Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #711, Bigger, Bolder, Beast-ier (OOTP Chapter 31, ‘O.W.L.s.’)
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: And I’m Micah.
Andrew: Laura will be joining us in a few minutes. We are your Harry Potter friends, talking about the books, the movies, and upcoming television show, so make sure you follow us in your favorite podcast app, and that way you’ll never miss an episode. And this week, we hope you studied up and you’re feeling well-rested, because we’re discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 31, [imitating Umbridge] “OWLs.” Hem-hem! [back to normal voice] It’s hard to do that.
Eric: You did really well, actually, for being a little rusty.
Micah: Yeah, your little hem was actually better than your OWLs.
Andrew: [imitating Umbridge] “OWLs! Hem-gem!” There we go. And helping us with today’s discussion is MuggleCast patron and Slug Club member, Stacy. Welcome to the show, Stacy.
Stacy: Hi. Happy to be here.
Andrew: We’re excited to have you. Let’s get your fandom ID.
Stacy: My favorite book is Prisoner of Azkaban. Like Eric, I’m a big Marauder fan, so that kind of covers all the bases. My favorite movie is actually Goblet of Fire, which is maybe a little bit of a hot take. I’m a Ravenclaw. I went on to Wizarding World to remind myself what my Ilvermorny House is, and that’s been taken down.
Andrew: Aww, taken down. They don’t even want you to remember anymore. Ugh.
Stacy: No. So Google says the Ravenclaw equivalent is Horned Serpent, but for some reason I was thinking Thunderbird. My Patronus is a shrew, which we don’t need to talk about any further, because it’s a shrew.
Eric: [laughs] Yeah, I feel like you’re in the boat that so many of us are, where you’re just like, “What?” by the Patronus result. Yeah, mine’s a stoat, and Hagrid feeds the children stoat sandwiches throughout the books.
Micah: And as a fellow Ravenclaw, I also got Thunderbird, even though, like you’re saying, Horned Serpent is the equivalent. So you’re in good company, I’d like to think.
Stacy: Okay, yeah, so I think it was Thunderbird. And then for the OWLs chapter, when I was in middle and high school, my favorite classes were split between English and Science classes.
Andrew: Oh, okay. Yeah, I wanted to ask that one because of today’s chapter. And Stacy, we can’t help but notice you have a very impressive wand collection behind you. How did you decide to collect so many wands? And how many do you have?
Stacy: I have 77. 78 if you count the MuggleCast one, which is on the wall.
Andrew: That should definitely count, I think.
Micah: But then she loses the magic of seven seven.
Andrew: Yes, that just means now you have to go up to 777.
[Micah laughs]
Stacy: There are more to get yet.
Andrew: What was your first wand?
Stacy: I bought a six-pack Dumbledore’s Army thing, so Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, and Ginny.
Andrew: [laughs] And then you were hooked after that?
Stacy: Yep.
Andrew: Wow, that’s…
Eric: It’s a slippery slope.
Stacy: It really is.
[Andrew and Stacy laugh]
Micah: And do you have a favorite of those 77? Because obviously, the MuggleCast one is your favorite, but aside from the MuggleCast one.
Eric: Right, right.
Micah: Or maybe one that you were most surprised by the design?
Stacy: I really like Tonks’s. It’s got a fun handle on it.
Andrew: Oh, okay.
Stacy: Newt’s is fun because it kind of looks like it’s been chewed on.
Micah: Oh, interesting.
Andrew: By a beast.
Stacy: Yeah, exactly.
Andrew: By Pickett, maybe? I could see Pickett gnawing at the wand. Well, cool. Welcome to the show. We appreciate your support on Patreon, and thanks for sort of including the MuggleCast wand in your collection total. I think it should count. We spoke to Harry Potter; he said it should count.
Eric: It’s specially crafted; of course it should count.
Stacy: Exactly, yeah. It’s on the same display, so…
Andrew: Before we jump into Chapter by Chapter, we want to remind you of a couple of items related to the show. If you love MuggleCast and want to help us keep this show running as smoothly as Harry looking straight in Umbridge’s face while casting a Patronus, we invite you to become a member of our community at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. By financially supporting us for as little as $5 a month, you can get instant access to two bonus MuggleCast episodes every month, plus ad-free episodes, access to our recording studio by way of livestreams, a personal video “Thank you” message from one of the four MuggleCasters, and a lot more. This timing couldn’t be perfect! Hi Laura.
Laura Tee: Hi.
Andrew: I just wanted to kick it over to you and ask what’s coming up in bonus MuggleCast this week. [laughs]
Laura: Oh my gosh, this is such fortuitous timing. And hello, Stacy. It’s so nice to meet you.
Stacy: Hi, Laura.
Laura: Sorry I didn’t get to say hey to you in the pre show. So in today’s bonus MuggleCast, we are going to be talking about some of the actors who declined roles in Potter, and some of the reasons that they declined those roles. I think we are all aware of at least some of the people on this list, but there were a couple of others that were surprises to me, so I’m looking forward to chatting about it.
Andrew: Yeah, there is even news about one of them this week, I believe. I don’t know if that’s what inspired this discussion.
Laura: That is what inspired it, because I saw that news and I was like, “What? The guy from Juno?”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: It’s true.
Andrew: That’ll be available at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. If you’re looking for other ways to support us, you can visit MuggleCastMerch.com to buy official gear, and by the way, on that website, we have a link to limited time patron gifts from years past. You can also leave us a review in your favorite podcast app, and you can tell a fellow Muggle about the show. Finally, visit MuggleCast.com for quick access to all of this information, our contact form, and more.
Chapter by Chapter: Time-Turner
Andrew: And now we have the whole gang here, so let’s jump into Chapter by Chapter. And this week we’re discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 31, “OWLs.” Hem-hem!
Eric: We last talked about this chapter on Episode 468 of MuggleCast, which was called – and again, with the episode titles – “Rubeus Hagrid’s Punch Out!”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: And this was on June 9 of 2020.
[Ticking sound]
Dumbledore: Three turns should do it, I think. Good luck.
Ron: What the…?
[Bell dings]
[Whooshing sound]
Robotic voice: Episode 468.
Andrew: 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.
[Ticking sound]
Dumbledore: Mysterious thing, time.
[Bell dings]
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Micah: All right. Well, it is test time, so break out your Scantrons and number two pencils.
Andrew: Oh, that’s a triggering remark.
Laura: Oh, man.
Eric: Oh my God. Thanks for the Time-Turner, Micah.
Micah: Is that dating us a bit?
Laura: I am already breaking out in a cold sweat, Micah. I was not ready for this.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: But first we actually have to study for the exams before we sit to take them. And I wanted to start the discussion talking about Ron’s big win and Hagrid’s big surprise, because Ron cannot stop talking about the Quidditch match. And it made me think if we’d ever had a friend who just couldn’t stop talking about one of their biggest achievements.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And Harry seems genuinely happy for Ron, whereas Hermione is just nose down in her books studying, and it’s this really fun dynamic that exists here. But Ron finally had arguably one of his biggest moments in the series, and his two best friends were nowhere to be found.
