Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #466, Weasleys Victorious (OOTP 29, Career Advice)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Laura Tee: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the wizarding world. I’m Laura.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura: No Andrew this week, but we do have one of our Slug Club supporters over at Patreon.com/MuggleCast, Ryan, joining us. Hey, Ryan. How are you?
Ryan: I’m good, y’all. How about y’all?
Laura: Doing great. Ryan, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?
Ryan: Yeah, I’m from Georgia. My favorite book is a toss-up between Prisoner of Azkaban and Order of the Phoenix. Favorite movie; I don’t really have one anymore, because I really like the audiobooks a lot better. I’m a Gryffindor, I’m a Pukwudgie, my Patronus is a fox, and my favorite Marauder is Lupin.
Eric: Nice.
Laura: Awesome. We’ve got a nice balance of Houses here today. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw…
Eric: Yep, and those are the only Houses there are!
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Well, Andrew will be back with us tomorrow for Quizzitch Live.
News
Laura: But we do have a little bit of news to dig into before we dig into Chapter by Chapter this week. So WizardingWorld.com has continued their reading of the first Harry Potter book. Most recently, Eddie Redmayne and Stephen Fry read Chapters 3 and 4 of Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone. Did y’all get a chance to listen?
Eric: I meant to be exactly on top of this, but I haven’t yet been able to listen to Eddie or Stephen.
Ryan: I haven’t either.
Laura: I gave both of them a listen today. They were really good. I was actually very impressed with Eddie Redmayne; I think this could be a backup career for him.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: Now, he does – I did peak at his – he does some voices, right?
Laura: Yeah.
Eric: Which so far, I don’t think anyone’s really embellished or done the voices. Now, to be fair, the first two chapters of the first book don’t necessarily have all that much dialogue, but I did manage to hear Eddie do some of the voices of the Dursleys and things.
Laura: It’s awesome.
Micah: Yeah, I haven’t had a chance to listen through yet, but I know Eddie has done some other projects similar to this before. He’s definitely into it; to Laura, your point, he really enjoys it. You can tell he likes being a part of the Wizarding World as a whole. One question I did have, though, was with Stephen Fry, what was the decision there behind getting him involved? Obviously, he’s voiced these books, these characters before. They probably could have held off on him a little bit instead of going to him for the fourth chapter.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: I feel like maybe that was a little bit of an easy out for them.
Eric: Yeah, I wondered that. That was actually my initial thought when they were previewing this Harry Potter at Home chapter reading, was, “Oh, Stephen Fry, huh? You don’t say. The guy who did all the audiobooks.” [laughs]
Micah: Right, that’s what I was wondering. Did they just use the one that he did 20 years ago?
[Ryan laughs]
Eric: I mean, unless they had it on HD video, I doubt it. [laughs] But I mean, that’s the thing; he did rerecord it. It’s a new recording, so I think it counts. But I mean, he is just a massive presence in Britain, a massive star. He’s probably the biggest star they’ve had so far. He’s bigger than Dan Radcliffe, I’d say.
Laura: Whoa.
Eric: So pretty exciting. But I worry a little bit that maybe they’re front-loading these chapters, unless they plan to go back to some of these actors in the future. Because they’ve got… of the stars that they have announced, there’s really not that many left.
Laura: Well, we’ll see. They might save the best for last.
Micah: How do you mean?
Eric: Well, they’ve got… David Beckham is coming on. Can’t seem to recall anybody else that’s coming up…
Micah: Who’s notably larger than anybody who has already read the Harry Potter books. I know you were talking about Stephen Fry, and obviously, huge over in the UK, but David Beckham probably trumps him in terms of celebrity status, at least internationally.
Eric: Yeah, pretty cool.
Micah: But what about…? I mean, it’d be cool if they were able to get Maggie Smith or a few of the other older Potter actors or professors to do the voices of some of these chapters.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, Michael Gambon could scream-shout a chapter to us.
[Laura and Ryan laugh]
Laura: You know, this could be an opportunity for redemption for Michael Gambon.
Eric: [laughs] Oh my God, the headline could be “Michael Gambon reads a Harry Potter book.”
[Laura laughs]
Ryan: Well, “gently reads a Harry Potter book.”
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: “Calmly reads.” You know what? I still love Michael Gambon. I know I’m in the minority on this, but I think he’s great.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: He redeemed himself.
Laura: Yeah, I think so. Well, speaking of things that you can do to keep yourself entertained during quarantine, we recorded another installment of Quizzitch Live over the weekend. This installment was called the Goblet of Popcorn.
Micah: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Eric and I worked together to come up with a bunch of movie trivia questions, and we hope that everybody enjoyed them. We were, of course, joined by Chris Rankin, who played Percy Weasley in the Potter films, and it was a lot of fun. Now, I think we can give away the secret here, right? We’re recording on Saturday, so we’re assuming that it was a lot of fun.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Everybody had a great time. The questions were well received. But if it’s any indication, the last three that we’ve done, this one will go off without a hitch.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, it’s going to be great.
Laura: Yeah, these are always a ton of fun. There’s usually several hundred of you playing live, including my mom.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: My mom has gotten very into Quizzitch Live, so she was there.
Eric: Nice.
Laura: At least, I’m assuming she was there, at this point. [laughs] Before we get into some Muggle Mail, we just wanted to make an announcement about our new T-shirt. Now is the time to support the show and help it grow, because we just announced the MuggleCast 15th Anniversary T-shirt. It features a new crest to celebrate our birthday, and is available in two cuts and colors. If you pledge by June 30 at Patreon.com/MuggleCast and remain a patron for at least three months, you’ll receive one for yourself. You’ll also receive instant access to loads of other benefits, including bonus MuggleCast, which is 20 to 30 minutes of extra podcasting, access to our recording studio, our chapter readings, and a whole lot more.
Listener Feedback
Laura: Now we can dig into some Muggle Mail. Eric, you want to kick us off?
Eric: Sure, this is from Pat.
“Hi! I love your show. I’m a lifelong OG Potterhead. I am a healthcare worker who has studied biology and physiology pretty extensively, so I wanted to give some insight as to the science of memory and how it relates to the Pensieve.”
Oh boy, guys. We asked for this.
Micah: We did ask for this.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Pat says,
“Unfortunately, the Pensieve is biological BS. As far as I know, memory is pretty fickle and unreliable. Sometimes people think they remember things that happened when they were kids, but they were actually just told about them so many times that the brain has created a false ‘memory.’ If you watch true crime, people are always talking about how the ‘bad guy’ was always shady, and something was off about him, etc… This is probably BS; information and emotions after the fact can alter our perceptions of our memory. There is also no way Snape can remember things like the Marauders’ conversation, because he didn’t experience it in the first place. Have you listened to Wizard Team podcast? They do a take on this chapter which is pretty spot on from a neurological perspective. Their conclusion is that Snape is subconsciously filling in the blanks of the Marauders’ dialogue based on his subjective perception of their personalities. Of course, JKR has said the Pensieve is fact. I don’t think she studied much about memory, but I love her anyway.”
Eric: Yeah, I’m inclined to say that’s the magic of the Pensieve, and that those conversations that Harry witnessed in the last chapter really did occur, but I couldn’t for a second explain it scientifically.
Laura: Yeah, I think this is one of those areas where we have to suspend our disbelief and chalk it up to magic. But I can understand why, to somebody who’s studied in this field, this would be a little bit like there’s no way this could ever happen. So again, Pat, thank you for this. We did ask for it, so we appreciate the scientific explanation.
Eric: [laughs] For sure.
Micah: Totally. Next email comes from Leah, who says,
“Just a quick thought here: I agree that it’s disappointing that Lupin ultimately doesn’t stand up to his friends in Snape’s Worst Memory, but I think there’s something we’re forgetting. Lupin isn’t *just* afraid that his friends will leave him — he’s afraid because he’s already a member of an extremely marginalized and stigmatized group, since he’s a werewolf. I could completely understand that, once finding a group of friends who accepted him, not wanting to jeopardize his position as no longer being an outsider. I don’t think it justifies his actions (or lack thereof), but I think it’s important to remember Lupin’s own context and circumstances.”
Laura: Agree.
Micah: Yeah, this is a really great point, Leah. And I think that it doesn’t necessarily excuse his behavior, as you mentioned; I think Lupin even touches on that in the upcoming chapter that we’re about to discuss. But certainly you would think, given his condition of being a werewolf, that he would want to protect that first and foremost. Also keeping in mind that all three of these people that are his closest friends know about it, so what happens if he shows any sort of sympathy towards Snape? Do they risk the possibility of that information getting out?
