Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #453, 2 Fast, 2 Illustrated (OOTP 17, Educational Decree Number 24)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast Episode 453. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: On today’s episode, we are discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 17, “Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four.” We also have a couple of voice calls, and a new illustrated edition series is in the works?
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I can’t wait to talk about that, but first, we wanted to start by bringing up an update on the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard case. We’ve gotten a lot of feedback, so we wanted to address that right here at the start of the show. Recently there was a new tape that surfaced in which Amber Heard is heard verbally abusing Depp, and it’s pretty brutal. She says no one would believe that he’s a victim and a bunch of other things, and it reminds us that Johnny Depp is not the only one at fault in this case.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, we had some feedback that we had been less than kind regarding Depp, and I myself was pointed to a past episode where I flat-out called Depp a wife abuser. That case isn’t finished, and I did not use “alleged,” and I was not… I mean, I just wasn’t thinking in the moment. But I would like to retract that statement in light of the latest tape, and you know what? That’s fine. I’ll just admit my mistake. I mean, I was careless. We weren’t… in the moment there was a lot going on with that controversy when he was cast, when Yates and Rowling doubled down on him, and I think that may have been a heat of the moment thing, but I’m capable of admitting when I was wrong.
Laura: Of course, yeah. The way that I feel about this is it’s an ongoing case, and we’re receiving new information – in the last few days, it feels like – pretty frequently, and it simultaneously clarifies, but further muddies the waters, because to me now it’s clear more than ever that this was most likely a very toxic relationship that we don’t have all the information on. So I would say for ourselves as individuals, but also for our fandom, it’s a good lesson in approaching these kinds of stories with a level of nuance and understanding that we don’t have all the details and just carrying that lesson forward, because undoubtedly there will be more that comes out of this case in the weeks and months ahead.
Micah: Yeah, I agree with what Laura said. I think that given that this is an ongoing legal battle, that there’s going to be information that is going to be released in the coming months, maybe even the coming years, strategically, and that’s just the way that things tend to go, so that it shows one side in a certain light and the other side in another light. And as Laura also pointed out, this appears to be a toxic relationship on both sides, and we’re not inside these people’s home. We don’t know what goes on behind closed doors. And I think what happened here is that in this day and age, there’s an incessant need to respond to something in the moment, and a lot of times when that happens, you don’t have all the information, and I have no problem, much like Eric said, admitting when you’re wrong, but I think at the same time, this is a multi-layered issue that has a lot of different components at work, and we need to see how it plays out over the course of the next several months. And part of what I look back on is what would have happened if I said that I was supportive of Johnny Depp and actually believed his side of the story back in 2017? Imagine the response that we would have gotten at this show. It just goes to show you based on the information, people’s perspectives change, and certainly the Internet doesn’t help that.
Eric: I think always we just want to be true to our own opinions. We got into a conversation recently over on Twitter, but I mean, MuggleCast is our opinions. MuggleCast is our opinions in a moment at a moment’s time. It’s kind of like a time capsule, and I have had my share of bad opinions in the past. MuggleCast, unfortunately – still being on the air – all the episodes on the feed is now a catalog of previous bad opinions that we have all held, so there’s just that. All we can do is change moving forward.
Andrew: Yeah, exactly. And moving forward, I think we will strive to be as fair as possible to both sides as we should have been since the beginning. And I have said this before: I believe that both sides here are problematic. This was just a bad relationship, and these people both have issues that they’re working through, and as has been said a couple minutes ago, we’ll see how this case develops. Things could change over time. We don’t know. But for now, we’re going to try to be more fair, and we apologize to anybody who may have been offended by what we had to say or feels like we haven’t been treating this case fairly. And some people might be asking, “Well, why are you bringing this up? Who cares?” Well, Johnny Depp is still going to be in three more Fantastic Beasts movies, presumably, and it’s important that we represent him accurately on this show.