Eric: Listen, it’s the day of, or shortly after. In 40 years, he’s still going to be talking about this. Then you can ask this question.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: “Do we have any friends that just won’t stop talking about their biggest accomplishment?” For now, I’m inclined to let Ron have it. What makes me laugh, though – and I really did giggle while reading this – is the content, the actual text of what Ron is saying. He’s like, “Oh, I thought he was going to go left – his left, my right – but then I went right at the last minute,” and I was just like, “Oh, Quidditch actually doesn’t work when you write about it.” It’s not exciting to read about. The actual moment of… are there…? I don’t want to be super ignorant of sports, but goalkeeping, which is extremely talented, is not necessarily the kind of thing that is exciting while written about. You know what I’m saying? It’s like, you go left, you go right. It’s instinct.
Micah: That’s why we went to the forest.
Eric: So to hear Ron talk about, I’m like, “Who’s listening to this and going, ‘Oh my God, I’m on the edge of my seat’?” [laughs] It’s like, you did the good saves.
Laura: Yeah. I feel like it’s more impressive if you see it, right? If you go to a soccer match, watching those goalies is very impressive. But yeah, if I were reading a written description about what they were doing, probably not so much. But I’m also not hugely into sports, so…
Andrew: But even in the Muggle world, I feel like when you hear athletes talking about a game or plays, they don’t really get more detailed than what Eric was describing. And they have post-game interviews, and you’re hearing them repeat the same things over and over again, or you hear the press interview the coach, and it’s like, “Yeah, we locked in. We really focused. We caught the ball.” It’s nothing original, time to time. “We’ve got to do better next time.” It’s the same ten things every time.
Eric: It made me wonder what the least exciting to read about position on the Quidditch team is, and I’d say besides Keeper… I mean, there are at least three hoops, which is exciting. But for a Seeker, the Seeker’s job is done when they get the Golden Snitch, or don’t get the Golden Snitch. And we’ve seen probably the Seeker’s position be written about the most in the Harry Potter books, less so as the books have progressed. But Chasers are at least exciting, right? And that’s the commentary that we get when the announcer is talking about them. Beater is probably next most exciting to actually read about, from the perspective of the Beater, which we never get.
Laura: Yeah. It is fun to play, though. Again, to anyone who ever played Quidditch Champions, I found I personally enjoyed playing the Beater role. But what I liked about that, too, is that you could switch back and forth between these different positions so you could experience all of them.
Eric: Be where the action is.
Andrew: But to your point, Eric, a Seeker recapping their game would be like, “I floated there, and I floated there.”
Eric: [laughs] “I hovered.”
Andrew: “I looked left, and I looked right. And I sneezed. And then I thought I saw something! It was just a fly.”
Micah: It’s more than just the commentary on the match, though. It’s the fact that Ron has, I believe, won the Quidditch Cup for Gryffindor, right?
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Micah: This is his standout moment.
Andrew: And he does deserve to talk about it, because this was a unique, very special occasion. And it’s all the more appropriate that he is talking about it so passionately, because Harry and Hermione weren’t there to witness it, so they get to experience some of the excitement that actually happened on the field.
Eric: “I went left. My left, his right.”
[Andrew laughs]
Stacy: Yeah, I mean, I think for Ron, who has never really had that moment that it’s been just him, and it’s not, “Oh yeah, you did this with Harry,” or “You were with Harry until you passed out, and then Harry did the thing.”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Yep.
Stacy: I mean, I think he has the right to celebrate and feel proud of it.
Laura: Yeah, think about what he saw in the Mirror of Erised. This is that moment come to fruition for him.
Eric: This is one of his heart’s desires!
Andrew: Aww.
Micah: Well, one good thing that does come from this whole conversation or observance by Harry is that Ron reminds him quite a bit of somebody that he just saw in a memory not that long ago. And what I love about this moment in particular is that there’s positivity around it, because there’s been so much negativity around Snape’s worst memory and how James has come off to Harry. But the quote from the book was, “The truth was that Ron had just reminded Harry forcibly of another Gryffindor Quidditch player who had once sat rumpling his hair under this very tree.” So it’s very cool to see the comparison between Ron and James.
Eric: It does seem like Harry has had a minute and a half now to actually process some of those emotions following his conversation with Remus and Sirius at Grimmauld Place. We don’t see it happen; we don’t really check in with Harry, but given that he’s looking at Ron and kind of smiles under his breath about the comparison to his dad, we learn that Harry… we can infer that Harry is no longer completely horrified by the idea… the specter of his father.
Micah: So Harry and Hermione break the truth to Ron that they didn’t see him go left; they didn’t see him go right.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Whose left? Whose right? I’m so confused.
Andrew: We were watching Hagrid go left and right and deeper into the dark of forest.
Micah: There you go.
Eric: To Ron’s credit, he takes it very well. At first he starts to turn red, but as soon as he realizes exactly what happened, he probably realizes, one, he wouldn’t have done any different. They didn’t really have a choice if Hagrid is there. And the story is just too hard to believe that they would go and do this willingly. So he’s quick to forgive, I think, and he’s, by the end of their story five minutes later, outraged on their behalf and for them and with them.
Micah: Giants definitely seem like something that would blow Ron’s mind, and I think that’s what happens in this moment. It just completely takes him off track from his whole Quidditch bragging session, and now he’s focused in on the fact that Hagrid has brought yet another creature into the forest for them to have to contend with. And I thought he raised a really good point, and I’m interested to hear what you all have to say, because he asks the question, “Have we ever come off better for mixing with any of Hagrid’s monster mates?”
Stacy: The only thing that I could think of is maybe Buckbeak, if we consider him a monster mate, because he turned out to be really critical at the end of Prisoner of Azkaban as far as getting Sirius to safety, and then he sticks around for at least two more books. And he also took a couple swipes at Malfoy, which I’m sure the trio appreciated.
Andrew: Yeah, and I think this is the nature of a position like this. Some of the beasts aren’t going to be so friendly; some of them are going to be. As the trio learn in Prisoner of Azkaban, there is also a right way to approach a hippogriff like Buckbeak. So it is a good point that Ron raises, though – I agree with you, Micah – and this one might be one of the most dangerous beasts that they’ve been introduced to of all, because this guy is also located deep into the forest where they’re not supposed to be going, and where there’s lots of other dangers afoot.
Laura: Other dangers that Hagrid is aware of. He knows the centaurs tried to kill Firenze, he knows they’re not happy, and yet he’s sort of brazenly walking in there, thinking, “Ah, they’re not going to do anything to me.”
Andrew: Because the kids are here.
Laura: Right.
Micah: I was trying to think of all the different monster mates that we’ve been introduced to throughout the course of the series that really made an impact. And so with Sorcerer’s Stone, you had Fluffy; you could add Norberta to that list, but I think she was relatively harmless at that stage. In Chamber of Secrets, we got Aragog. In Prisoner Azkaban, we have Buckbeak. And then what would we say for Goblet of Fire? The Blast-Ended Skrewts?
Laura and Stacy: Yeah.
Andrew: I think so, because those were also a creation of Hagrid’s, right? [laughs]
Micah: Oh, yeah. He was black market something-ing them. Breeding.
Laura: Yeah, because what is it they’re a cross between?