Eric: Pretty interesting. I like to believe that Dumbledore really set Lupin up for success here with… I mean, day one, when he came to Hogwarts, he had this whole Shrieking Shack set up to become a werewolf, to be able to transform safely. And it’s a shame to think of Lupin’s condition still overshadowing all of his interactions, preventing him from really standing up to his friends and living a full life at school. But I understand that despite what should happen on page, the reality is a little bit murkier.
Ryan: You can definitely see that with his and Tonks’s relationship.
Eric: Oh, heavens, yes.
Ryan: He wants to be happy, but he denies that to himself because he doesn’t want to bring Tonks into that lifestyle.
Eric: There you go.
Micah: I do think, though, that Lupin may have been surprised at how James or Sirius would have reacted if he would have stepped in. I think Lupin does command a level of respect even at this young age; he may just not realize it.
Eric: I think that’s exactly true, yeah. To your point, he kind of has powers he doesn’t realize he has.
Laura: Definitely a tortured soul, yeah. All right, well, Ryan is going to read our next piece of feedback from Daniela.
Ryan: I’m glad you said the name, because I was like, “I think it’s Daniela; I’m not sure.”
“Hi MuggleCast, I was listening to your most recent episode, 465, about Snape’s Worst Memory, and I had a few thoughts. Firstly, while I sometimes loathe to have anything in common with Snape, I too was bullied at school, and am a teacher myself. While the memory definitely gives some context to Snape’s behavior when it comes to Harry, I’ve never understood why he was so mean to Neville, mean enough to be his worst fear (evident in his boggart taking his shape). We do not know if Snape had anything to do with the Longbottoms at school, and was wondering your thoughts on this. Secondly, you were discussing whether when Snape calls Lily a Mudblood, they already had a falling out and were not friends. We know in the chapter ‘The Prince’s Tale’ in Deathly Hallows that calling her a Mudblood was the last straw for Lily, who had been excusing his poor behavior and was concerned because he was friends with Death Eaters. However, I think this moment is when they actually have a falling out and possibly seldom talk again. Some people may think this is super harsh, especially considering how many times Hermione is called a Mudblood in the series by Draco Malfoy. However, considering the negative reaction from Ron and other wizards when we first heard the term in Chamber of Secrets, I can only imagine that in the 1970s, the word was more uncommon and prohibited than in 1995, therefore it was much worse that anyone said it, let alone a friend. Sorry for the long email. Thank you for keeping me entertained in lockdown (which we are just coming out of here in Melbourne, Australia).”
Ryan: The first part of this, the reason I think maybe he’s so against Neville is because every time he sees him, he sees a kid that could have taken Harry’s place, and Lily would still be here if he had chosen Neville instead of Harry.
Eric: Wow.
Laura: Oooh, that’s really dark.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: But a good point.
Eric: Yeah, I love it. He does have that inside info. He’s one of the three people in the world that knows what Neville could have been, so perhaps Neville’s incompetence gets at him personally.
Micah: Yeah, I really like that thought. I also just think Snape is a bit of a you-know-what…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: … and when he sees opportunity to make light of certain people, he takes advantage of that opportunity. And again, we’re going to talk about this in the upcoming chapter, but when Snape isn’t literally hovering over Harry during Potions, Harry is actually pretty good at it, and I think there’s more to that. And I think the same could be said of Neville. If Neville just got a little bit of confidence – and we see it develop throughout the course of the next couple of books – he’s actually pretty good, so I just think Snape is a miserable human being at times.
Eric: Yeah. And he’s also a big, big tightarse, tightwad, whatever you’d call that. Because if you think about it, back in day one of Potions, he comes into the classroom talking about dunderheads, right? “If you aren’t as big a lot of dunderheads as I usually have to teach,” back in Book 1. So he’s really concerned with people who can’t cut it. And in this chapter that we’re going to read, “Career Advice,” McGonagall says that Snape doesn’t take anyone under the Outstanding level into his NEWT class, Outstanding being the top grade that it is possible to get on the OWLs. So Snape is just not wasting his time with lesser students who, again, can’t cut it. I think that’s just who he is.
Micah: He’s not looking to coach, right? At the end of the day.
Eric: Exactly. That’s exactly it, yeah.
Micah: And that’s what makes it comical that he’s teaching Harry Remedial Potions; that’s the cover story.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Because at the end of the day, Snape doesn’t really care. And that’s why I think, too, there’s a bit of that attitude towards Neville, because he’s just looking at Neville as if he’s completely incompetent. There’s a level of perfection I think that Snape really demands of his students. He’s the Half-Blood Prince; he came up with all these different spells and really different ways to create potions, right? We see it in the next book. I mean, he completely goes against what the normal textbook would say; he creates his own way of doing things, and so I think that’s a certain kind of mindset that he has. But as far as the second part of this, I find it interesting, yeah, that perhaps “Mudblood” was almost a term that wasn’t even allowed back in the 1970s, and then now here in the ’90s, when it’s being said to Hermione, it’s completely taboo, like it’s over time… as a lot of racial slurs that we know of here could be compared to.
Eric: Yeah, you can probably hear it on the radio nowadays.
Laura: Yeah. Okay, we have one more piece of feedback from Debbie. Debbie says,
“Just wanted to comment on Harry’s actions of sneaking a look into the Pensieve in Snape’s Worst Memory. While it is not the greatest choice on Harry’s part, I like that Jo wrote him as a flawed and human character who gave into his curiosity. The movie version had him triumphing over Snape in Occlumency and seeing that memory quite by accident and due to skill. Makes Harry too much of the hero who can do no wrong. P.S. I may or may not give the ‘Suck Count giggle’ every time I tap a Wrackspurt in Umbridge’s office in Wizard’s Unite.”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: That phrase out of context…
Eric: Yep.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: All right, well, before we dive into our Chapter by Chapter discussion on “Career Advice,” I have some advice for you, and it concerns your mouth.
[Ad break]
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Laura: All right, we’re going to go ahead and dive into our Seven-Word Summary for Chapter 29 of Order of the Phoenix, “Career Advice.” And Ryan, it looks like you’ll be kicking us off, and the music will start once your word has been contributed.
Ryan: All right. Harry…
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Laura: … speaks…
Micah: … to…
Eric: … McGonagall…
Ryan: … about…
Laura: … career…
Micah: … opportunities.
Eric: There you go.
[Ryan laughs]
Eric: Thank you for not ending it in “advice.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Laura: All right, well, Micah, take us away.
Micah: All right. Yeah, well, we will talk about career opportunities a little bit later on, and we actually are going to reenact that scene between McGonagall and Umbridge, because it was cut from the movies, and there are actually a number of people who wrote in about that, so we’ll touch on that. But the chapter itself starts off with Harry not in the best of moods, which is no surprise, considering this is Order of the Phoenix…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: … but one thing I’ll say for him is he does seem to be doing a halfway decent job of masking his frustration in this chapter as a whole, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that exams are coming up, that OWLs are not that far away, and I think it keeps Hermione in particular at bay, right?
Laura: Yeah, everybody’s sort of willing to accept this exam excuse.
Micah: Right. And I was wondering, have we ever been in similar situations where we’ve been upset about something, but we’ve used something else as an excuse as to why we’re in such a terrible, terrible mood?
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Eric: I’m sure I’ve done that. I think also with Harry, though, that he just doesn’t have an idea of how to proceed right away. When the chapter opens, he’s very haunted by what he saw in Snape’s Pensieve, but he doesn’t have anything to do about it, so he can’t really react to it. He is just lost. He kind of spends the next couple weeks, I think, wandering just around, being upset. But until you have a plan, or… he just doesn’t think it’s really possible to really follow up on his issue, so he’s kind of quietly smoldering, quietly frustrated here.
Laura: Yeah, at the same time, though, he does exhibit a little bit of bias here in the opening of the chapter, right? He clearly feels really bad about what he witnessed, and super conflicted about his father’s behavior, but then he’s trying to justify it by thinking he would never do that to anybody except somebody who really deserved it, like Malfoy.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: And I was like, “Well, your dad clearly thought Snape deserved it.” And I thought that this was a really interesting contrast to James’s behavior by looking back to Prisoner of Azkaban, where Harry is under the Invisibility Cloak in Hogsmeade and is throwing mud at Malfoy for harassing Ron, and I thought this was kind of cool, because at least when Harry is doing this, he’s defending his friend, because Malfoy is actually being a huge jerk, whereas Snape wasn’t doing anything when James decided to bully him.
