’s definitely not…
[Andrew laughs]
Audrey: … he would have demonstrated, I mean, a polite jinx, something funny or non-harmful on somebody that wasn’t Harry, knowing that Harry has gone through so much trauma, but he would have demonstrated on somebody at the beginning of the class. Say, “Here’s how it looks when you do it.” Obviously it’s hard to demonstrate a nonverbal spell, but to whatever extent that you can, I think he would have done that as a good teacher. Obviously, this was not the way to go. I don’t think he was going to harm Harry, because he is in a class of students in the middle of Hogwarts, but he was certainly going to humiliate him, and obviously, like Micah said, trigger Harry, based on all the things he’s been through in his years.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, he would have… you just can’t attack a student like that, and especially not Harry, to everyone’s point. You would make eye contact, you would obtain consent, you would let the student know; say, “Hey, come on up to the front. We’re going to do a… can I have a volunteer?” Right? Not just, “Weasley, you suck. Move aside. Here, Harry. I’m going to…” like that. It just… good on Harry. I think we’re all in agreement there, just… good on Harry.
Micah: There’s also zero trust factor here between Harry and Snape.
Eric: Yes.
Micah: It would be different if it was McGonagall or Flitwick or probably any other professor in Hogwarts.
Eric: 1,000%.
Micah: Because it’s Snape, Harry is extremely resistant right off the bat, and it’s just unfortunate that this happens to him. Like you said, he gets detention first class, which is not fair, in my opinion. The other thing… I think part of it is that Snape is looking for an opportunity here to really take Harry down a couple pegs, because he knows that this is Harry’s best subject, and he’s probably thinking to himself, “How can I embarrass Harry in front of the rest of these students, in front of members of Dumbledore’s Army? I am the DADA God, essentially, now that I’ve been given this role,” so I think there’s a bit of that at play here as well.
Eric: That’s a great point. And he mentions the Daily Prophet reporting of Harry being the Chosen One; he throws that in Harry’s face as if it’s anything Harry ever asked for, so he’s clearly sore about that. But I was trying to come up with some kind of explanation, like, “Snape can’t really be this awful, can he?” And I had a theory; I want to know what you guys think. We know from the way that this book opened that Snape is in an Unbreakable Vow with Malfoy’s mother to protect Draco, to make sure his mission with the Dark Lord succeeds. Draco is a Death Eater now, meeting one on one with Voldemort. So is Snape deliberately making Harry’s life awful in front of Malfoy, who’s also in this class, in order to keep up the ruse that Snape is not soft or on the good side? Because a lot of this is for Malfoy’s benefit. Malfoy is sniggering at all the right moments, etc., etc. What do you guys think?
Laura: Why not both?
Eric: [laughs] Classic Laura. “Both things can be true”?
Laura: Yeah, I really think so. I mean, I really like the point Micah brought up about Snape trying to take Harry down a little bit here, because we have to remember the only reason that Harry is still on track to be able to become an Auror is because Snape is no longer teaching Potions. So Snape has to know that had he still been teaching Potions, it would have blocked Harry’s path to be able to do what he’s doing right now, so he’s trying to take him down a peg in his best subject. Makes sense to me, and it’s also a good look for him in front of Malfoy.
Audrey: Yeah, and I mean, I personally think Snape just has fun being miserable. I think he knows he’s got one year in this position; there’s a curse on it, and he knows what’s coming, and he’s not going to waste it being nice all of a sudden just because he’s finally teaching the subject he wants to teach. He’s still just going to make the lives of the students miserable, because it’s fun for him.
Laura: Yeah. And to that point, Audrey, you brought up he only has a year in this role, he knows it, so yeah, he’s finally getting what he wants, but he knows what is at the end of that year, and he’s not exactly looking forward to it.
Andrew: I was wondering why any of the students didn’t bring that up to him, like Harry. “Hey, Professor, do you realize you’re probably going to be out of this role by the end of the year? So what do you think is going to happen to you?” I wonder what his response would have been.
Audrey: “So do you think you’re going to be dead by the end of the year?”
[Andrew and Audrey laugh]
Andrew: “Are you going to be dead? Tell me you’re going to be dead! Tell me you’re going to be dead!”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: All good points. And there’s something else: Andrew, you’ve mentioned what Hermione says after the fact, because Harry is pissed at Snape, and then Hermione says something completely unexpected.