Stacy: Fire crabs and…
Laura: Manticores?
Stacy: That was what I was thinking.
Laura: I think that’s right, yeah. Oh, Hagrid.
Micah: Now we got giants.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Andrew: So those wouldn’t have been authorized by the Ministry or by Hogwarts; it’s just Hagrid’s own creation. It’s almost like how in the Muggle world, we don’t really know the power of AI just yet, and people are like, “Oh, AI is going to take over. The robots are going to take over.” This is kind of like what the Blast-Ended Skrewts could have done, for all Hagrid knows. Maybe this is an extreme idea, but yeah, I’m just saying he doesn’t know what he’s putting in front of the kids!
Laura: Very true. And actually, Micah, I liked that you observed sort of the escalation in creatures that Hagrid is introducing over the books because…
Eric: Bigger, bolder, more dangerous!
Laura: Right. Baby dragon, bigass spider and its whole family, horse bird, Blast-Ended… basically giant fire scorpions, and then a literal giant. Come on, Hagrid.
Andrew: [imitating Hagrid] “Workin’ you up to the big stuff.”
[Laura laughs]
[Ad break]
Micah: So I wanted to ask, how do these OWL exams reflect real world academic pressures? Because all of the students are utilizing different tactics to prepare for upcoming exams, and we can get the sense that anxiety is at an all-time high. And it feels similar to when we came upon finals at the end of a term, and we were cramming and we were studying, and we knew the stakes were high, right? There were probably periods within our academic career where we knew that the exams that were coming up meant something. Whether they actually meant something in the larger context of our lives and our careers is another conversation, but at that particular moment, we were told, “You’d better do well on these exams,” and that’s exactly what these students are facing.
Laura: Yeah, totally. In the moment it feels like an insurmountable pressure, because it kind of comes with the implication of “If you don’t do well on these exams, you might not get to go to the next grade, or you might not get to go to the college you want to go to, or you might not get a scholarship.” It is a lot of pressure to put on one test.
Andrew: But then once you are over that hill, ahh, it’s the most amazing feeling in the world. Even if you’re not sure you did so well, at least for me, I was feeling very relieved after taking a test.
Laura: And then, surprise, once you get out in the world and get established in whatever your career is, no one cares.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Literally no one.
Eric: You can even lie.
Andrew: You can have a calculator with you, you can have a dictionary next to you, and you get to Google all you want…
Laura: I mean, think about how often we got told that we’re not going to have a calculator in our pockets back in the day, and now it’s like…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Listen, the teachers didn’t know about smartphones. Nobody knew.
Andrew: No. In fairness, yeah, we didn’t know where the future was going. And now schools are embracing ChatGPT because they know they can’t stop the kids from using it. It’s all so broken.
Eric: Ugh.
Andrew: But that’s a whole other discussion.
Eric: Speaking of broken, there was a brain study released now recently about AI users, but yeah.
Micah: Oh no. Well, I’m assuming it’s not positive.
Eric: It atrophies the muscles. It’s not great. So the thing that gets me here about exam time is that Draco seems to think that he’s got a competitive advantage because he knows one of the proctors, but how does this, I guess, work in practice? If Griselda Marchbanks is his personal assessor, the way that Harry gets Tofty a couple of times, I can see how this works, but he’s bragging that he knows Professor Marchbanks. And the other kids are just like, “Come on, Draco,” and Neville even privately discredits what Draco is saying.
Micah: It’s very cool to see the different dynamics of how certain Houses or students from certain Houses are approaching these exams, because you have Hermione, who is muttering to herself as she is going through this whole process. You have Ernie Macmillan from Hufflepuff, who is comparing hours of studying, right? He’s asking Ron, “How many hours are you studying?” And I think he’s trying to validate, right, what he’s doing on his end.
Eric: Yeah, he’s seeking some level of approval. I get this because I’m a Hufflepuff, so I get it, but nobody is at his level, so he comes away disappointed, and everyone else feels worse for having interacted with him. [laughs]
Laura: Didn’t we all have an Ernie in our classes who would do this kind of, I don’t know, academic olympics? [laughs]
Eric: Assertiveness about themselves, like inward… it’s a weird… but yeah, we have all had that.
Micah: It seems like Ernie would get along very well with Hermione, though, just based on what he’s doing here in this moment.
Eric: I agree. I mean, he’s saying he gets an hour in before breakfast; there’s eight hours overall in a day.
Micah: It’s almost like a workout comparison, right?
Eric: That’s it.
Micah: “I got an hour in before breakfast.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I have such respect for people, because it takes a schedule. You have to plan this out. In addition to the studying, you’re also planning the structure around it. And Hermione has presumably not only done this for herself, but she’s given timetables and things, at least in the past, for Harry and Ron to do as well. So I think they would get along.
Micah: But let’s talk a little bit about what you brought up, Eric, in that Draco is making these offhanded remarks that it’s not what you know, it’s about who you know. And Neville does counter that a bit, because he says that his grandmother is quite close with Griselda Marchbanks, and basically that there’s no known relationship between her and the Malfoys. But my mind immediately went to corporate America, because I do think in many cases, it is all about who you know, not necessarily about what you know. And I know, Laura, I see you nodding your head there.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Oh, yeah, no. Optics are super important.
Andrew: I think this is important even outside of corporate America as well. It’s just really… it’s having those connections in all facets of life that can get you different places or get your foot in the door so you can get that interview or have that connection to lead you somewhere else.
Eric: But how is it relevant to what they’re doing? How is it relevant to OWLs? Because half of it, at least, is on paper, right? It’s written. You can’t… it’s not who you know on a Scantron.
Andrew: I think Draco might be misplacing some trust here in his father knowing Marchbanks. I think he’s assuming if he does poorly, maybe he can go to his dad, who can go to Marchbanks, something like that. But I agree it’s off, because if he does badly, he does badly on the test. Unless they are going to fudge his scores, but that seems like a really bad thing for them to do.
Laura: Yeah, and the thing is, we know Draco is smart. I think that we’ve been led to assume that he has Hermione-ish levels of intelligence. He’s no slouch, so it’s not like he’s going to fail any of these exams. I honestly think he’s just parroting some stuff he heard from his dad. That line about “It’s about who you know”; that’s something Lucius said, and he’s just parroting it. He’s doing this to brag and to name drop.
Eric: And to intimidate.
Laura: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: The other students that don’t know Madam Marchbanks are just going to be like, “Oh, crap, I’m screwed,” and throw their hands up, and maybe he’s trying to psych the other kids out.
Micah: It’s certainly coming from a position of entitlement.
Stacy: To Laura’s point that Draco is at Hermione level intelligence, certainly the fanfiction community thinks he is.
[Eric laughs]
Stacy: I do think it’s very much him just repeating, I think, the kind of aristocratic…
Micah: Mentality.
Stacy: … privileged place that he grew up with, thinking that if you know somebody, or if somebody knows your dad, that it’s all going to fall into place.
Andrew: Yeah. If he does bad, no big deal. “My dad will be able to fix it. He always does.”
Stacy: Yeah, because it has before. Absolutely.