Ryan: Well, I wonder, as far as Snape is concerned… we see in Deathly Hallows when he’s looking through the memories that Snape gives Harry that Lily accuses him of hanging out with the Death Eaters, this, that, and the other, so I do wonder what kind of things Snape was involved in that James and other students might have known about, so James is considering it open season on Snape anytime because of all the horrible stuff he was doing.
Laura: Yeah, totally.
Eric: Yeah, I wonder that, too. And it comes up later in the chapter, too; Snape and his connection to the Dark Arts seem absolute, and a lot of people know about him.
Micah: Yeah. I do wonder, though, at the same time, if the way that Snape was treated by James and Sirius in particular drove him to become more aligned with the Death Eaters as friends at Hogwarts.
Laura: Yeah, I mean, I think Snape is somebody who had trouble with social acceptance anyway, and that already predisposed him to fall into whatever crowd would have him. Definitely a self-fulfilling prophecy, though.
Ryan: Yeah, and we see that repeated in Cursed Child as well.
Laura: Ooh, yeah.
Ryan: Well, if you found that canon.
[Laura and Ryan laugh]
Laura: Do you consider it canon, Ryan?
[Micah laughs]
Ryan: I was one of those people who got halfway through it, I put it down, and then after a while, I was like, “All right, at least let me read through it.” I just like to pretend like it didn’t happen. I know it exists, but I don’t want to think about it.
Laura: I still haven’t read it, so you’re doing better than me.
[Ryan laughs]
Eric: I think there are some good character comparisons to be drawn from it. I like that we can touch on it, be like, “Oh, it’s kind of similar.”
Micah: Part of the frustration that Harry is dealing with at the start of the chapter is directly related to how James and Lily could have possibly fallen in love with each other, gotten together, married, had Harry, just based on the scene that he’s witnessed. And Andrew, who actually put this in here, talked a little bit about the different options here. He mentions that one of our listeners, Maria, called in about this, and the two options that were laid out… the first is that they simply grew up, right? And I think we hear a little bit about this from Sirius and Remus later on in the chapter. James grew out of some of his habits that really annoyed Lily, and it was just enough for Lily to start taking a liking to this handsome boy. So that’s option one, and then we could go back and say which one we think happened. The second one we heard from listener Mary. She said,
“The change in James Potter also begins in Snape’s Worst Memory. It marks a shift in his feelings for Lily, from superficial attraction to respect. Lily wins the showdown with James, and in the process, tells him a few home truths about himself. I doubt they sink in all at once, but James seems to have some capacity for self-reflection. Perhaps he would have outgrown some of his sillier affectations anyway, but the confrontation with Lily hastens the process. A humbler James, who keeps his bullying side in check, shows his better nature to Lily and slowly wins her over.”
What do you all think? I think it could be a combination of these two, honestly.
Eric: Yeah. I think it’s difficult, too, to even trust what Sirius says on the matter later in the chapter, just because nobody is speaking for James himself; James isn’t here to really give us his side of what happened. But I think he put in the work, but he was definitely, I think, motivated by “This is how you win over Evans, who you’re into.” So I think that as he attempted to woo her, he realized that he would have to slow down on the taunts of Snape. The interesting thing is that in the chapter, when Sirius talks to Harry about it, he kind of indicates that James didn’t stop his torture of Snape and that she just didn’t know really much about it, so I think a lot of what happened was Lily might have also chosen to turn a blind eye to what James was doing to Snape.
Laura: Yeah, I think also, Sirius and Remus do a really good job here – or later in the chapter – of explaining to Harry, “Hey, you were just seeing a very small snippet of a representation of your father, so you can’t take that as the gospel and paint with a broad brush and assume that that’s what he was like all the time.” And certainly Snape had his own share of moments when he would hex James too.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s stated. But Harry is in such a state right now that he wonders if his father hadn’t taken his mother by force; that’s literally in the chapter. And it’s so telling that Harry is dealing with this complete upside down topsy-turviness of his reality. His reality has been upside down, and J.K. Rowling does a really good job of writing all the times that he’s been complimented for looking like his father, he has swelled with pride; it’s even been a couple of happy memories for Patronus conjuring and the like, and now he is really feeling like it has all been unwritten because of the memory that he has witnessed, because of, really, the malice in James’s behavior. So can’t put too fine a point on it; Harry is absolutely disturbed.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Micah: Ryan, any thoughts from you?
Ryan: The only thing I was thinking is it’s almost like reading a snippet of a book out of context. You don’t really… I mean, I know we see leading up to it and everything, but like I said, you don’t really see their relationship, so you really don’t see why he would jump on him like that so easily.
Micah: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, too, there’s something to be said for the fact that people can grow up and out of who they were when they were teenagers. We mentioned Cursed Child earlier, but I think seeing the relationship that’s developed between Harry and Draco – or even Hermione and Draco – it seems to be a bit more calm than… again, if we’re taking that to be canon. But I think there’s other examples here, too, and I think it’s meant to represent the fact that we can draw comparisons, and we did it last episode between James and Draco and how they treat people, but I think ultimately they can grow up to be completely different individuals. So maybe we’re just seeing a really bad moment for James, as was already said.
Eric: But who should come to Harry’s existential self-torture rescue than the perfect, most beautiful character ever written… Laura, I’m sure you’ll agree…
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Eric: … than Ginny Weasley! The perfect partner for Harry. She walks up to him, she knows he’s been down lately, she asks him about it. He actually is able to talk; he says, “I’m really just trying to find… trying to figure out a way to talk to Sirius,” and she comes up with, “Well…” Just even the mindset that she has to him, and she says – this is the famous line from Fred and George – “If you live with Fred and George, you start to think anything is possible.” And it’s this attitude and Ginny’s initiative here, first in talking to Harry, figuring out what the problem is, and later talking to Fred and George, that sets this entire chapter’s events in motion.
Laura: Yeah. Something I thought was interesting here, and that seemed like a bit of a small hint of what was to come for these two, was Harry was like, “He didn’t know if it was the chocolate or the advice, but he just felt hopeful looking at her.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: It was a good point.
Micah: It’s that Easter egg. That Cadbury bunny just does wonders.
Laura: It’s a literal literary Easter egg moment.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Yeah, I thought about that. Yeah, and the fact that… we’ve talked a lot about in our discussion of Order of the Phoenix and comparing it to Prisoner of Azkaban, particularly with the lessons that Snape gives to Harry and that Lupin gives to Harry, Lupin would always give Harry chocolate to feel better. And it’s interesting here that Ginny, his future wife, gives him chocolate to ultimately feel better about what’s going on. But I wanted to take it a step further, and Harry kind of almost gets emotional when he gets this from Mrs. Weasley, and I think it’s just a reminder of the fact that despite how isolated Harry feels, he’s not really alone. Yes, Dumbledore has left, others are gone, but he has more resources available to him, I think, than he realizes.
Eric: I agree with that 100%.
Ryan: Yeah. I always wondered why he didn’t go to Hagrid about these situations, because he was there when Sirius and James were at school.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Ryan: So he might have been given a little bit of insight.
Laura: Definitely. Yeah, it really seems like Harry has a bad habit of thinking that the support he needs is the variety that Dumbledore can give him, which is information, but he doesn’t lean on any of his emotional support, and he has a ton of it available.
Eric: That’s a really good point.
Ryan: Right.
Micah: Yeah, Ryan mentioned he’s got Hagrid. He’s got McGonagall, who definitely shows her allegiance to him in this chapter.
Eric: Hell yeah, she does.
[Ryan laughs]
Micah: There are others. I mean, there are definitely people he can go to to try and work through things, and he just is so stuck on talking with Sirius. And he basically starts to put this plan together that he’s going to sneak into Umbridge’s office; he’s going to use the Floo Network to go and travel to Grimmauld Place, and I just got frustrated reading this. I know a lot of us as readers get frustrated reading this, because Sirius presents Harry, before he goes back to Hogwarts after the holiday break, with a direct line of communication, and Harry never even bothers to open it up to take a look at it. It’s referenced; I think actually in the text, it says Harry would never open it to use it, or he knew that he would never risk the opportunity of opening that up, because it could be a direct line to Sirius. But Sirius directly tells him, “It’s a way of letting me know if Snape is giving you a hard time,” and it’s just so sad, because we know what happens at the end of this book. If he would have only just opened up the package and utilized it, instead of remembering about a freaking knife that he got from…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: He remembers Sirius gives him a knife that’ll open any door, but he doesn’t remember the fact that Sirius gave him a tool that would allow them to connect with each other if they needed to.