Andrew: Yeah, I liked this moment where Hermione says that Snape was sounding like Harry, when Snape talks about the Dark Arts. “When you were telling us what it’s like to face Voldemort. You said it wasn’t just memorizing a bunch of spells, you said it was just you and your brain and your guts – well, wasn’t that what Snape was saying? That it really comes down to being brave and quick-thinking?” And to me, this reads as Hermione observing the deep passion that both Snape and Harry have for fighting the Dark Arts. If you’re passionate about something, you’re following your gut.
Laura: Yeah, I think it also speaks to the necessary respect that the subject matter is owed. Y’all know that I’m a true crime girly over here, and I am fascinated by the psychology behind serial killers and what makes them tick and why they are the way they are. It doesn’t mean that I worship them or that I think they’re great; I just find it really, really interesting. And in order to combat stuff like that, you have to be able to understand the machinations, right? And how these things work. And I think that’s what Hermione is really telling Harry here, is “He has to know the Dark Arts really well in order to be this good at it, just like you do.”
Eric: Yeah. But Harry just wishes Snape wasn’t so, I don’t know, loving about it, lovingly talking about the Dark Arts.
Micah: Do you think, though, perhaps it’s the fact that Harry doesn’t want to have anything in common with Snape?
Eric: That’s got to be true. That’s got to be part of it, because the less often that that’s pointed out, any similarity between them, the more that… what is it that Snape says after the…? Or Dumbledore says this of Snape, that “He would have liked to have gone back to hating your father’s memory in private.” It’s like they can hate each other in private. They shouldn’t be pointed out that they’re similar to one another, because they think of each other as their adversary. So a happier subject now; we go on to… it’s funny, this reverse, though, because we talk about we’re going to Potions class, and we expect Snape to be there and him to be awful, but this is easily Harry’s best Potions class for many reasons. Snape is not in it, and I have a question. Since we’ve been talking now about good and bad teachers, my question to the group is: Is Slughorn a good teacher? Because this class is pretty awesome.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Slughorn does everything right. He escalates the previous… everyone in this class is doing something new to them, right? It’s a challenge. And this can be awfully done under a bad teacher, but Slughorn invites questions and he incentivizes them; he sweetens the pot. He says, “Here’s a bunch of really complicated Potions that NEWT-level students can create, and here’s the coolest one of all – it’s called Felix Felicis – and for anyone that can make me the best Draught of Living Death, you’re going to get this bottle, and you will be lucky for 12 hours.”
Andrew: See, I think incentivizing makes him less of a good teacher. I think the incentive should be just getting good grades and continuing your… furthering your educational career.
Eric: What’s the matter, Andrew? Were you never good for a teacher so you could get a pizza party? Come on.
Andrew: I never won anything! Now, I agree, there’s probably going to be some differences in opinion here, different teaching styles and whatnot, but to me… and especially something like liquid luck. If it was just pizza, okay, but you’re going to make somebody lucky to, I don’t know, maybe cheat on a test in a couple days from now?
Eric: Get Death Eaters into the castle?
Andrew: Yeah, right, exactly. This prize might be a little too far.
Eric: Okay.
Micah: I think I need to see more than one class with Slughorn to be able to decide whether or not he’s a good teacher. I would also want to see how he teaches younger students…
Eric: Ooh.
Micah: … because this class that we see is at such a higher level where he’s not really doing any teaching; he’s just giving them directions on what they should be doing for the class, and expecting that they’re going to rise to that level, and so I don’t actually see him teaching them much of anything.
Eric: No, that’s incredible. There’s only 12 people in this class.
Micah: It’s more theater, actually. This whole class falls in line with Slughorn’s personality, and the fact that he lays out the potions and then he asks… and going back to what we were talking about earlier, it’s Hermione who answers all the questions correctly and gets the points for Gryffindor, unlike what happens in Defense Against the Dark Arts. But yeah, it’s all very much for show, and that’s why I think he is kind of dangling that incentive out there for the students, to say, “Hey, you know what? You do well in my class, you’ll get bonus.”
Eric: I tend to think of my favorite days in class are the ones that really, I guess, spurred me into action, were the ones with the incentive and the carrot. [laughs] Maybe that says more about…
Micah: But this is day one.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. No, and I couldn’t agree more, actually, as far as wanting to see how Slughorn would handle the children, the actual first and second years’ Potions, having to teach fundamentals. Can you really see him instructing, or will he be asking half the class about their grandparents? What exactly would he do for anyone that’s not Harry’s class?