Micah: And I think that Ron had a very practical response to all of this, which was, “Well, if it is all about who you know, there’s nothing we can do about it anyway.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: What a sage Ron. What a wise Ron. I love this. We didn’t get that in the movies as much.
Laura: No, but I think he’s speaking from experience here, right? Because he did not have the experience that Draco had growing up, watching his family schmooze all of these people of high influence. So this is kind of baked in for Ron. I think he’s already playing life on hard mode, compared to someone like Draco.
Eric: That’s a good point, yep.
Micah: So it is time for us to sit our OWLs, and Andrew, you want your results right away.
Andrew: Yes, I’m stressed! I’ve been studying. I’ve been muttering under my breath. I haven’t slept. And then we find out that the results will be shared with students come July, after term ends?
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: And that surprises me, just because we’re in a wizarding school. You would think that with so much magic at their disposal, they would be able to get near instant results back thanks to some sort of, let’s say, magical analysis.
Eric: Absolutely. There’s anti-cheating…
Andrew: It’s surprising it would take so long.
Eric: Yeah, the magic that we already know about, things that affect quills. You’ve get your spell check quill; you’ve got your anti-cheating jinxes; you’ve got all this other stuff that you can do to tests, but you still have to, what, count by hand? Come on, really.
Andrew: It’s surprising the quill can’t grade you in real time, actually, with that in mind.
Eric: Right! Well, that would be awful.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Can you imagine you write down the answer and immediately, immediately-immediately, find out if you got it wrong?
Andrew: It’s grading you in real time, but it’s not telling you in real time.
Eric: As you’re writing the answer, the ink changes.
Andrew: It’s like you’re going for a scan, a medical scan, and you know the person administering the scan can see your results in real time, and is thinking to themselves, “Oh, this person…”
Eric: But July is insane.
Laura: Andrew, that feels like a very specific example. I don’t know if we need to talk about that after we finish recording.
Eric: Andrew, did you get an ultrasound recently? They turn the screen?
Andrew: No, no, no, but you see… yeah, yeah. Well, my dog did, actually, and I know that the vet can see what’s up in real time, and I don’t want to wait around for the results. I guess that’s what I was channeling, Laura. I didn’t realize it.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: He’s fine, by the way.
Eric: Okay, good.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: Stacy, you have a real world example of this?
Stacy: Interesting following up to that comment. I am a small animal veterinarian, and our boards are entirely multiple choice on a computer in a testing center on specific software. We take them; we leave. It was months before we got our scores back.
Andrew: Oh my gosh.
Eric: In a dedicated center for that testing on dedicated computers.
Andrew: And multiple choice. [laughs]
Eric: Who’s making money off of that time delay? Is the question you’ve got to ask in today’s corporate America. Who benefits from three months of not knowing your scores?
Andrew: Alcohol.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Stacy: The bars.
Andrew: [laughs] The bars.
Stacy: And study companies who continue to get the students studying because they don’t know if they have to retake it or not.
Andrew and Micah: Ohh.
Andrew: So were you stressed as hell, waiting months for your results?
Stacy: Very much so, but also channeling Ron in the sense that it’s done; I can’t do anything else about it at this point.
Eric: Yeah, you’ve got to be zen. You’ve got to find your zen.
Stacy: C’est la vie.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: I was going to say, there’s students who probably are just happy to be done with the exams and don’t even think about the results until they get them in the mail. And then there’s the students probably like Hermione, who are sweating it out every single day, counting down the days, probably until the results of the OWL exams arrive.
Laura: I wonder how many students change their grades when they get that envelope in the summer because they don’t want to…
Eric: I feel like you used to be able to, if you’re mailed your report card, quick change an O to an S or an S to an O somehow.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Right, exactly.
Micah: What I really enjoyed, though, about these exams was just reflecting back a little bit on how much we’ve learned as readers in all these different subjects as we’re going on this journey with Harry through all these different tests, and the first one that came to mind for me was Charms, because Harry has a little smile on his face when it comes to… I think it’s actually the written portion of the Charms examination where he has to identify Wingardium Leviosa, and I thought that was such a great throwback to Sorcerer’s Stone. And we actually get a couple of these types of throwbacks to other books where it came in really pivotal moments, and this was one of them.
Eric: I have to push back on what I think those moments represent, because I was reading this chapter going, “We know next to nothing about some of these subjects.” Like Transfiguration, Harry’s got to make a teacup do cartwheels or something. We don’t know the first part about how that magic actually works. He’s got to turn the teacup into something that cartwheels, so what is that, first of all, that you have to convert it to? Then what would the spell be? What would the root words for the spell be? We don’t know anything. We spend six books going to classes, and we know next to nothing about many of these subjects, to the point where the only thing we hear about these OWLs is the things that Harry has coincidentally done, like Polyjuice Potion that help him pass. So I was actually surprised by how little we know across all of these courses for how any of this magic actually works. We just know stuff. We just know the names of magical creatures.
Andrew: That’s because Harry, Ron, and Hermione are spending too much time yapping during classes instead of focusing on the lessons, and we as the reader get robbed of hearing some of the practical work that is involved in Transfiguration and whatnot.
Micah: Well, they’re trying to save the school, in fairness, in pretty much every one of those books.
Andrew: [laughs] Do it in your off-time.
Eric: No, no, no, I don’t think this is coming down on anyone in particular, but I think on a chapter that is all about these massive tests – that’s the summation of their knowledge – I feel like we as readers don’t actually know a lot about any of these subjects. Potions maybe the most.
Micah: I could be totally wrong on this, but I think we might be surprised at how much we’re actually told if we go back and look at all those classes in terms of what they were actually learning. It’s just that the ones that stand out to us are the ones that had really important meaning to the story itself, like Wingardium Leviosa, like the Polyjuice Potion, like the Patronus Charm.
Eric: Just in service to the story. I mean, look, I think that’s probably a function of the writing too. You’re not going to throw a lot of writing down on a page if it’s not going to have a story-based purpose. But I don’t know how charms work; I don’t know how transfiguration works. Potions, we at least get ingredients that are rooted in history of the historical uses of herbs and stuff that we’re familiar with for the most part, for the nonmagical ingredients. We probably know the most about Potions. Anything else, we don’t even see ever what… we haven’t been to another Firenze class in Divination since the first one. We really… and Ron, at least, and Harry say, “Well, we were always going to fail the Divination one.” But still, yeah, there’s actually… a chapter like this just reminds me how little we actually ever really cracked into any of the subjects.
Stacy: Transfiguration, there is some theory that we get along the way when they talk about Gamp’s Law several times. So you can’t conjure food, or I don’t remember what some of the other ones were, but there were five or six things to Gamp’s Law that are basically the fundamental things within the field of Transfiguration, which, in theory, could then at least explain and exclude some of the other things.
Eric: You could build. Yeah, no, I like that a lot, and it’s important to have those basic, fundamental principles laid out. So I’m glad we get Gamp’s Law.
Micah: Yeah, I understand what you’re saying, Eric, but it’s also… my mind goes to… you’re not going to remember, “Oh, that moment that was pivotal to the plot, when Harry was getting his teacup to do cartwheels so that he could gain access to the Room of Requirement, because only the teacup doing cartwheels in front of the door would allow the door to…”
Eric: Oh my God.