Eric: Yeah. In this chapter, he mentions the knife that Sirius got him two Christmases ago. Well, what about this Christmas, Harry? Think about the package. Just let your brain roll over it. Go figure it out, open it up, because none of this would be necessary. And I think there’s two failings here: I’ve mentioned this before on the show how J.K. Rowling is really playing with Sirius before he dies. She makes it as miserable as possible. But I think in addition to it being extra painful that Harry is thinking about his Christmas gift and overlooks the mirror that he doesn’t yet know about, Sirius, also, when he sees Harry in the fireplace, doesn’t immediately say, “Why didn’t you use my gift? That would have been so much… you’re putting yourself at risk by being in Umbridge’s fireplace. Why won’t you just use the gift I got you and it’ll spark something?” And I think that’s something Sirius would naturally do, because he wants to increase Harry’s visits with him, and he wants to decrease the opportunities that Harry has of getting caught – especially given their last run in the fire – that I think realistically, Sirius as a character would absolutely bring up the mirror to Harry’s face. So I think it’s… I mean, J.K. Rowling is willingly making it as painful as possible for Sirius to die.
Laura: Yeah, the only thing I can think of is maybe Sirius didn’t want Remus to know that he gave Harry that, but I don’t think he’d care that much.
Micah: Not at that point.
Eric: It’s actually an elegant solution to get past all the barriers that Umbridge has in place. The mirror is just great.
Ryan: Also – like you’re saying, Micah – it makes no sense that in the book she says that he doesn’t want to use it because he doesn’t want Sirius to come to him, but the same time, why would you think calling him through the fireplace is not going to make him come either?
Eric: Yeah, exactly. This is a chapter… okay, a couple chapters ago that was all fine. Harry had Sirius’s best interests at heart. Again, Harry wants to suffer himself; he doesn’t want to bring anybody else into his suffering. Great. But in this chapter, he’s literally reaching… he needs to reach out to Sirius, and the best way to do that would be alternative means.
Micah: But as mentioned, I mean, there are other members of the Order of the Phoenix that are at Hogwarts and could assist in getting a message to Sirius if the two of them really needed to connect with each other. So this whole plan is just so off the rails, and we’ll get into it a little bit later on. But one thing to touch on before we get to our great Potter debate between McGonagall and Umbridge is Harry has to endure a Potions lesson before going to get his career advice, and it is awkward, to say the least. I mean, the class itself seems fine; it’s actually noted that it’s probably one of the best Potions classes that Harry’s ever had, pre-Professor Slughorn.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And he was really nervous because he didn’t know what to expect. And I think we’ve probably all been in those types of situations before, where we’ve had a falling out with somebody, and then we have to physically be in the same space as them; we’re not sure how the person is going to react. But Snape doesn’t really seem to react at all. And what’s interesting to me is that Harry actually has a really good Potions class; he’s able to do the work. And I wanted, Laura – I know you’re a former teacher – to talk about this a little bit because there’s something to be said for putting a bit of pressure on a student, but I think the pressure that is applied to Harry throughout the course of the series is at a different level, and once that pressure is finally removed, he’s actually not half bad at Potions.
Laura: Yeah, I mean, this is straight from any kind of pedagogical teaching theory. A small amount of anxiety can be a good thing; it can actually drive a student’s internal motivation to perform. But there does reach a point where, when there’s so much anxiety put on a student, that the motivation just, I mean, drops off almost to zero, and I think that that’s what we see for Harry in most of his Potions lessons until this point where Snape is kind of ignoring him throughout the class and he has a little bit of breathing room.
Micah: Totally.
Eric: It’s so funny to me that Harry is uniquely prepared to deal with Snape ignoring him, because that’s the Dursley route.
[Ryan laughs]
Eric: Harry is so put upon; Harry is so abused that when Snape… all that Harry has is anxiety about how Snape is going to handle it, and the second Snape chooses to go the Dursley route, Harry is like, “I’m prepared for this. I can totally handle this.” And he does fine.
Ryan: I thought the same thing.
Laura: That’s true. He’s like, “I’ve been ignored my whole life.”
Eric: Yeah. [laughs] “No big deal.”
[Ryan laughs]
Eric: In the end, it doesn’t improve his grade, unfortunately, due to weird circumstances.
Micah: And what would those be?
Ryan: Does Hermione always clean up after him?
Eric: No, I think that was just one time. The Hermione angle of this chapter is really, really interesting, because she does have his best interests at heart. But the dynamic between Harry, Ron, and Hermione in this chapter, too, because Ron doesn’t want to get involved in this argument, but as soon as Hermione finds out that Harry is up to something, he’s going to try and break into Umbridge’s office, she wants to stop him. And Hermione, bless her, can be a little bit persistent on this fact, and Harry is already upset with her by the time Potions comes around and she vanishes his cauldron. It’s just a real shame.
Laura: Yeah, it is a really interesting throwback to Prisoner of Azkaban, where Harry and Ron are fighting with Hermione throughout much of that book, and Harry receives the Firebolt, and he’s also sneaking into Hogsmeade. And Hermione tells on Harry for getting the Firebolt, and also, when she learns that Harry is sneaking into Hogsmeade, she tells him, “Hey, if you do that one more time, I’m going to tell on you.” And now she’s at a point where she’s really trying to dissuade him from doing something that’s against the rules, but she’s not out-and-out saying, “Hey, I’m going to report you if you do this,” so I think it shows a little bit of growth for her in that department.
Eric: Yeah, she’s no longer a narc.
Laura: Yeah, exactly.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: All right, well, we were thinking, inspired by a voicemail we’re going to play here in a moment, that it might be good for us to do our own chapter readings. Let’s hear what this listener had to say.
[Voicemail plays]
“Hey, MuggleCasters. Katie from Kansas City here. I’m calling in regards to Chapter 29, ‘Career Advice.’ Order of the Phoenix is not my favorite book in the series, but this is my absolute favorite chapter of them all. It’s all to do with the namesake scene. It breaks my heart that we never got to see the two badass women that are Maggie Smith and Imelda Staunton go head to head as they did in this scene. The movie interactions were just so lackluster, and I was devastated by it. I would love to see these two actresses do a recording of just this scene. They could call Stephen Fry to narrate and Dan Radcliffe could phone it in for his couple of lines. It would give me life. Anyway, looking forward to the chapter discussion. Keep up the great work.”
[Voicemail ends]
Eric: Hey, Harry Potter at Home, we’ve got an idea for you.
[Laura and Ryan laugh]
Micah: Yeah, which we started, actually, several years ago over on Patreon, but that’s okay.
Laura: Yeah, we did that before it was cool.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: Well, dear listener, we are not Imelda Staunton, Maggie Smith, or Dan Radcliffe, but we are going to make your wish come true today.
Micah: Or Stephen Fry, for that matter.
Laura: Right.
Micah: But I’ll try my best.
Laura: Yes, so we are going to read a snippet of this great debate in which I will play McGonagall, Eric will play Umbridge, Ryan will play Harry, and Micah will be our narrator. Are we all ready?
Eric: As ready as we’re going to be.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Let’s see how this goes.
Micah: Where are we starting again? 664.
Laura: “Any questions, Potter?”
Micah: Let me find that.
Laura: Yeah, bottom of the page.
Micah: Oh, yes. I got it. Okay.
Laura: So I’ll kick us off. And I’m not doing any accents, because that would just be…
Ryan: Darn.
Laura: Yeah, no, it would just be offensive. I’m not going to do that. “Any questions, Potter?”
Ryan: “Yes,”
Micah: said Harry.
Ryan: “What sort of character and aptitude tests do the Ministry do on you, if you get enough N.E.W.T.s?”
Laura: “Well, you’ll need to demonstrate the ability to react well to pressure and so forth,”
Micah: said Professor McGonagall,
Laura: “perseverance and dedication, because Auror training takes a further three years, not to mention very high skills in practical defense. It will mean a lot more study even after you’ve left school, so unless you’re prepared to —”
Eric: “I think you’ll also find…”
Micah: said Umbridge, her voice very cold now,
Eric: “… that the Ministry looks into the records of those applying to be Aurors. Their criminal records.”
Laura: “— unless you’re prepared to take even more exams after Hogwarts, you should really look at another —”
Eric: “— which means that this boy has as much chance of becoming an Auror as Dumbledore has of ever returning to this school.”