Audrey: But at the same time, yes, it is his first lesson, and these are sixth year students going into this level. Maybe he does just want to see what they know, how they work, get to know their styles, and so this is a good way for him to sit back and walk around and see, “Where are these students at? They’ve been taught by this other professor; I don’t know what they’ve been taught. I don’t know where they are.” So it might just be a good opportunity for him to observe and see what he does need to teach. That’s giving him a lot of credit, but could be his strategy.
Eric: I like it.
Laura: No, I think you’re exactly right. I think he’s trying to assess the talent in the classroom. I don’t think there’s a problem with that; I don’t have a problem with the incentive to try and encourage the students to perform. The thing that I think is a knock against Slughorn is the favoritism. That is the big problem in his classroom, far and above anything else.
Eric: It’s not as overt as Snape’s favoritism.
Micah: Well, it’s ironic, though…
Laura: They’re kind of two sides of the same coin.
Eric: It’s interesting.
Micah: Isn’t it, though, that now Harry is going to become the Potions favorite after all these years?
[Andrew laughs]
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: It shows with the right teacher, you can do good stuff. [laughs]
Micah: And the teacher is actually Snape.
Eric: Something that occurred to me: So this is the first class of year six of NEWT-level Potions. The only people in this class – there’s only 12 students that make it – the only people in this class are the ones that Exceeded Expectations in their OWLs. So they’re working on what? The Draught of Living Death. Where have we heard of that before? This goes back to the first question that Severus Snape ever asked the class in Potions. In year one, back in Book 1, Snape asks Harry specifically, “What would I get with an infusion of wormwood and asphodel?” It’s this, the Draught of Living Death. The fact that Harry didn’t know this in year one causes Snape to berate him. This is such an intense potion that we now see how utterly absurd it was for Snape to pick the Draught of Living Death as anything that Harry would know anything about, and it’s a miracle that Hermione had ever heard of it back in year one.
Andrew: So in a way, this is kind of a full circle moment, because we’re going back to how it started for Harry in Book 1.
Micah: Right.
Andrew: And Eric, I would say we just get to it here; you mentioned a possible book mistake between Books 1 and 6?
Eric: It’s just that… yeah, so the infusion of wormwood and powdered root of asphodel are not mentioned at all as being ingredients to the Draught of Living Death. The only thing you hear about is the sopophorous bean that gets crushed. So unless it’s an omission, it’s… I kind of view it as an error, really, because I’d like to know how you infuse wormwood.
Micah: Speaking of the full circle piece, you were talking about how Snape berates Harry for not knowing about it in Sorcerer’s Stone, but it’s Snape who actually is teaching Harry how to brew it here in Half-Blood Prince.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: You’re shaking your head, but it is! He is following Snape’s direction.
Eric: Well, again, it’s a deeply punishing question for a first year, and it shows how unfair Snape has always treated Harry. And before we move on, I just want to say Hermione’s success in this class, or slight lack thereof, really does show that Hermione, who’s clearly the best at following what’s written in a book, is not going to cut the… bacon.
Micah: Bean?
Eric: Yeah, the bean. Exactly, she’s not going to cut the bean. Well, she’s cutting it; she’s not going to squish the bean. And it shows that – especially with Potions, but probably with everything – you need a level of intuition, and this is why Hermione does not win Felix Felicis here, is that Harry kind of substitutes the intuition by following a book written by somebody who knows their stuff, i.e. Snape, but Hermione is clearly following the directions perfectly, and she doesn’t win.
Audrey: And that’s got to be so frustrating. I relate to that so hard. In a lot of ways, I’m very much a rule follower; I follow the directions. When they would give you those worksheets in school that say, “Read all the instructions first before you do anything,” and the last one is “Don’t do anything and put your pen down” or whatever, and everybody else would do everything, I was the one who was sitting there with my pen down because I read the instructions. So this really… I related to this with… I can’t bake. I can’t cook. I mean, I can make some mean scrambled eggs, I can make a bowl of cereal, and that’s kind of it. I’m just… I don’t have the intuition. I can follow the directions of a recipe, and the result is just not nice. So I really felt her pain here; it’s just got to be so frustrating to sit there, especially to watch someone that you know has not historically been as good as you in this class, just to succeed all of a sudden, and she doesn’t know why at this moment.