Micah: I don’t know where I’m going with this.
Eric: It sounds like a side mission in one of the Harry Potter video games, to be honest. I would actually be into that.
Micah: Let’s talk about Defense Against the Dark Arts, because Harry gets thrown a bone here by Professor Tofty. A little bit of bonus action going on.
Andrew: I don’t like this.
Eric: Is this favoritism?
Micah: Oh, for sure.
Andrew: So at the end of Harry’s exam, Professor Tofty says, [in a low, raspy voice] “Hey, kid, I hear you can do a pretty nice Patronus. Want to show me?” And then he…
Laura: Why are you presenting this like Professor Tofty is running a drug operation?
[Micah laughs]
Eric: [in a low, raspy voice] “Hey, kid. Psst. Listen.”
Andrew: Let me get to my question. Let me get to my point. So Harry pulls it off tremendously well. Well done, Harry. But then Tofty awards him a bonus point for doing this Patronus. Are the other students being offered bonus points? This seems very unfair, and he’s playing favorites.
Eric and Micah: We’re not with the other students.
Eric: This speaks to what Draco was saying; it’s who you know, because Tofty knows somebody else at the Ministry who happened to tell him that Harry could do the Patronus, and Tofty, I think, very innocently, is just like, “Hey, I heard you could do this. For an extra point?” And it’s one of Harry’s most badass moments, because he looks straight at Umbridge, uses her as the source for his happy memory that has to conjure the Patronus, and then wows everybody. But what I’m thinking in this moment: You’re in a room full of all these other kids that have been to Dumbledore’s Army, and all of them learned full Patronuses, so to see Harry get extra credit for being able to do something that they could do, but they don’t get asked to do?
Laura: But he taught them.
Eric: Yeah, he taught them.
Laura: That’s what makes it special, is not only can he do that, he taught a bunch of his peers how to do something that’s kind of advanced.
Eric: You don’t think some of them could use the extra credit a little more?
Stacy: I was going to say, it’s the one class Harry doesn’t need the extra credit in.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Maybe he can transfer that bonus point.
Eric: He walks out of there going, “That’s what it feels like to get an Outstanding.”
Andrew: “To crush it.”
Laura: Yeah, he’s like, “Can I carry that bonus point over to Potions, please?” I do wonder how much one bonus point moves the needle, though, because this is Harry’s best subject already. I think he would have gotten an O on this OWL if he hadn’t done the Patronus, so I’m just like, “How much did this bonus point actually influence things?” But I agree; it definitely is favoritism. It’s not fair, and I feel like the only way to be fair about this would be if Tofty was just doing this with every student he examined, finding a way to offer them a bonus point, and it just so happens…
Andrew: [laughs] And that seems unlikely, right?
Laura: Yeah, he’s not.
Micah: I think it’s also meant to be a demonstration of power, though, on Harry’s part, because he’s conjuring it because he’s looking right at Umbridge, and that has a lot of meaning, and it could also even be a little bit of foreshadowing, because of what happens in Deathly Hallows when he confronts her at the Ministry and has to use the Patronus Charm to escape.
Eric: Oh!
Andrew: True.
Eric: I was even thinking about just the next chapters, when we find out that Umbridge was the one that sent the Dementors to Little Whinging.
Micah: Oh, that too, yeah.
Eric: So the fact that Harry conjures a Patronus in front of her, and that’s what helped him escape what she did at the beginning of this book.
Laura: Ooh, that’s really nice.
Micah: Nice.
Eric: Yeah, so actually, it’s nice that this was brought up again in the writing.
Micah: And Eric, you mentioned Potions and the Polyjuice Potion, which of course is a nice throwback to Chamber of Secrets. But Harry, actually, during this entire process, feels pretty good, and the reason why is because Snape is not in the room. And this is now at least the second time in this book that we’ve heard about Harry performing better when he hasn’t had Snape breathing down his neck.
Andrew: Yeah, and this also reminds me of what happened last chapter with Ron not having his brothers at the Quidditch game, and he performed a lot better because he was less stressed.
Micah: Yeah, it’s a great comparison there.
Eric: Yeah, hostile learning environments are a thing, and it’s amazing how much pressure is off just when Snape is not around.
Micah: It is interesting to me, though, that Umbridge was allowed to be in Harry’s DADA OWL, but Snape is not present for the Potions OWL.
Eric: Maybe Umbridge thinks she’s there to intimidate, and Snape just can’t be screwed. He’s got other places to be.
Andrew: [imitating Snape] “I don’t want to see that.”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Yeah, because do any of the other professors turn up?
Micah: Not that I remember reading offhand. Maybe the Discord can keep us honest.
Laura: Yeah, fact check us.
Eric: We don’t even hear about…
Andrew: At least when it comes to Snape, Snape is probably still fuming about what happened a few chapters ago with the memories.
Eric: Probably.
Laura: Well… oh man, this is a fun connection. The memory that he’s super ticked off that Harry saw took place during these very same exams…
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Laura: … so it might be even triggering for him to put himself in that environment with Harry.
Andrew: He’ll think he’s seeing James again.
Eric: Wow.
Micah: So a few other OWLs just to mention, but nothing really major happens during these exams. Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, Herbology. Harry thinks he did relatively well, I would say, in both Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology. But somebody mentioned earlier that – I think it was you, Eric – Ron and Harry both know that they flunked Divination, and they’re excited… that’s another thing too; do we remember from school when we took an exam and we’re like, “Oh, thank God we’re done with this subject; we don’t have to take it again next year”?
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Yep, 100%.
Micah: That’s basically Divination for Ron and for Harry.
[Ad break]
Micah: So let’s head up to the Astronomy Tower. It’s a important place to be, right?
Andrew: [imitating Trelawney] “Yes, it’s a very, very important lesson, Micah!”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: I couldn’t tell…
Micah: Dumbledore, where have you been?
Andrew: That was Trelawney!
Micah: Oh. [laughs]
Eric: Well, I couldn’t… because it’s the Astronomy Tower. You could get either person up there.
Laura: Right.
Eric: I was expecting… I don’t know what I was expecting, but that was lovely.
Micah: The Astronomy OWL needs to be done at nighttime, for obvious reasons, and the students who are up there taking their exams are witnessing quite the scene taking place down on the Hogwarts grounds, because Umbridge, under the cover of night, decides that she is going to surprise attack Hagrid and do it with a number of Ministry officials in tow.
Eric: I feel like whenever you see government officials, which is what Umbridge has with her – Dawlish and a couple others are named – but whenever you see people acting in this manner, it suggests that they don’t have the law on their side, or that it would be bad for optics if they were to do it in broad daylight, and Harry suspects that Umbridge doesn’t want to cause a public school scene the way that she did with Trelawney’s sacking. So that alone could be the reason for this, because she presumably is within her rights, especially as High Inquisitor now and Headmistress, to fire Hagrid. But the darkness covering thing is very concerning from that standpoint.
Andrew: Maybe this is a bit of a crackpot theory, but I was wondering if Umbridge purposely wanted to do this at this time, because she knew Harry would be taking his Astronomy OWL at this time, so she gets to A, distract him while taking one of his tests, and then B, she makes him sort of witness the sacking of Hagrid.