Laura: “A very good chance, then,”
Micah: said…
Eric: “Potter has a…” Oh, sorry. Jesus. [laughs]
Laura: Very into it.
Micah: You’re into it. I love it. I mean, I’m just… yeah, all right, said Professor McGonagall.
Eric: “Potter has a criminal record,”
Micah: said Umbridge loudly.
Laura: “Potter has been cleared of all charges,”
Micah: said Professor McGonagall, even more loudly. Professor Umbridge stood up. She was so short that this did not make a great deal of difference, but her fussy, simpering demeanor had given place to a hard fury that made her broad, flabby face look oddly sinister.
Eric: “Potter has no chance whatsoever of becoming an Auror!”
Micah: Professor McGonagall got to her feet too, and in her case this was a much more impressive move. She towered over Professor Umbridge.
Laura: “Potter,”
Micah: she said in ringing tones,
Laura: “I will assist you to become an Auror if it is the last thing I do! If I have to coach you nightly I will make sure you achieve the required results!”
Eric: “The Minister of Magic will never employ Harry Potter!”
Micah: said Umbridge, her voice rising furiously.
Laura: “There may well be a new Minister of Magic by the time Potter is ready to join!”
Micah: shouted Professor McGonagall.
Eric: “Aha!”
Micah: shrieked Professor Umbridge, pointing a stubby finger at McGonagall.
Eric: “Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Of course! That’s what you want, isn’t it, Minerva McGonagall? You want Cornelius Fudge replaced by Albus Dumbledore! You think you’ll be where I am, don’t you, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister and headmistress to boot!”
Laura: “You are raving,”
Micah: said Professor McGonagall, superbly disdainful.
Laura: “Potter, that concludes our career consultation.”
[Eric laughs]
Ryan: I just want to say, I think that Jim Dale will be very proud, Eric.
Eric: Oh.
Laura: I think so too! I thought your Umbridge was on point.
Micah: Yeah, very good.
Eric: Thanks. It is hard not to do an imitation game. I just listened to the Jim Dale audiobook twice this week, but I tried my best.
Laura: See, in my head, McGonagall sounds like Maggie Smith, and I was like, “I am not about to even attempt that.”
Eric: [laughs] It’s real hard to do the Scottish accent.
Laura: Yeah. [laughs]
Micah: Yeah, this was quite the scene, and I think one that as a reader, you definitely get emotional – some people, at least, from what I’ve talked to at times – because you have such a strong defense of Harry by McGonagall here. And again, it’s another character that’s exhibiting a very strong loyalty to Harry and his future. And I think for everything that McGonagall does in this moment, Harry in a way betrays it just a few pages later.
Eric: Yeah. [laughs] I mean, she really lays it out on the line. She puts her neck out for Harry, and he’s even spared probably the worst – or, depending on your perspective, the best – lines, because he leaves the classroom, but he now has another reason not to do what he’s going to do.
Micah: Right. Well, he does question himself, too, in the moment; he thinks about the scene, particularly with McGonagall, and would he be, in a way, defying everything that she had just stood for in that moment with Umbridge, by breaking into Umbridge’s office? And I think that’s a valid concern on his part, but yet he still decides to move forward with it. So it is a bit disappointing, it’s a bit reckless, but it’s also a lot like his dad in this moment.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: I feel like his dad and Sirius would do the same thing.
Laura: Yeah, it’s funny because he’s not even sure he wants to be like his dad in this moment, and yet…
Eric: Yeah, yeah. And Sirius’s line, “You’re a lot less like James than I thought you were,” reverberates in his head, and it’s like, man, what’s he playing at? But Hermione thought she had a winning argument in this, too; she pointed out that Dumbledore is gone from Hogwarts because he wanted Harry to stay in Hogwarts. If she finds him, Umbridge will expel Harry.
Micah: Right.
Eric: And all of that will be for naught. That was sort of the final… the last words Hermione got to say on it before Harry went to career advice and went to break into the office. It’s just a real darn shame that Harry is too… I don’t know what the word is, to take all that into consideration and actually allow that to sway him.
Laura: So actually, I have a question for the panel. This is somewhat of a connecting the threads moment. I found this excerpt from Prisoner of Azkaban Chapter 14, when Snape catches Harry coming back from Hogsmeade, and I wanted to see if Snape was kind of right here. He says, “So… Everyone from the Minister of Magic downward has been trying to keep famous Harry Potter safe from Sirius Black. But famous Harry Potter is a law unto himself. Let the ordinary people worry about his safety! Famous Harry Potter goes where he wants to, with no thought for the consequences.”
Micah: Yep.
Ryan: I wouldn’t say he doesn’t consider consequences; I just think he doesn’t consider them for himself, if that makes any sense. Because in the very first book, you see an 11-year-old going after the Philosopher’s Stone. I mean, he’s trying to do what’s best for everybody, but he doesn’t really think about the rules and all this kind of stuff when he’s doing it.
Eric: It’s a really good point. Yeah, I mean, he doesn’t care if he is expelled. That’s kind of the other angle here, is that he doesn’t seem to internalize the, I guess, collateral damage that it would mean if he were to be expelled.
Laura: Yeah, because then he can no longer be adequately protected, right?
Eric: Right, people are going to really need to step up their… it’s going to be a lot more of a burden on everybody to protect him when he’s not at Hogwarts, and I think that’s the angle that he’s not considering.
Micah: Well, also, if this whole scene didn’t play itself out in “Snape’s Worst Memory,” the prior chapter, then we wouldn’t be here. So Snape is to blame a little bit, too, for Harry going and doing whatever he wants, particularly in this chapter.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, Harry has internal strife, you guys. He needs to fix it. I’ve definitely been there, too, where you need answers, where you’re having a moment of self-doubt, there’s one person you need to talk to that can set things right, and you’re going to seek them out at all costs. I mean, Harry is really trying to quiet some turmoil that he’s feeling on the inside. And I think… to your point earlier, he does have Hagrid; he does have McGonagall. There are people that could touch on… I mean, McGonagall is the person who first he overheard talking about Sirius and James, and she would really have a levelheaded, I think, opinion of specifically James Potter through age 15 to 17, when he kind of shaped up a little bit. She’d be able to, I think, provide at least some awareness or some insight into what James was really like to teach because she taught him.
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: Especially after this moment where McGonagall is standing up for him in a way that I don’t think we’ve seen anybody else in his life stand up for Harry up until this point. And I do think, though, that this decision that Harry makes where he’s weighing it in his mind, he’s like, “Yep, I’m going for it; I’m going into Umbridge’s office,” it does kind of fulfill what Laura was just saying, that Snape said in Prisoner of Azkaban, that he does have a certain disregard for the rules, right? And he lets that outweigh probably other options that he could be taking in this moment that could probably get him the same solution that he’s looking for, and that’s to connect with Sirius. I did just want to jump back quickly, because Laura, I think you have a good point – or maybe it’s Eric – in here about Umbridge was in his career council conversation with McGonagall primarily to just intimidate, and I don’t know that she’s sitting in on all of these conversations.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: She’s being very selective, I’m sure, about when she joins, but this is just another example of being disruptive. Obviously, she’s not doing it in a classroom now; she’s doing it when we’re talking about something important to Harry’s future and what he wants to do.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, she is particularly interested in Harry’s development path or lack thereof; she wants to obstruct it, really, as best she can. And I think there’s also an element of spycraft going on here. She’s spying on Harry. She is inserting herself into this very private discussion about Harry’s future with his Head of House. She has no place being here, but it is to intimidate, it is to obstruct, and it’s to spy. She’s going to report what Harry says in this meeting, no matter what. If he says he wants to be a dentist, she’s going to tell Cornelius about it.
Micah: Did McGonagall make a mistake, though, when she said that there might be a different Minister by the time Harry is ready to become an Auror? I mean, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, right? A lot of things could happen between when Harry is ready and when… but I think it was probably a misstep on her part, letting her emotions get the best of her.
Eric: It’s funny seeing her not follow her own advice to Harry, because in the whole “Have a biscuit” scene, she’s like, “You’ve got to keep your head down, got to not let it get to you.” But at this point in the school year… I mean, it’s already May. She’s put up with Umbridge for long enough.
Micah: Right.
Eric: And I think that, in addition to the school gradually descending into open rebellion and chaos against Umbridge, so too McGonagall’s patience is just gone at this point.