Eric: Yeah, and listening to that tape, my heart broke for him, and that’s 100% true, because he is clearly… I mean, Amber Heard is calling him a baby; she’s saying, “People won’t believe you,” and just… I cannot empathize enough with the courage that it took to record this, right? Because as Johnny Depp, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, you’ve got this wife who’s verbally assaulting you, who is physically assaulting you, admitting proudly of physically assaulting you, and you have to sneakily record a tape just so that people will believe your side. Unfortunately, Amber Heard’s decision and her choices in this situation have led to an issue where I think fewer victims coming forward will be believed. She’s contributing not just to her own people’s perception of her, but she’s made it worse for victims of spousal and domestic abuse moving forward, and it just… it’s a huge, huge issue with long-ranging implications.
Micah: Yeah, and I think that we reacted in the way that most people do and should, and that is you believe the victim because you don’t want to put them in a position – or anybody else that may be around you that went through something similar – to make them feel uncomfortable or make them feel like they can’t come forward if a situation like that has happened to them. And so this new information is something that we need to take seriously, though, and realize that we misstepped several years ago and that we will be a lot more balanced moving forward.
Andrew: All right, so changing gears now. On a much brighter note, a new edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is arriving this October, October 20, 2020. It is by MinaLima, the graphic artists behind the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts film series. This came as a surprise. For starters, MinaLima has never been involved with the books as far as I know, not this deeply, anyway. I mean, they designed the covers for the Fantastic Beasts screenplays that were published with each movie. But they illustrated the entire first Harry Potter book; this edition includes full color illustrations on nearly every page, and eight interactive special paper craft features that will make readers feel like they’re headed to Hogwarts themselves. They’ll have the opportunity to open an elaborately folded Hogwarts letter and Diagon Alley shopping list, reveal the magical entryway to Diagon Alley, open a die-cut fold-out Hogwarts Castle, and make a feast appear in the Great Hall, amongst other features. So this is cool. The cover looks beautiful. My concern is… why is this being published in the middle of another illustrated edition series? That’s the only part of this that feels strange to me.
Eric: [laughs] What do we call this? That’s my thing. How do we just refer to this? The illustrated…?
Andrew: The MinaLima edition, I suppose.
Eric: Oh, okay, because I was like, “Illustrated edition 2? Illustrated…”
Andrew: Illustrated plus.
Eric: 2 Sorcerer’s 2 Furious? What are we calling it here?
Laura: [laughs] Eric, to your question about “What do we call this?”, I would say capitalism.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Okay, okay. But to that point, I have Peter Pan by MinaLima, and it is amazing. In fact, MinaLima have been doing these not related to Harry Potter fairy tale books. They’ve taken popular fairy tales – they’ve also done, I think, Alice in Wonderland; there’s a version of their work – and those are, I think, a great indicator of what we can see and expect to see inside this Harry book. They have those fold-out pages, like you were saying, Andrew, but it’s really ornate, and it’s amazing.
Micah: I just hope that this is something that will continue and not something that gets cut off right at Sorcerer’s Stone, because I feel like there’s been other editions that have been created where they’ve tried it out and then they haven’t moved forward with it. I think… didn’t Sorcerer’s Stone do a 10th anniversary edition or a 20th anniversary edition?
Andrew: Right.
Micah: But then they didn’t follow through with Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban and on and on. I do love the art. I mean, you’re looking at the cover here, the way that they have all of the Hogwarts House symbols drawn in all four corners. Not sure… looks like the trio got left hanging because there are no boats in front of them to get across the lake there.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: “So how do we cross?”
Eric: You’ll recall that happens in the book? This is an alternate universe Sorcerer’s Stone.
Micah: But I will say… oh, go ahead, Laura.
Laura: I was just going to say, take my money. I’ll buy this.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: That was all.
Eric: Well, to that point, I hope that the illustrated versions are going okay. I mean, I hope that Jim Kay is able to… maybe with the release of these books, we can handle… the consumer or the market will allow him the time that he needs to complete at least book one of Order of the Phoenix illustrated.
Andrew: Oh, Eric.
Micah: Yeah, they’re giving him a break. They’re giving him a little bit of a respite. He can work on Order of the Phoenix and MinaLima can put out this book in the meantime.
Andrew: No, but we also have Quidditch Through the Ages illustrated coming out this October, don’t we? Or something illustrated is coming out this fall.