Andrew: And when you hit those choke points, that’s when you might, Audrey, want to go to TikTok or elsewhere for some tips from others who have practiced it a lot, just like Harry is going to the Half-Blood Prince’s book, and this is why it’s no problem for Harry to borrow Snape’s notes, in my opinion, because that’s what you do. You get help from others. That’s what we’re taught growing up: Ask for help. That’s what Harry is doing here.
Eric: I’m just glad that Snape wasn’t like the many people that write recipe columns, and having a whole life story in the opening paragraphs. Can you imagine if he really wrote on the back of every page? “I once went to the sea, and it was there that I concocted this idea of crushing the bean with the knife.”
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Eric: Craziness.
Micah: Very quickly, when we were talking about the potions up at the front of the room… because I know with this book in particular, we like to tie it back to Chamber of Secrets.
Eric: Ooh, please do.
Micah: But Polyjuice Potion was also one of the brews at the front of Slughorn’s classroom, and it’s actually referenced that Hermione would, of course, know what it is, because she brewed it back in Chamber of Secrets.
Eric: So Harry’s new Potions book has writing in it, and speaking of writing – write, right – is what Harry does the right thing here? He takes credit for this thing he found in the book, he brews a perfect potion – Slughorn has never seen anything like it – and Harry gets the bottle of Felix Felicis. Yay, the hero wins, everybody.
Andrew: I actually don’t think there’s any issue with Harry leaning on Snape’s notes. First of all, he starts off, when he gets handed this book by Slughorn, by wanting to follow the textbook’s directions, but he’s overwhelmed by the amount of writing from the Prince! It’s all over the book! You can’t avoid it. So even if he really, really wanted to, you’re still seeing all of his notes, so in a way, it’s kind of impossible to avoid these. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking on some alternate directions. It’s risky, but he quickly finds out that they actually work really well, so why not continue to lean on them?
Eric: Harry fesses up in the Gryffindor common room. He’d like to do it sooner, he’s about to do it sooner, but people are eavesdropping because he’s famous now. So they go back to the Gryffindor common room, and Hermione has an issue with it. She says, “Well, it’s not like it’s your work,” and what I think she means by that is, “It’s not like it’s your intuition in Potions that let you succeed in me,” but she also is biased. She’s jealous, right?
Micah: Yes.
Eric: Because anytime somebody outperforms her… so I don’t find anything wrong with what she’s saying. I think that it’s the same problem that she says that I have with Harry, is that he’s passing this off as his work when it sort of wasn’t. It’s not his idea, anyway. But what Ron says is… Ron says, “But following these instructions could have gone either way. It could have been a disaster.” So does that equate? Or does that cancel out the advantage here?
Micah: So if you’re to take Hermione’s logic here, would you then argue that the work that’s being done by the rest of the students is not their work either? It’s the work of Libatius Borage…
Andrew: Exactly.
Micah: … who put the directions into the textbook in the first place. I think the issue is that not all the students have the same direction available to them.
Eric: Right.
Micah: They don’t all have the written work of the Half-Blood Prince, only Harry does, so therein lies the issue. But at the end of the day, Harry still had to do all the work. He still had to brew the potion; he’s just following different directions. Look, you probably don’t bake a cake the same way I do, or Andrew does, or Laura does. We all follow different instructions, and maybe we add our own little flair to it, and maybe it tastes great, or maybe it doesn’t taste great.
Laura: All right, well, I think we need to have the Great MuggleCast Bake-Off now.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Oh my God.
Laura: See who makes the best cake.
Andrew: Well, or if Audrey makes me scrambled eggs, and I’m like, “Damn, Audrey, those are great scrambled eggs, good job,” she’s not going to be like, “Well, that wasn’t my work. That was some recipe I found online and they did it.” No, that was Audrey’s work.
Eric: Here’s the difference: If you’re assigned a novel, say a Shakespeare play, and all the students get the rare raw text of the Shakespeare play, but one of you – and this is going to date all of us, when we all went to high school – SparkNotes. One of us uses SparkNotes. This explains the meaning behind every line, every innuendo, every joke, every historical accuracy, everything that will be interesting. You get so much more out of the book by reading SparkNotes. This is a huge ad for SparkNotes, if those still exist. But everyone who doesn’t have that doesn’t have that opportunity. I would argue that what Snape has written in this book, by writing it in the book, it’s not alternate directions; it’s advanced, evolved, trial-and-error updated instructions. And so there, it’s more akin to SparkNotes, giving the answer to the students rather than letting them fiddle with it themselves.