Micah: I also think this is an important moment for her. Harry has been her student for almost five years now, and they’re talking about his future, about what opportunities lie ahead, and she’s been there for him. She’s also kind of like a… what would you say, a grandmotherly figure to him outside of just the actual Head of his House, right? So I think she’s a bit miffed at the fact that Umbridge is sitting in the back of the room while they’re having this conversation.
Ryan: I was wanting to go back to the excerpt that Laura read. I had never thought about it until just now when she was reading that, but how James always breaks rules – this, that, and the other – doesn’t it say at some point in the books that James and Lily were Head Boy and Girl?
Eric: It does say that at some point.
Ryan: I think it’s really weird that James is such a rule-breaker and he wasn’t a prefect, and then he’s also the Head Boy, so I was just wondering if they’ve ever said what it takes to be Head Boy. I know being prefect puts you on your way to it, but do you actually have to be one, I reckon?
Eric: I mean, Dumbledore definitely plays favorites when it comes to that stuff, [laughs] and I don’t know what he was playing at by making the already most popular boy in school Head Boy. Maybe Head Boy and Head Girl is more of a figurehead type role versus prefect being the enforcer.
Ryan: Well, Percy was Head Boy.
Eric: Percy was Head Boy. But he was also prefect, so there’s not a clear path to it, I don’t think.
Laura: I wonder if perhaps Dumbledore learned his lesson from this, and this is part of why he decided not to make Harry a prefect this year. Because he’s the obvious choice; everybody’s talking about that early on in the book. And maybe Dumbledore was a bit like, “Eh, yeah, why did I give this to James Potter?”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: “Let’s spare Harry.”
Ryan: Well, he gave it to Lupin.
Laura: Yeah, Lupin was a prefect, but James later went on to become Head Boy, I guess is… I’m wondering if that informed his choice about choosing prefects this year.
Micah: Yeah, and I think Dumbledore touches on it at the end of this book, right, as to why he didn’t give Harry the prefect badge?
Ryan: Right. I think he said he had enough on his plate or something like that.
Micah: Yeah. I mean, nice of you, Dumbledore, given that you ignore him for most of the year anyway.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: But all right, let’s talk about Harry’s plan to contact Sirius and him actually getting inside Umbridge’s office. We touched on this a little bit. It’s a bit of a show-up to Dumbledore, who really did everything to make sure that Harry stayed at Hogwarts by leaving himself. He shows up McGonagall, given everything that she just did for him in the career advice session with Umbridge. He has no backup plan or security in place, which I think is really just hasty decision-making on his part. He doesn’t even employ the help of Ron or Hermione or anybody in this plan; there’s nobody standing outside of the office to make sure that Filch or Umbridge or anybody comes in. And on top of it, he doesn’t lock the door!
[Eric and Ryan laugh]
Micah: Or doesn’t close it. Filch comes in and he’s like, “Oh, she left it open.” Harry, what are you doing?
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Yeah, this was not well thought through.
Ryan: Future Auror right there.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Oh, boy. But unlike the movie – at least in this moment – he doesn’t get caught, so it’s a difference from the films.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, this plan could have been better, but it works for the moment. It’s actually really captivating, too, because Harry knows what must be done, and he does the special Floo travel, where it’s just his head. He knows that he doesn’t actually want to completely travel. He’s only seen this done before. So he does the sort of half-in, half-out kind of method, and it really allows him to, I think, still hear what’s going on in the background, in a way.
Ryan: Right, because he says, “Is that on your end or my end?”
Eric: Yeah, it sounds like they’re talking about a telephone call, doesn’t it? It’s pretty clever. But I guess we… we’ve referred to this in the past as wizard FaceTime.
[Laura and Micah laughs]
Eric: It is face time.
Micah: I can see that. Literally, it’s face time.
Eric: Literally face time.
Micah: But what’s to make Harry think that even though Umbridge says her Floo Network is not being watched, that it isn’t, and the fact that they can run traces probably on who’s traveled where? And does Harry not consider that this could risk the exposure of Number 12 Grimmauld Place?
Ryan: But he’s 15.
[Micah laughs]
Ryan: I mean, I know he says it, like, “I’m 15!” But I don’t think he thinks about all that stuff.
Eric: I do wonder if there isn’t a barrier with the Fidelius Charm that this breaks, to your point, Micah. The Floo Network, in order for this to work, it does have to be connected to a physical public hub, so they should be able to trace this, I guess, is the short answer to this, where Harry goes because of the methods that it takes him to get there. This should probably expose Grimmauld Place.
Ryan: Well, Sirius, at this point, has already called Hogwarts too, though, right?
Laura and Micah: Yep.
Eric: Yeah, that’s a good point.
Ryan: Is that how Umbridge knows?
Micah: And Umbridge calls him on it.
Ryan: Yeah, because she knows it was Sirius.
Eric: Yeah, that’s really interesting.
Laura: Yeah, she almost caught him before. Yeah, this is what bothers me about this whole plan: It’s very high risk, low reward.
Micah: Yes!
Laura: Because what does he really get out of this?
Micah: That’s my question.
Eric: But Laura, Harry is in emotional turmoil. Harry is in emotional… he’s distraught.
Laura: I get it. But at the same time, you know you’re risking expulsion, revealing 12 Grimmauld Place, Sirius… and what does he get for that risk?
Eric: Well, he spent his whole life thinking that his dad was a nice guy, and if that isn’t true, Laura, then Harry doesn’t know who he is. “Who am I, Hedwig?”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: He’s asking himself this this whole chapter. And you could go into the Les Mis John Valjean thing, but I’ll skip it. But I think… I agree with you guys 100%; it’s very low reward. But the parts of this conversation that occur, I think, solidify this chapter as one of the best ever. We actually get a lot of emails about this; people really like this chapter, and even to our caller, who wrote in that this was their favorite chapter of pretty much the whole series, even if this book isn’t their favorite, I can see why.
Micah: But is it for this moment? I think it’s mostly due to the career advice.
Eric: I would agree with that, but for me, it is this moment, and I have some just key takeaways that I’d like to bring up about the relationships, because it’s great to see. So when Harry arrives, he sees Lupin, and Lupin goes and gets Sirius. Sirius is upstairs looking for Kreacher; wonder where that guy got off to. But it’s such an unexpected surprise. Harry risks all of this to talk to Sirius, but he ends up getting both of them. He ends up getting both of his father’s friends, the only ones who can come to the phone right now. And it’s kind of even better, I think, having Sirius and Remus there to weigh in on this. Don’t you guys agree? It’s an extra bonus to have Lupin there too.
Micah: Yeah, but I’m actually surprised, because Sirius is very candid in this conversation, and even apologetic at points. If you’re saying the fact that you have both of them there almost to counterbalance each other, that’s not actually what ends up happening, which is what I would have expected to happen, right? Sirius would have had this grand memory and really embellish James, but that’s not really what happens.
Eric: No, I just think they’re… I don’t expect them to be there to counterbalance, but I think they both add to… they only help answer Harry’s question by them both being able to comfort him. I think it’s a one-two punch; they’re really able to, I think, get a little bit across to him that he shouldn’t put as much weight on Snape’s worst memory. So here’s the first thing that I wrote down, is that Lupin’s first reply after he tells them everything is that “I wouldn’t put too much in store by what you saw. James was 15.” So Lupin is actually trying to downplay it at first, but Harry just replies, “I’m 15!” And that changes the world; this is the insight into Harry’s character. He’s thinking that he’s the same age as his dad when his dad was doing all this bad behavior, so Lupin can’t go this route, because Harry himself is so much better adjusted than what James was at that age. So you can’t say, “Oh, James was young,” because this is the age Harry is now.
Ryan: Well, Harry had to do a lot more growing up, though, than James did, really quickly.
Eric and Micah: Yeah.
Laura: And they just have very different temperaments. We talked about this last week; Harry may look like his father, but in terms of his temperament, he’s much more like Lily.
Micah: Totally, yeah. And just to go back to Snape’s worst memory, I think we may have mentioned this on the last episode, but to your point, Laura, in that moment, Harry would have been Lily. He wouldn’t have been James, right?
Laura: Right.
Micah: He would have been the one stepping in to help Snape, not the one who is hanging him up by his underwear. So I think it’s a wakeup call for Harry, but at the same time, I do agree with what Sirius and Remus are saying, in that you can’t take one snapshot to define a person. But we do actually get more information that this was an ongoing feud; this wasn’t something that just stopped with Snape’s worst memory.