Eric: Yeah, they can taper it. They can do… I mean, I expect maybe at least the first two of the MinaLima will be out by the time Jim Kay is able to complete…
Andrew: These books are bigger. He needs more time to create these books; I think it’s that simple. I mean, he’s been blogging on his site about how Order of the Phoenix is going. Micah, you asked if this is going to be a series. I think it is. The Rowling Library pointed out that on the spine of this book, it does say “Year 1.” I guess what surprises me most about this is I expected Jim Kay’s illustrated books to be the definitive illustrated editions. Like, that was it. Because this is obviously a huge project, and now MinaLima is taking on the task. EW notes that nearly every page is going to have an illustration, so… they’re going to keep up this pace for the other six books? Wow, how do they even have time for these Fantastic Beasts movies? Do they have some ghost illustrators? Because this seems like a lot of work they’re getting involved with.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: I wonder, though, if they had done this work over the last couple of years…
Andrew: Probably.
Micah: … or just as the Harry Potter films were being… they are a huge part of the success of the Harry Potter film franchise, and now, as you mentioned, are working on Fantastic Beasts as well. We did reach out to them, so we’ll see if they’re able to join us on an upcoming episode. We’ve met them a couple of times over the years; they’re just two great people, and would love to talk to them about this new illustrated edition. But like you said, yeah, it seems like it’s going to be a series, because they even announced this on Good Morning America.
Andrew: Big deal.
Micah: So they’re not holding back on this, yeah.
Andrew: I saw somebody in the Entertainment Weekly comments say it would have been great if they use the British title for this book. Why can’t Philosopher’s Stone be published in America just once, just once, with all these editions?
Micah: Are they going to do that in the UK, though? Or this is just US publication?
Andrew: No, this is US and UK. I don’t… so I love this; I will at least page through it. I’m not sure I’ll collect the whole series. I’m good with having one illustrated edition series on my bookshelf.
Eric: Well, in that case, why would they undercut their sales?
Andrew: Right?
Eric: By releasing this now?
Andrew: Who needs two illustrated edition series? I’m ruining the chances of our interview, Micah. I’m sorry.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Yeah, I was going to say, they’re not going to come on.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Again, you guys… look, pick up one of the books that they’ve done that’s the fairy tale thing. Peter Pan I can’t recommend highly enough. It’s really good.
Andrew: Yeah. And I have some of their artwork, and I have it proudly on my wall. I just love what they do. I’ll probably get this first one just because it’s the first, and then the others, we’ll see. We’ll see.
Listener Feedback
Andrew: Okay, it’s time for some Muggle Mail now. We got a couple of calls. First, we got some great feedback about Harry deserving an O for battling Dementors in Prisoner of Azkaban.
[Voicemail plays]
“Hello, MuggleCast hosts. Happy Tuesday. I’ve just finished listening to Essence of Goat, where you did a superb job discussing the Hog’s Head chapter. It was truly stellar. I have a disagreement, though. In rating Harry’s impressive feats, Andrew and Eric give Harry saving himself, Sirius, and Hermione from the Dementors in Book 3 a mere Acceptable. I am with Laura that this deserves an Outstanding. As I’m sure we all know, Dementors are a fictional manifestation of depression. Eric points out that it is more impressive when he fends off the Dementors at the beginning of Book 5, because that’s when he is feeling down and drained. While Harry is in a less dire state mental health-wise in Book 3, the Dementors don’t care. They spread their feelings of despair and hopelessness anyway, because it’s what they do. In the first Dementor attack right after Lupin has transformed, Harry is hearing his mother die, he’s seeing Sirius and Hermione passing out in front of him, and he’s just witnessed Pettigrew get away. He’s had a very stressful day, and now all these bad things are piling up, and yet he still manages to create some wispy attempts at a Patronus, and if I recall correctly, Hermione can’t produce anything. So here’s Harry, age 13, making a strong initial attempt to keep the Dementors at bay. And in reality, I would compare this to a person with clinical depression just getting out of bed in the morning. And I have clinical depression, and despite a cocktail of therapy, medication, and social support, I still have days where I can’t get up. The equivalent of producing a Patronus in that moment for me would be suddenly springing out of bed, taking a shower, packing my lunch for the day, and heading out the door whistling, even though I can’t whistle. Even Harry’s wispy Patronus attempts would be like me getting up, hopping into some sweatpants, and walking out the door with greasy hair and no food for the day. And to some that’s the bare minimum, and there are days when I can’t do that. Harry is 13, and he’s hearing his mother dying, and he’s seeing Sirius and Hermione on the ground about to be soul sucked, and still he manages to get some Patronus mist going. Later, after the Time-Turner shenanigans, Eric says the happy thought is that Harry knows he has already done it before, and so it is cheap for him to be saying, ‘I have self-confidence, boom.’ I don’t think it’s cheap at all for him to be inspired by knowing that he’s done it before. I have days when I can’t get out of bed, and I think, ‘I can do this. I’ve done it so many times before.’ And sometimes it works, but a lot of the time it doesn’t. In fact, like, 97% of the time it doesn’t. So in this first instance, Harry is feeling all the symptoms of depression, and still is able to put up a fight. In the second instance he sees he was able to do it before, and that self-confidence is what allows him to create a full Patronus. I think both moments are highly commendable and deserve an O for Outstanding. Thank you.”