Audrey: Is it the answer, though, or is it just a better recipe, for lack of a better word? I mean, should they not just be publishing these notes if this is what’s going to lead to success more often?
Eric: We know of Harry’s skills in Potions, which is nil, and he’s able to brew the perfect – or at least, the best – potion in the class, just by following these instructions. Ergo, these are really good… this is the answer to potion-making, essentially.
Audrey: But as a devil’s advocate, could that be because he’s finally receiving good instruction? From Snape – he doesn’t know that – but his direction hasn’t, from what we’ve seen, been great, so maybe he could be a really good Potions Master, and he just hasn’t had good instruction.
Laura: Right. I do think what works in Harry’s favor here is that Harry is not afraid to color outside the lines. Hermione is someone who is very much like, “I must color inside these lines,” right? So they’re both following instructions; they’re just following different instructions. I think what makes Harry successful here… it starts with the knife and the bean, right? Where he’s trying to cut it, and he’s not getting anything, and he goes, “Oh, what the heck. Let me just try this and see if it actually works,” and he sees, “Holy cow, it actually does work,” and that gives him the confidence to keep following the alternate instructions. So I think… I don’t have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is that it’s deceptive of Harry to pass this off as his own natural prowess. Honestly, if he had pulled Slughorn aside and been like, “Hey, so just to be real with you, there’s all these alternate instructions in this book. Do you want to talk to me about these? Because I would actually like to learn.” I think if Harry had taken the initiative to say, “Oh, wow, this is a subject matter where I could be better, and I could actually be creative in order to deliver a more quality product,” then I don’t have a problem with the Prince’s instructions.
Eric: Right, because Harry is using it to pass the class, but what if he found out why crushing the bean worked better, right?
Laura: Right.
Eric: Or took an interest in understanding what actually makes the Prince’s instructions superior in terms of theory and actual subject.
Andrew: Two other things: A, we can blame Slughorn here partly, I think, because why didn’t he check the book to make sure there weren’t a ton of notes scribbled in it? And B, why did Snape leave it in that classroom anyway? Shouldn’t he have been holding on to that himself?
Eric: It is shocking.
Andrew: I mean, those are clearly valuable, thoughtful, meaningful notes. Snape is someone who holds things very close to the vest. It seems like a major mistake on his part to have forgotten that book.
Eric: I’m honestly surprised he doesn’t break into Gryffindor tower when he first hears Slughorn praising Harry’s Potions ability and just take the book back.
Andrew: Yeah, and figure out what went on.
Eric: Yeah, absolutely. Because he would want that back.
Micah: Maybe the book reminds him too much of Lily.
Andrew: Aww.
Laura: Yeah, because I wonder how often she would have been collaborating with him. I wonder how many of those notes were things that they came up with together.
Eric: Aw.
Micah: So it’s Harry’s by right.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: “50% of my genetics come from the person that cowrote this book, or these Cliff Notes.” No, I’m interested in kind of figuring that out, because Lily Potter’s Potions acumen gets a reference here by Slughorn. He’s like, “She was a dab hand.” And it is interesting, but I do think that Lily was probably good at Potions, because that’s something that she and Snape either connected over, or because Snape was passionate about it, Lily, who was a genuine friend to him, also learned or had the benefit of learning some of these things at the same time Snape did. It’s really interesting. So Laura, you mentioned earlier, though, that Harry gains confidence from his success, and another problem is that this success and this confidence will lead to trust, and this is where Ginny has an issue. She happens to be overhearing them in the common room, and she says, “Let me get this straight.” She comes up to Harry and says, “You’re trusting the writing in a book, and you don’t know who wrote it?” And Harry knows immediately where she’s coming from, and he dismisses it. He’s like, “This isn’t the same as the diary.”
Andrew: Well, I mean, it’s worth asking Harry, and they do investigate it, and nothing comes up. But especially after the events of the end of Order of the Phoenix where Harry got played, it’s definitely worth asking this question.
Eric: Oooh. Yeah, that’s so relevant.
Laura: Absolutely. And I think it’s a great connecting the threads moment, too, because in Book 6, Harry is about to become very heavily reliant on a book with instructions from a stranger, just like Ginny did in Book 2, which is why she’s calling this out here.
Eric: Going back to our good teacher/bad teacher: Since we know who the Prince is, does the writing in this book actually make Snape a good teacher of Harry when all the ego is gone?