Laura: Yeah. Oh, and it’s so insidious, too, because she is actively trying to undermine Harry at every turn, so she wants to put him in a position where he’s the boy who cried wolf, right? And so nobody will believe him. And I think they’re also assuming, on the basis of Hagrid’s giant background, that most people aren’t going to care that much that he’s gone missing, and I think they’re assuming that people aren’t going to think that much about it if it’s done quietly.
Eric: I think the insidious part is that they’re sneaking up on Hagrid after a long day of work. He’s probably kicked back; he’s probably had a few…
Micah: And it’s after midnight.
Eric: It’s after midnight!
Laura: It’s by design.
Andrew: [singing “After Midnight” by Eric Clapton] “After midnight…”
Eric: They show up and there’s six… [singing “After Midnight” by Eric Clapton] “We’re gonna let it all hang down.”
Andrew: “Hagrid’s gonna put a few down.”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Micah: Hagrid already did. Oh, you were talking about people, okay.
Andrew: No, drinks.
Micah: Oh.
Laura: [laughs] Well, he does that too.
Eric: But think about how much… look, this isn’t smart for them. They should have known this wasn’t smart for them. They’re cornering a man who’s half-giant. I know this whole thing is race-based and motivated to begin with, but they’re cornering this guy, there’s six of them – that’s an escalation tactic right there – and they’re surprising him, and they’re going to take his job away. He’s been doing this job for decades. They’re just going to come in the middle of the night, take it away, not proper… that is garbage. It’s of course going to cause a ruckus and a problem for all of them. It’s also just friggin’ cruel.
Laura: I think it’s also a commentary on people who are power-hungry, but very unqualified – extremely under-qualified – to be in the positions that they’re in finding out while they’re on the ground that they’re in over their heads. Because did not one of these people think, “Oh, well, if he’s half-giant, we can’t just attack him the way that we would attack a human,” right?
Eric: Right.
Micah: But Hagrid knew that the sack was coming, so that’s really where I… the whole bringing Ministry officials makes me think that possibly they’re trying to get more information out of him, maybe about Dumbledore, maybe about the Order.
Eric: That’s a good inclination, because I think that what would have escalated it was not the sack, because Hagrid was expecting it. What would have escalated it is clearly how racist or inappropriate something Umbridge says would be, right? During the actual confrontation, there would have been an additional… I think you’re exactly right; there would have to be an additional component to what’s going on. We just don’t see it.
Micah: And as you point out, Eric, this is in June. There’s no reason really to fire him right now.
Eric: Why even fire him?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, no, that’s the only weird thing.
Andrew: That ties into my crackpot theory, I think.
Eric: Yeah, well, right. A separate way of making Harry feel more isolated. But he’s got, like, two tests left; then you’re just done until the Hogwarts Express picks you up and takes you home. It’s almost pointless to remove Hagrid at this juncture. It’s a clever way to get McGonagall out of the picture for what has to come next, but beyond that…
Stacy: And really, that was kind of an accident. They didn’t expect her to follow them out.
Eric: Yeah, but I’m saying plot-wise, she can’t be here as a refuge for Harry, and so it’s just… because otherwise, again, Hagrid barely had a week’s worth of lessons left to teach. I understand the cruelty is the point, but it’s not really adding up why Umbridge would raise the resources when he’s going to be out of her hair, or she can just not invite him back. Over the summer break she could have fired him.
Micah: I like what Ariane Beth said in the Discord; it feels more like an arrest. And for Hagrid, there’s never been proof against him. You think back on all the times the Ministry has come knocking at his door. They’ve never actually had evidence to arrest him, to send him to Azkaban…
Eric: And that’s another… well, but they would be the same exact people that cite his previous suspicion of criminality and use it against him, right?
Andrew: So I guess this is a good reason for him to resist arrest, but I do wonder if Hagrid should have gone peacefully, because I feel like this temper that he has and this resistance that he’s putting on risks Umbridge trying to raise a point about Hagrid, and more broadly, half-giants being a danger to the everyday witch or wizard or students at the school.
Micah: I wouldn’t be surprised.
Eric: Yeah, it’s an impossible situation.
Laura: Yeah, but I also feel like she’s going to do that anyway. I don’t think she needs an excuse.
Eric: Well, but they attack the dog. Fang gets Stunned. Like, come on.
Laura: No, for real. Some bodies would be hitting the floor; that’s all I’m saying.
Andrew: What do you think, Stacy?
Stacy: I think we kind of covered most of what I was thinking, that it’s one thing if you know it’s coming and they just politely come and knock on your door and say, “Hey, we’re actually doing this now.” But to basically ambush somebody, and then, yeah, it is almost like an arrest. It’s different to say, “Hey, you’re fired,” versus “Hey, we’re going to take your boss plus six police officers to come fire you.” And then I think the, I guess, violence that Hagrid shows really escalates, though, after McGonagall comes out and gets injured herself.
Eric: It is possible that they did want to do more than just fire him, that they tried questioning, or suggested he would go to Azkaban or something. Because Aurors, who are like wizard cops, are pretty much the ones that would take you to Azkaban. And if Umbridge suspects that Hagrid put the Nifflers in… there’s probably more going on than what we see or ever learn about.
Micah: Feels like the Nifflers are small potatoes in this larger issue.
Eric: They are small potatoes. They’re little, dumpling-sized creatures. It’s really lovely.
Micah: Oh. Do you make Niffler dumplings?
Eric: Yeah. I mean, no. No, no, no. And you don’t eat stoat either, because that’s my Patronus.
Micah: [laughs] And it is impressive to watch the physical nature of Hagrid in this chapter, because he is able to take out pretty much everybody, with the exception of one Auror who, I think, trips over his fallen mate, and Umbridge. So the last episode that we did this chapter, I think you said, was called “Hagrid’s Punch Out.”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: So that’s what is the reference here. But again…
Eric: It’s also like punching out on the clock. You clock in and clock out. You punch out.
Micah: Oh, okay.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: It was his last day. It was so clever. [laughs]
Micah: But it shows just the sheer strength of Hagrid, because this is the third example now that we’ve gotten. He broke up the fight that Grawp was in, he rescued Firenze from the centaurs, and now… I mean, humans are nothing compared to centaurs and giants. You just chuck them like potatoes.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: But as mentioned, McGonagall does get injured in this melee, and that is important for later on, as events start to unfold. And the group is up late at night because of everything that has transpired with Hagrid, and they’re talking till the early morning hours, and Harry has probably his most boring exam that day now, which is History of Magic. And you ever get into a warm classroom and your professor is just drawling on? In this case you’re taking an exam, there’s probably lots of words to read, and you just… your eyes start drooping, and before you know it, you’re out cold. And that’s exactly what happens to Harry, and we have the payoff for him not taking his Occlumency lessons – which is mentioned at the beginning of this chapter again – for the last several weeks. This is the payoff now, because Harry has this vision of Voldemort, who has Sirius in the Department of Mysteries, he’s in pretty bad shape, and he’s being tortured by the Cruciatus Curse. At least, that’s what we’re led to believe.