Laura: Right.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. And we know from previous books there was, what, Sirius’s prank on Snape, that there was a… I want to say series-long, but school years-long hatred between the two of them. And Sirius actually refers to Snape at some point as an oddball, but I think he does so kind of sympathetically. To your point, Micah, Sirius is a little apologetic here in particular. Harry feels a little bit weird saying to Sirius that, “Well, James only attacked Snape because you said you were bored,” but Sirius’s immediate reply is, “I’m not proud of it.” And I think that… I don’t want to overlook the possible growth that is expressed in that line of Sirius saying he’s not proud of it, because even though Snape has just been horrible to Sirius even over Christmas break, Sirius, it seems, is reflecting at least a little bit on the bullying and believing Harry that it’s wrong.
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Laura: I think it’s something he knows, he’s aware of deep down, even if he doesn’t want to admit it to himself. And he still loses his temper with Snape and calls him Snivellus a couple of chapters before this.
Micah: But in defense of Sirius, he’s in his own home; he’s being put on his heels. And I don’t think Sirius has fully matured, given everything that’s happened to him, all the trauma, the fact that he’s been imprisoned from a very young age…
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Micah: … and really been a prisoner since his late teenage years. So I can see both sides here. But I think what’s ultimately going on is J.K. Rowling is painting this picture for us that, “Look, there’s these good and bad elements inside of all of us,” and I don’t know that she’s necessarily looking to prove Snape to be truthful over the course of the last several years that Harry has been at school and everything that he’s told him about his father, but there’s definitely snippets that are true, and it’s tough for Harry to digest because he hasn’t had much other context about his dad. Nobody’s told him stories, right? Sirius hasn’t gone into detail. Remus hasn’t gone into detail. Dumbledore, McGonagall, others haven’t really said much, outside of the fact that they were nice people. But this contradicts anything that he’s really been given prior to.
Eric: You’re right. I mean, even Sirius has only really approached Harry with these idealized traits of James’s, “Oh, he loved to break the rules,” or “Oh, he was so bold or brave.” And this happening, this circumstance, really demystifies or forces Harry to cut through all that crap with Sirius and Remus, who knew him best, who knew James best. And I think that what I just love about this in general – and why this is probably one of my all-time favorite chapters, too – is because you just get these moments where Remus and Sirius are affectionately reminiscing. When Harry mentions James messing up his hair, and Remus is like, “Oh, and did he have the Snitch?” They’re really remembering the memory of their best friend, even in an admittedly difficult time, a difficult place, but the affection, the love that they had for Harry’s father, that they’re now able to discuss levelheadedly with his son, with Harry… this just brings the tears all the time. It’s a beautiful, touching moment, and it’s the only time we really get anything like this from Harry’s two would-be father figures.
Micah: Well, to Laura’s point, though, is the juice worth the squeeze here for Harry? Is he getting anything valuable out of this moment, outside of maybe validation that he was looking for? And I don’t know; is that even enough at this point? I’m trying to figure out what is Harry ultimately trying to get out of this moment, this risky moment that compromises a lot for the future?
Eric: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s fair to say he’s not entirely satisfied by Remus and Sirius saying, “Eh, he grew out of it, Harry,” but I think they really do try and underline that. I think Sirius even says, “Look, Harry, we were all arrogant berks. We were all that way, and just trust us; he softened a bit when your mother was into him, and everything was fine. They were wonderful people.” Sirius can only vouch for his own feelings towards James, and he says, “He was the best man I ever knew.” You’ve just kind of got to take them at their word, I think. But Harry, in the end, isn’t 100% satisfied. He’s again interrupted by the fact that Filch is going to come.
Laura: Right.
Micah: There was one moment of connecting the threads here, though, Laura, with Prisoner of Azkaban.
Laura: Oh, yeah. So what I think is so interesting about this chapter is Harry is really grappling with the fact that his identity has been so tied up so long in the idea that he was his father’s son. I mean, they look alike, his Patronus is a stag, his Quidditch talents… all of these things get thrown into doubt in this chapter because of what he witnesses in Snape’s worst memory. And I just thought this was an interesting throwback to Prisoner of Azkaban, when Harry yells at Snape, “Stop talking about my dad; he was a great man,” and Snape says, “I would hate for you to run away with a false idea of your father, Potter. Have you been imagining some act of glorious heroism? Then let me correct you.” And it’s sort of like… I would have to imagine that Harry is remembering all the things that Snape has tried to tell him over the years about his perceptions of Harry’s father, and wondering, “Oh my God, was he right the whole time?” And it just feeds into Eric’s point of Harry spending this chapter thinking, “Who am I?”
Micah: Totally.
Eric and Ryan: Yeah.
Eric: For sure. This is kind of a side point, but I really wonder whether or not Lupin and Sirius know that Snape was the one who betrayed the prophecy, who overheard it and betrayed them, because I think that would drastically change their opinion of Snape. I think it would really push them over the edge if they knew. I don’t think they know.
Ryan: No, I don’t… I think Dumbledore is probably the only person who does, him and Trelawney.
Eric: That just… well, and Harry eventually.
Micah: And Aberforth, presumably, right?
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Ryan: That’s true.
Micah: And the goat.
Eric: [laughs] Yeah, Aberforth definitely told the goat.
Micah: A few goats. All the goats he keeps in the back, yeah. But one thing I just want to touch on before we wrap up this conversation, because it is important: Both Sirius and Remus react in a very shocked way that Snape has stopped teaching Harry Occlumency, and we get a real feel for the fact that this is something that needs to continue. And Sirius is even willing to leave Grimmauld Place and come up to Hogwarts and talk to Snape. What are our feelings here? I think we all know that these lessons are not going to resume.
Eric: Yeah, it’s a shame because they all but tell Harry that Voldemort is going to try and manipulate that connection. You really… Harry is not listening to the threat, but I think also they’re just saying, “Oh, there’s a threat,” versus “You’re going to wake up one day and not know how to distinguish fact from fiction, and you’re not going to be able to distinguish reality from the reality that Voldemort is creating for you.” They could say something, I think, a little bit more direct about what danger Harry is in by not pursuing his lessons.
Ryan: Right. I think the only person who realizes it is Hermione, and that’s because she’s able to read between the lines with these things.
Micah: This is another “I wonder” moment, but what if he would have gone to McGonagall and told her specifically about the Occlumency? Because presumably she’s aware of all of this, and she could contact Dumbledore. And I just think that Harry doesn’t necessarily go the right route here with contacting folks that could potentially help him out, because there’s no… Sirius and Remus are not coming up to Hogwarts, or at least Sirius isn’t, so I just think that, again, the risk is not worth the reward here, because I’m not sure what the reward is outside of poor planning and almost getting caught by Filch. And that’s really all I’ve got to say about that. We can wrap up the chapter, I think, talking about the Weasley twins, because they’re instrumental in Harry’s ability to pull this off in the first place.
Eric: Yeah, they are.
Micah: And they show another level of exceptional magic with their swamp, and they have a really great exit. And we can maybe contrast it a bit with the films; I thought the films did a good job of it. They changed it up a bit where all the fireworks are really what are used for their escape while all the students are taking OWLs, but I do like the fact that this was a precursor – at least, the fireworks were a precursor – to the swamp, and yeah, I think a really proper sendoff from Hogwarts for the Weasley twins.
Ryan: I just want to point out earlier on in the series Ron is talking about his older brothers and comparing to him, and when he lists the twins, “They act up a lot and break rules, but they make really good grades.” And then we find out that they got terrible OWLs, but they do this kind of stuff and they’re extremely talented. They can do all these different charms and whatnot, and even Hermione comments on how good it is. So they’re extremely talented wizards; they just put it towards jokes.
Eric: Yeah, there’s just some people who – maybe, Laura, you can touch on this – some people who are really, really brilliant; they just don’t test well.
Laura: Yeah, plenty of people. I don’t particularly test well; that was always… standardized testing was never my forte. But you hear the analogy about like, if you were to test a fish by its ability to climb a tree, you would think the fish was stupid, right?
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Laura: So it’s just kind of about how are you facilitating an education so that everyone from a variety of learning styles and perspectives can benefit from it? And that’s always the question in education. If you know the answer, you’re probably going to be rich. [laughs]
Micah: Right. And I think that there’s just something about their abilities and how they transfer just their thoughts into the actual magic, and they’re passionate about it at the end of the day, and I think that’s what drives it, right? The inner passion for funny things and jokes and that sort of thing, and they’re just really, really good at it. I know Andrew had a note here about… he wonders how much control the Ministry has over Diagon Alley. Could Umbridge direct Fudge to shut down their shop, given what they do at the end of this chapter? I don’t know that they could go that far. I mean, I don’t know what level of control the Ministry has over Diagon Alley, but it just seems like… I’m sure there are people who don’t totally agree with the Ministry; it doesn’t mean that you’re going to go and shut down their store. I think they want to show their hand at Hogwarts more than anywhere else. If they start getting into business and other things like that, I think people are going to start to raise their eyebrows a little bit more.