Andrew: He’s a good teacher. He knows his stuff. If he wanted to try, if he really wanted to, he could be a good, friendly, inspiring teacher, but he’s not.
Audrey: Could he?
Andrew: He’s a bad teacher who knows his stuff.
Audrey: Yeah, I mean, there’s a huge difference between being a good teacher and knowing what you’re doing. I mean, I’m good at things; I know I’m not a good teacher. I get very frustrated with people very quickly. So I don’t think this was the profession for Snape. He maybe could have gone into being a potion recipe… I don’t know, go into publishing. Publish all your tips and tricks, geez. Do something besides teaching, that you clearly hate. But obviously his path went a different way.
Laura: Yeah, Snape is definitely a subject matter expert, not a teacher. So he’s good with his expertise.
Eric: Fair enough, fair enough.
Odds & Ends
Eric: Let’s get into some odds and ends now at the end of the chapter. Katie Bell is the last remaining member of Harry’s original Quidditch team, and there’s a sweet moment in the Gryffindor common room where Harry is like, “Oh, you don’t need to try out. Come on.” She goes, “No, let me try out! Because teams have been ruined by playing the favorites.” I like that Katie Bell, who was on the Quidditch team before Harry ever was, is willing to go through the motions of trying out for the team.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s admirable. It keeps you on your toes, it prevents you from getting comfortable as a player, and it’s just interesting seeing her have this take in a book where there is a teacher, Slughorn, who likes to play favorites.
Eric: Yeah. And we mentioned early: Lily gets mentioned by Slughorn as being a dab hand at Potions, and again, I’m curious about the relationship between Lily and Snape and Potions.
Audrey: Yeah, one thing I thought about that I don’t think this is true, but it was kind of fun to think about: Maybe Lily was just a Potions prodigy, and maybe she taught Snape everything he knows, and he’s now passing this off as his. We don’t know.
Andrew: Aww. And that explains why he left the book in the Potions room, because he didn’t want Lily’s work so close to him.
Eric: And that explains why he loves Potions so much.
Audrey: Yes.
Laura: Yeah, I love that thought.
Andrew: Hey, hey, she’s the one potion he could never crack. Couldn’t figure that one out.
Eric: Another thing: Michael Corner… bit of an odd and end. This is more of an odd than an end. Michael Corner asks Professor Slughorn, “Have you ever taken Felix Felicis, sir?” And Slughorn gives what I can only assume is a completely honest answer. He says, “Twice in my life. Once when I was 24, once when I was 57. Two tablespoonfuls taken with breakfast. Two perfect days.” Guys, I’m curious, how have we not pulled this thread before? What circumstances do we think was Slughorn up to when he was 24 and when he was 57 that would have caused him to take this potion?
Andrew: 24, maybe he was wanting to go on a date with a gal. Maybe wanted some good luck on the date. 57, he was probably really struggling with a New York Times crossword puzzle that day.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: I was going to say, it would be helpful to know, canonically, how old is he at this moment, because then we can just mathematically say, “Well, this is what was going on in the wizarding world when he was 57 and 24.”
Andrew: Apparently his exact age is not specified, so it’s a bit of a mystery.
Eric: But it’s definitely something to ponder. Listeners at home, send us your ideas via the MuggleCast@gmail.com email. We’ll read it on a future mailbag.
Micah: There are 24 hours in a day.
Eric: Okay, and there are 57…
Andrew: [singing “Seasons of Love” from Rent] “Five hundred twenty-five thousand…”
[Everyone laughs]
Superlative of the Week
Eric: Well, it’s time for MVP of the Week. For this one, we’re counting Harry’s line in this chapter, “No need to call me ‘sir,’ Professor,” as the undisputed all time great sassy Harry line. I polled everybody here – no, I didn’t – we all agree. So the MVP of the Week this week is what is the second best sassy Harry line of all time throughout the whole book series?
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Andrew: So when Draco is teasing Harry about not being a prefect in Order of the Phoenix, Draco says, “You see, I, unlike you, have been made a prefect, which means that I, unlike you, have the power to hand out punishments.” And then Harry replies, “Yeah, but you, unlike me, are a git, so get out and leave us alone.” I remember having a chuckle about that when we were doing our last Chapter by Chapter reread.
Eric: I love it. For my MVP, it’s Harry: “It changes every day, you see.” That will never not make me laugh.
Micah: That’s in reference to…?
Eric: The news.