Eric: I wonder why Harry doesn’t have a larger scrutiny. I think what causes Harry to get in action right away – and this is based on the information Voldemort has been able to obtain from Kreacher and Sirius about the connection that Sirius and Harry share – is the torturing Sirius part. This is what makes Harry have to act, and act fast and do less thinking, and it’s a shame because I think Harry would be less inclined somehow, or less urgent about saving Sirius from being tortured, if on some level Sirius had not, in fact, been being tortured all year by not being let out of his own house. I think there’s this extra component of, yeah, he wants to save Sirius; Sirius is being tortured by Voldemort. But Harry particularly feels Sirius’s pain throughout the year, and I think there’s some element of that buildup where now he’s just going to be killed? Now he’s going to be tortured and killed by Voldemort? Oh, hell no. I think that the whole year Sirius has had all of this suffering, and then that kind of imbues Harry with a little bit more… even more urgency than he would normally have. Does that make any sense?
Andrew: Yes. Plus, Harry was right about Arthur; that really happened, so he has no reason to doubt this vision as well. And as we not-so-jokingly like to say on the show, Harry has a saving people thing. This is what he does. [laughs] He got this vision…
Eric: I can’t wait to talk about that next week when it comes up, but yeah. Or not next week. We’ll talk… yeah.
Micah: And all of his safety nets have been removed now, right? McGonagall is in the infirmary. Hagrid is gone. Dumbledore is gone. And we talked about this in prior episodes, but the last thing he wants to do now is potentially lose Sirius on top of it all, and he’s got nobody to go to that he can trust. Even Snape is pissed off at him. So what’s frustrating about all this is you could have had somebody like Dumbledore just say, “Harry, if you start to have visions, let me know.”
Eric: “And here’s a way to do that,” yeah.
Micah: “And send me an owl; it will find me. Send me Hedwig; she will find me.”
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Micah: And none of that happens.
Laura: But again, I think his excuse is always that he’s afraid Voldemort will find out. Because if he’s able to break into Harry’s mind and see…
Micah: Oh, he’s 150 years old. He needs to put on his big boy pants already, okay?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: He’s faced worse than Voldemort, presumably.
Eric: Well, the thing is, he directly faces Voldemort in a couple chapters from now, so it couldn’t be worse facing Harry as Voldemort or whatever would be.
Micah: So I thought it would be fun to wrap up just asking, what would Harry’s post-exam life look like if he didn’t have a Dark Lord inside of his head? Because this is his last test. We all remember what it’s like to get to that last exam, and then school’s out for summer, right? You think he would be able to enjoy himself down by the lake.
Andrew: [singing] “Summertime, and the living’s easy.”
Micah: But not in his case, unfortunately.
Andrew: No. He never gets a break.
Laura: Well, and there would usually.. if you were on a campus, there was usually last day of exams parties, right, that everyone would go to?
Stacy: Hogsmeade trip.
Eric: Yeah, we had something called Field Day, and it was athletics. We split into two teams. But I think that all happened at the end of the year. It was just fun relays and exercise, like an outdoor day.
Laura: That was because they had to maintain a certain number of school days for the calendar year to secure all their funding, and they didn’t have enough content to actually be teaching you anything for all those days, which is why you have all of those kind of BS days towards the end of the school year.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Oh, TV cart days. Huh. Wow, that was a funding issue? We lucked out.
Odds & Ends
Micah: Couple of odds and ends: There was a interesting quote when Ron was going through his “I went left, and I went right…”
Eric: Whose left? Whose right?
Micah: [laughs] He says, “Did you see the look on Chang’s face when Ginny got the Snitch right out from under her nose?” And I wondered if this was a reference to Harry, possibly.
Eric: Like in the way that it would have been Harry having to face off with her if he wasn’t banned?
Micah: No, like Ginny stole Harry right from under Cho’s nose.
Eric: Oh!
Andrew: [laughs] Maybe.
Eric: Did she? Yeah, maybe.
Stacy: I was going to say, I think there was a Slytherin match where he basically took the Snitch right out from under Draco’s nose.
Andrew: That was my first inclination.
Eric: It’s got to be something that happens fairly often as Seekers, because you’re both probably pretty good at seeing the Snitch, so then you both dive for it, and you are always in close…
Andrew: Once one person is pursuing it, the other person just catches up, as we’ve seen in the books.
Micah: Yeah, I thought it was more of a romantic hint.
Laura: I think it is.
Eric: Harry is kind of a jerk too. He’s like, “What, did she cry?”
Micah: “Yeah, she did.”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: But I also love how we’re already back on last name terms about Cho. I mean, she and Harry just broke up, whatever the breakup equivalent is for this relationship. But I mean, y’all were just making out in the Room of Requirement a few months ago.
Andrew: But that was also her friend who busted Dumbledore’s Army, so we’re back to acting like we don’t even know her.
Eric: And remember, Laura, she’s a Tornadoes supporter…
Laura: Oh, right.
Eric: … and she’s a bandwagoner, and only started liking them right when they were popular, and so it’s okay to just dehumanize people like that.
Laura: Of course.
Andrew: One more odd and end: Y’all know I like looking out for the numbers 7 and 12 across the series, because they come out a lot. This might be a bit of a stretch, but while Harry and company are taking their OWL on top of the Astronomy Tower, they’re watching Hagrid fight the Ministry, and Professor Tofty reminds the students that there’s only 16 minutes left to take their exam.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: 16. What’s 16?
Andrew: Now, yes, that’s not the number 7 or 12, but 1 plus 6 equals 7.
Eric: Oh my God.
Andrew: This might be a bit of Taylor Swift-y level theorizing here, but this is another 7 reference, in my humble opinion. Because why 16 minutes? Why? Because 1 plus 6 equals 7. Thank you.
Micah: There you go.
Superlative of the Week
Micah: All right, for our MVP this week, we asked what OWL would we most like to sit? After going through this whole experience with Harry.
Andrew: Transfiguration seems fun. I like the idea of turning one object into another object, so yeah, I think that one. And like Eric was alluding to earlier, we could learn a lot more about it, so I would like to get into the nitty gritty of Transfiguration.
Eric: Presumably we’d learn a lot more about it before the OWL takes place, and then be reasonably competent by the… but yeah, I think honestly, Potions would be a lot of fun to sit, because I think it would be a subject where I could memorize what types of herbs and things and how they work, and so I feel like I would have a pretty good grasp of it. It feels like something you can touch and work with.
Laura: I would go with Care of Magical Creatures. I just love animals anyway, and I do tend to agree with Hagrid that there are a lot of animals out there that are misunderstood, so I think that I would have the right attitude towards that. But also just reading about that exam, it’s literally just Harry showing that he knows how to take care of the animals…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: … so I’m like, “That sounds easy, and fun.”
Eric: If you don’t kill these living things… well, like in the Herbology one, never give me plants, because they’ll die. They’ll be dead by the end of class. [laughs]
Micah: I went with Defense Against the Dark Arts. Just seems like a very cool subject. And I’d try and cast Patronus for an extra point.
Andrew: Would you do it in front of Umbridge? Or would you be nervous?
Micah: Oh, no, same as Harry. I’d look straight at her…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Nice.