Eric: I do agree with Andrew’s point. I think it is quite risky, though, that they keep… they’re blatantly advertising their wares in front of Umbridge, and if Umbridge is anything, she is vengeful, right? And so I think it is a little dangerous that they’re moving in so close to the Ministry, where… I mean, I think we see this later with Diagon Alley being a shell of its former self once the government is falling. But I think there sort of is a connection there, where there has to be something they can do. I mean, the Ministry, the major form of government, probably has some kind of say over all the land permits and business licenses. I think that there is something there to she could shut them down if she was focused on that.
Micah: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know; she would probably come up with some cock and bull story, but I just feel like shutting down two entrepreneurs who are opening up a business in Diagon Alley, which is really just to make people laugh… even though I know she probably never laughs very much in her own life.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: But you know what I mean? It just seems very… that could be a story in and of itself, right? They’ve already gotten slammed once in The Quibbler; maybe this would be another story easily taken to a similar publication if they did shut down Fred and George before they even got started. It also seems like a waste of her time. Right now she’s concerned with Harry. She doesn’t care much for the Weasley twins.
Laura: All right, any additional thoughts there before we wrap the chapter?
Eric: I guess my parting thought is – Micah, you mentioned this – but Harry really has a resource in McGonagall, and she has asserted herself in this chapter. McGonagall has come out as being the foremost number one supporter of Harry Potter against great odds, and I think I would like to have seen this pay off a little bit more in terms of Harry’s relationship with McGonagall, whether, as Micah was suggesting, he confides in her some of these things he’s feeling and relies on her in the future maybe emotionally just a little bit more. But I don’t seem to recall off the top of my head any time where this really gets, I think, the payoff that it deserves in terms of Harry’s relationship with McGonagall. He’s even rude to her in Cursed Child so many years later…
[Micah laughs]
Eric: … which I think is way uncalled for given this moment.
Laura: All right. Well, thank you, Micah. I thought that was a great discussion.
Micah: No, thank you, everyone, for your contributions. I thought it was a good discussion.
Laura: It’s time for the Umbridge Suck count. We are currently sitting at 80 as of last week’s episode.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Laura: Got a few more to add. So first, for interrupting McGonagall multiple times.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Laura: I mean, why do you need to fake a cough to do it? Just say what you want to say. Then, telling a student he can’t fulfill his dreams.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Laura: What the hell?
Eric: Big no-no.
Laura: And then implying Harry’s criminal charges will not or have not been forgotten, because she still wants to lock him up.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Laura: And finally, giving Filch the sign-off to whip students.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Laura: Whip!
Micah: Yep. We let that one slip through, but yeah, when he breaks… well, I guess he doesn’t have to break in. When he enters Umbridge’s office because Harry has left it wide open, he’s muttering about now having the ability to be able to whip students, so… that’s so nice.
MVP of the Week
Laura: All right, it’s now time for MVP of the Week.
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Eric: I’m going to give it to Ginny, of course. Full stop. She orchestrates a plan that helps Harry to calm down finally. She’s MVP in my heart and your hearts forever.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: I’m going to give it to Peeves, who makes an appearance at the end of this chapter and supposedly is going to continue on the debauchery that the Weasley twins have enacted in their five years of… or I should say, what, seven years at Hogwarts? Sorry. Or six years. Whatever it is; I don’t know how many years they’re there.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: 12 years between the two of them.
Laura: I’m going to give mine to the Weasley twins for the second week in a row. I just think that they bring a lot of much-needed chaos to Hogwarts. Good chaos.
Ryan: My MVP is Minerva mother-[censored]-ing McGonagall for putting Umbridge in her place.
Micah: Nice.
Laura: Absolutely.
Rename the Chapter
Laura: All right, and it’s time to rename the chapter.
Eric: I nicknamed mine based on a quote from my MVP of the Week: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 29, “Enough Nerve.”
Micah: I went with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 29, “We’re Taking our Talents to Diagon Alley.”
Laura: I went with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 29, “Umbridge Undermined.”
Eric: Ooh.
Ryan: I went with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 29, “Weasleys Victorious,” because they finally got away from Umbridge, and she can’t do anything about it.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Nice. All right, if you have feedback about today’s discussion or a question about Chapter 30, which will be our next Chapter by Chapter discussion, please reach out to us. You can reach us at MuggleCast@gmail.com.
Chicken Soup for the MuggleCast Soul
Micah: We do have one Chicken Soup for the MuggleCast soul here. It comes from Jannick; hopefully I’m pronouncing that name right. They say,
“Hey, you’re still there! I used to listen to your podcast years ago. I was living in the UK at the time and loved listening to you guys while actually living in the Harry Potter world. I’ve been back in Canada for 9 years. Since we’re cooped up in our homes, I just had myself a Harry Potter movie festival and felt something was missing. I looked up your podcast and there you were! I thought perhaps you would have gone your separate ways since many years have passed, so CONGRATULATIONS for all your years of podcasting and sticking together. Wow! Best wishes for the future and thank you for keeping the magic alive.”
Eric: We’re still here!
Laura: Aww, this is heartwarming.
Eric: It is. That should be the new tagline of our show: “We’re still here.”
[Laura and Ryan laugh]
Micah: Glad we can be of service during quarantine.
Eric: Absolutely.
Quizzitch
Laura: All right, well, it’s time for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: Last week’s question was what punishment does Umbridge instruct Filch to apply to the Weasley twins for their swamp? We touched on this in our discussion. The answer is approval for whipping. She’s going to whip them! She’s going to publicly whip them, from the events of this chapter. Very, very concerning. But correct answers were submitted by SupSarahhh, Young Susie Blood, Count Ravioli, Caleb McReynolds, Rachel, Sarah a.k.a. Weensie, LessThanStace, and Bort Voldemort over on Twitter.
Micah: All right.
Eric: And this week’s question: Who scores the first goal against Gryffindor in the Ravenclaw versus Gryffindor match? Submit your answers to us over on Twitter using hashtag Quizzitch. And of course, that question has to do with the next chapter, “Grawp.”
Laura: Awesome. Thank you, Eric. All right, you can follow us on social media to be notified of future live events, including new Quizzitch Live matches. We are MuggleCast on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can also join our community of listeners today over at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. By doing so, you’ll be helping the podcast to grow, and to thank you, you’ll receive some magical benefits in return, including a personalized “Thank you” message from one of the four hosts, our twice monthly bonus MuggleCast installments, the ability to listen as we record live, and so much more. Don’t forget to contact us through MuggleCast@gmail.com, our contact form through MuggleCast.com, or the MuggleCast voicemail line, which is 1-920-3-MUGGLE; that’s 920-368-4453.
Eric: Laura, you did a great job hosting this episode in Andrew’s absence.
Micah: Yeah. [laughs]
Laura: Oh, well, thank you so much. He, like I said, makes it look a lot easier than it is.
Eric: He really does.
Micah: Yes, he does.
Laura: It’s a lot of moving parts. And Ryan, you were so great. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Ryan: Thank you all for having me.
Laura: It was a delight. Now, just so everyone knows, we will be off next week for Memorial Day, but we will be back the first week of June to cover Chapter 30, “Grawp.”
Eric: Getting close to the end here, you guys.
Laura: I know.
Micah: Yeah, it’s wild.
Laura: Tension is mounting.
Micah: What’s going to happen?
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Eric: We don’t know.
Micah: We don’t know?
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: No spoilers.
Micah: We’re a spoiler-free pod… I remember back in the day – not to go off on a tangent here – remember when we used to do the spoiler alert little intro to the show and in the show notes?
Laura: Yep.
Eric: Oh, the one where Andrew was like, “If you haven’t read Half-Blood Prince, stop listening.”
Micah: Yeah, “Stop listening right now.”
Eric: Oh, man.
Laura: [laughs] All right. Well, everyone, thanks for tuning in this week. I’m Laura.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Ryan: And I’m Ryan.
Laura: See you next time, guys. Buh-bye.
Eric and Micah: Bye.