Micah: The news, that’s right.
Eric: “What are you doing?” “The news changes every day.” Order of the Phoenix.
Micah: So this is from Prisoner of Azkaban when they’re talking about, I believe, the Firebolt. Draco says, “‘Got plenty of special features, hasn’t it?” said Malfoy, eyes glittering maliciously. ‘Shame it doesn’t come with a parachute – in case you get too near a Dementor.’ Crabbe and Goyle sniggered.” Harry responded, “Pity you can’t attach an extra arm to yours, Malfoy. Then it could catch the Snitch for you.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: We don’t get all of these great clapbacks in the movies, and I hope they fix that in the TV show.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Laura: Mine’s a real throwback from Sorcerer’s Stone, and this is from when Dudley is telling Harry about the new Muggle school that he’s about to go to. “They stuff people’s heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall. Want to come upstairs and practice?” And Harry responds, “‘No, thanks. The poor toilet’s never had anything as horrible as your head down it – it might be sick.’ Then he ran, before Dudley could work out what he’d said.”
Eric: Classic.
Audrey: Yeah, that’s a great one. And then I also threw it back to the earlier books. During the Dueling Club in Chamber of Secrets, Lockhart is showing Harry what to do. He says, “Just do what I did, Harry!” And Harry says, “What, drop my wand?”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Audrey: That just always gives me a chuckle.
Lynx Line
Eric: And now it’s time for our Lynx Line segment. MuggleCast listeners who are Slug Club members over at Patreon.com/MuggleCast have participated in this week’s question, which was: In our chapter, Harry’s (usually favorite) Defense Against the Dark Arts is taught by Snape. Did you – meaning the listeners and patrons – ever have a subject that you loved be taught by a teacher that you didn’t like?
Andrew: So Barry said,
“I took women’s lit in undergrad. I really enjoyed the books, but the teacher only ever wanted to talk about how evil men are in the stories we read, which was a shame because there were so many more interesting topics to cover from those books.”
Eric: Rachel says,
“I loved English, but I had a (older) teacher during my freshman year of high school who shamed me a ton for reading fantasy and told me they didn’t count as real books(???). I ended up reading most of my sci-fi and fantasy books at home that year.”
Ooh, this gets me. This bothers me.
Micah: Tom said,
“I used to like the Civil War history and did pretty well with it in the past, but when my last teacher turned it into a football analysis, which I don’t understand at all, I failed the class because of the teacher. He sucked!”
Laura: Matthew says,
“Not as a student, but as a teacher. One student put in my evaluation that he had been looking forward to the class for years, and I had done such a miserable job I had ruined it for him. To be fair, I should have realized I was a bad fit for the class on the first day when nobody even looked at me during my lecture. Or maybe I should have realized it when someone shouted at the guest speaker, ‘Can you teach this class instead?’ Every few years, when I get a little self-esteem worked up, I remember that class and everything resets back to the way it was.”
Eric: Oh my goodness.
Laura: That’s rough.
Eric: Matthew, it’s rough. I’m sorry, man.
Audrey: So Robert says,
“I went to a Catholic minor seminary for high school and two years of college back in the early 1960s when things were really beginning to warm up in Critical Bible Theory. BUT, my Bible History teacher was very much like Professor Binns teaching History of Magic: lecturing from notes, reciting very dry lists of names and events, and offering absolutely no historical interpretation or relating the biblical stories with historical events from other sources – all of which I was getting very interested in exploring. Instead, the classes were boring and very discouraging. Only one thing still sticks in my memory from his class and it’s a question from the final exam: ‘Which king attacked, but didn’t take Jerusalem? Which king took, but didn’t destroy Jerusalem? Which king attacked and destroyed Jerusalem?’ I didn’t know the answer then and still don’t, but I do remember the question as an instance of the worst teacher and teaching I ever experienced.”
Eric: Oh, man. Yeah, I don’t think I’d have recovered from that either.
Micah: And ThatBatLady says,
“In my high school’s final year of compulsory subjects (before you get to take electives), I was really starting to get into accounting. For some reason, the teacher didn’t like me at all – going so far as to berate me for the way I tapped my pencil. As an adult I really enjoy dealing with finances and do quite a bit of it in my job. I’ve always wondered how far I’d have gotten if she didn’t put me off the subject – slightly spurred on by the fact that my cousin became a chartered accountant, and is doing very well financially.”
Eric: Augh. Yeah, that’s wild. I’ve… yeah.