Micah: … conjure a nice, happy memory, and I’d have my Patronus attack her, though.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I think mine’s a sparrow hawk.
Andrew: Ooh.
Eric: That’s cool.
Stacy: Way more aggressive than a shrew.
[Andrew laughs]
Stacy: I would say Charms, because it seems like it’s the most day-to-day applicable.
Andrew: Good point. Classic magic.
Lynx Line
Micah: And we also asked our patrons over on the Lynx Line this week: After Harry overhears Professor Marchbanks tell Professor Umbridge that Dumbledore “did things with a wand I’d never seen before,” we wanted to know, what kinds of things do you imagine Dumbledore doing to impress the examiners?
Andrew: Oh, brother.
Eric: I love this question.
Micah: This was too easy.
Andrew: Micah, get your mind out of the gutter.
Micah: Do you see how that question is phrased? “What kinds of things do you imagine Dumbledore doing to impress the examiners?” I didn’t say…
Andrew: [laughs] You all see Micah pointing at the question right now?
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: He pointed at his screen. I’ve never seen somebody do that before.
Micah: I kept it PC. I could have said “inappropriate answers only,” although we did get some.
Andrew: Well, our listeners know you, and you know our listeners, so yes, we did get some inappropriate ones.
Micah: That’s fair.
Andrew: But here’s a wholesome one from Carlee. She said, “Conducted an imaginary choir and orchestra, and all of a sudden the Great Hall was filled with sound!” Ahh.
Micah: You see the imagination that our patrons have?
Andrew: All right, now parents, turn off the show for the rest of these. I’m kidding.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: I think I got a dirty one, you guys. It says, from Kayla, “He’s able to control the trajectory and force of which stuff comes out of his wand with perfect precision that many men should be jealous of.” I’m just confused, honestly. I feel like I’ll never be young again and innocent after reading that.
Micah: Well, along those lines, James says, “I’m sure Albus showed Gellert many things he could do with his wand. Wink, wink.”
Laura: Our next one is from Kim, who says, “Since he likes knitting sock patterns, he used his wand to knit three pairs of socks simultaneously while singing Rule Britannia,” which, I just searched for this in Google because I don’t know what it is. It is a British patriotic song with lyrics from a poem by James Thompson. Hmm, maybe a relative?
Eric: Isn’t it the, [hums “Rule Britannia”]?
Andrew: Oh.
Laura: Yeah, I think that is right.
Micah: Now knit those socks, Eric, at the same time.
Stacy: Zachary said,
“He was able to nonverbally use the Imperius Curse on all the examiners to get top marks. The wand was just a prop. However, this wasn’t enough, and his ego took over so much that he ended up placing the curse on everyone he came in contact with during his life. Dumby gets what Dumby wants.”
Andrew: [laughs] Rachel said, “Produced a second wand, used them as chopsticks to eat sushi, and performed wandless magic to scrub the windows in the Great Hall.” Wow. Very specific, Rachel.
Eric: Sarah says, “Baton twirling, obviously.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Yeah, the wands are probably pretty well balanced.
Micah: Robert said, “He rewrote the timeline so he would teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, and McGonagall would be born decades before she should have been.” A reference to the Fantastic Beasts series.
Laura: Very nice. And rounding us out here, Justin said, [laughs] “Turn around like he’s Michael Scott, stick it out from under his robes, then turn back around and shoot out white sparks. This is all inspired by the emoji you added to the end of the question.” What emoji?
Micah: Andrew, what emoji did you add at the end of the question?
Andrew: Oh, I added the smirk emoji, so I guess I am to blame for some of the…
Laura: Ahhh.
Micah: Oh, point that finger back in your direction.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: That was fun.
Andrew: The Lynx Line is a great way to have your voice heard on the show, whether or not you are listening live. We ask a new question every week, and we invite you to become a member of our community by visiting Patreon.com/MuggleCast and pledging for as little as $5 a month. And if you have any feedback about today’s discussion, you can contact us by emailing or sending a voice memo that you record on your phone to MuggleCast@gmail.com. Next week, we will be off because it is the Fourth of July holiday here in the United States, but we will be releasing a bonus MuggleCast from our archives for your listening pleasure, and we’ll be back the following week with the next chapter of Order of the Phoenix. If you enjoy the bonus material that you hear next week, please do visit Patreon.com/MuggleCast to get hundreds more installments! Hundreds! We’ve been at this for years, with hundreds more to come. And while you’re barbecuing over the grill this Fourth of July and you’re looking for more podcasting content from the four of us, check out What the Hype?! and Millennial for more pop culture and real world talk.
Quizzitch
Andrew: Now it’s time for Quizzitch!
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: This week’s Quizzitch question: What wrestler, who stood at a giant height of seven feet four inches, was also an actor, starring in a film that featured not a Forbidden Forest but a Fire Swamp? The correct answer, of course, was Andre the Giant, from The Princess Bride. And 81% of people with the correct answer did not look this up; it was an easy one. But I was very happy to see that, and these names, you guys, very exciting. Correct answers were submitted by Acromantulas, Forbidden Forest Version of Rodents of Unusual Size; Amelia the Giant; Draco’s Etsy Badge Shop; Grawp’s Uprooted Trees; Hello, my name is Molly Weasley, you tried to kill my Ginny, prepare to die, bitch…
[Laura laughs]
Eric: … Hermione Green-ger; Homeschool Hufflepuff; I don’t know wrestling, oh hey, I think I know this one, inconceivable!; OWL be back; Only here for Micah’s daddy jokes; PracticallyMagic; RavenBele is ready for the OWLs; Snape Snitched; The Dread Pirate Ravenclaw; The Princess Bort; Whizzle Snape; You are the Brute Squad?; and Tofu Tom. Love the Princess Bort.
Micah: Daddy jokes, I think, are different than dad jokes, aren’t they? Like, that’s a different type…
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Laura: Yes.
Eric: You’ve got to branch off into… no, you don’t. No.
[Micah laughs]
Laura: See, Micah, the daddy jokes are for the Only Fans.
Micah: Oh, okay. For the bonus MuggleCast.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Anyway, here is next week’s Quizzitch question: Harry struggles to name all of the moons of Jupiter for his Astronomy OWL. Which of the following is not one of Jupiter’s moons? There are 97. Io, Metis, Europa, Ganymede, Calypso, Themisto, Pandia, and S/2003 J2. So it’s all written out on the Quizzitch form, which you may find helpful. Go over to the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast.com, and click on “Quizzitch” from the main nav, or go to MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch to participate in this two week-long Quizzitch question. Time to study up on Jupiter’s moons, y’all.
Andrew: Stacy, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today! We appreciate your support and all your contributions to today’s episode.
Stacy: Thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun.
Andrew: Good luck with growing your wand collection. Keep us posted. We should see if other listeners… we should have a contest; who has the most wands amongst our audience? I’m sure you would be up there, Stacy. Thanks, everyone, for listening. Don’t forget to leave us a review in your favorite podcast app, and please do tell a friend about the show. Have a great Fourth of July holiday, too, if you are in America. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: I’m Laura.
Stacy: And I’m Stacy.
Andrew: Bye, everyone.
Laura: Bye, y’all.
Micah and Stacy: Bye.