Micah: You know… no, go ahead. I’m sorry.
Eric: Whenever you’re bullied by a teacher or shamed by a teacher, the teacher think they’re better than you, or the literature you read is less than what they read… like, get over yourselves. You guys are there for a reason; you’re supposed to foster the learning of the students and to push back against the changing tide of reading preferences of younger and younger classes every year. Come on, that’s not productive.
Micah: So I have one quick example here too. I was taking astronomy in college.
Eric: Oooh.
Micah: It’s a subject that I was always interested in, so fascinated to learn more about it. And I remember distinctly we had a test scheduled on September the 11th. This was 2001.
Eric: Wow.
Micah: And we were all still not exactly sure what was going on, so we went to class, and I remember the professor saying to us, “Well, you know, these types of things happen all over the world all the time, so life goes on, and we’re still taking the test.”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Wow.
Micah: Now, he did give everyone the opportunity to retake it, because I feel like there was quite a bit of backlash from a lot of the students, but that sticks out so distinctly in my mind, even to this day.
Eric: And that was with a bunch of New York natives. Everyone… that was in New York, right?
Micah: Well, upstate. But yeah, quite a few, I’m sure.
Eric: People who had family there…
Micah: And remember, it’s not just New York. I mean, everything that happened in Washington, DC and in Pennsylvania as well, and people from…
Eric: Yeah, my point was people’s family members could…
Micah: Of course. 100%, yeah.
Eric: Yeah, just wild. So thanks to everybody who submitted that slightly more personal Lynx Line subject. And if you have any feedback about today’s discussion, you can contact us by emailing or send us a voice memo recorded on your home phone or your computer. I don’t know why I said home phone. MuggleCast@gmail.com is our address.
Micah: And next week, Chapter by Chapter continues with Half-Blood Prince Chapter 10, “The House of Gaunt.” Be sure to visit MuggleCast.com for links to our social media, Patreon, transcripts, our favorite episodes, and lots more. And if you’re looking for more podcasting from the four of us, listen to our other shows, Millennial and What the Hype?! – just did a great Stranger Things Season 5 episode – for more pop culture and real world talk.
Quizzitch
Micah: And now it is time for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: This week’s question: In this chapter, Dumbledore exposes his injured right hand to the whole school. Roughly what percentage of people in the world are right-handed, just like Dumbledore? Is that 55%, 65%, 75%, or D, 90? The correct answer was D; 90% of people in the world apparently are right-handed. So if you’re a lefty, you’re very special. 65% of people with the correct answer say they did not look that up, and this week’s winners include A Lefty Who Needs Left-Handed Scissors; A Righty with a Lefty Sibling; Almond; Ashley B.; Blue Man Groupie; Cara; Cheeseshark; DaVinci the Lefty; Dumbledaddy’s Not-So-Clever Idea to Put the Horcrux On; Eeylops’ Owl Leftorium; Glo; I play Fluffy’s Harp; Is a Northpaw a Thing?; Julie Ann Fae; Listening from Tanzania; Lockhart’s Last Brain Cells that Still Live in Hogwarts; Quesadilla Kayla; Righty Tighty, Lefty Loosey, Innie Outie, Forkie Spoonie; The Left-Handed No-Maj; The Ordinary Kid Who Joined the Slug Club with the Help of Some Crystallized Pineapple; The Real Slim Borty; and What About Righties Who Throw Leftie? Good names, everybody. We did it. And here is next week’s Quizzitch question: This chapter features both love potions and the Draught of Living Death, which puts the drinker into a sleep so deep it’s near death. In William Shakespeare’s famous love story, Romeo and Juliet, Juliet drinks a potion to fake her death, putting her to sleep for over a day. Where is Juliet when she drinks the death potion? And this will take you back to English class when you’re reading a play, and guess what? Quizzitch is your open book quiz, so you can use the SparkNotes for this one. Submit your answer to us on the Quizzitch form located on the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast/Quizzitch. If you’re already on our website, maybe checking out transcripts or the must-listens page or anything else at all, click on “Quizzitch” from the main nav and send in a submission. Audrey, we want to thank you again for joining us.
Audrey: Thank you. I was really happy to be here. I had a great time.
Laura: You were great.
Eric: Great to have you.
Andrew: I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: I’m Laura.
Audrey: And I’m Audrey.
Micah: Bye, everyone.
Audrey, Eric, and Laura: Bye.