[Voicemail ends]
Andrew: That was extremely well said, and thank you for your honesty.
Laura: Yeah, that was an outstanding voicemail.
Eric: I’m amending my rating.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Micah: You’re retracting your previous grade.
Eric: Yeah, I’m going to give it… for the reasons that this caller said, I’m going to move it from Acceptable to Outstanding. And yeah, I think the points were great.
Andrew: There you go.
Eric: It just takes… it’s always useful to remember that Dementors are kind of an allegory, or a direct allegory, for depression. And for somebody to be so vulnerable as to call in and say, “Hey, I have depression; here’s what it’s actually like,” just reminds us that these books… that Harry’s struggle was, in fact, real. And not cheap, as I stated.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: And further proof that Laura is always right.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: That’s dangerous.
Laura: No, I have my share of wrongness over the last 15 years.
Andrew: “Share of wrongness.”
Laura: No, remember when I was adamant…? I was like, “The final battle will not take place at Hogwarts; that would be so stupid,” and then it did.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: Oh, well, you were just speculating. We were all speculating.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: You’re not a Seer. We have one other great message here.
[Voicemail plays]
“Hi guys, Karishma here. So as we’re talking about the introduction of Dumbledore’s Army and introducing the concept of Harry as a mentor and guide, versus similar Defense Against the Dark Arts, the thought of Harry’s career really comes to my mind. We know down the line Harry becomes an Auror. I can understand, on one hand, the restlessness that Harry must have felt after the war was over, and how that restlessness may only have been temporarily treated by continuing to put himself in dangerous situations as an Auror would. But there is another part of me that thinks that Harry would have taken time off and come back years later to be a professor, if not at Hogwarts than another wizarding school. I recently read a fanfiction that Harry spent a few years fixing up Grimmauld Place and making it a summer school or even permanent residence for those kids who didn’t have a safe home or family. I just see Harry wanting to have a quiet life and helping kids have the childhood that he never could. What are your guys’s thoughts on this? Do you think that it was realistic for J.K. Rowling to make Harry an Auror, or do you think it would have been more in his character to pick a different career path after some maturity? I can’t wait to hear what you guys have to say. Bye.”
[Voicemail ends]
Laura: Do we think that the depiction of Harry in the Cursed Child is sort of reflective of how Harry’s life turned out as a result of him becoming an Auror and maybe not pursuing a vocation that was more in line with like this listener suggested? Because clearly Harry has some issues in Cursed Child.
Micah: Daddy issues.
Andrew: I think he would have had some issues anyway because Albus is challenging him in ways I don’t think he was expecting. But I do like this idea that maybe instead of becoming an Auror, Harry would teach students or give them a life that he wishes that he had, because an Auror is really continuing to deal with the action that he was dealing with in the first seven books. Of course, they’re not as big of issues to deal with. But I don’t know. I like this idea. Harry deserved a quiet life after everything that happened in the first seven books. In the seven books.
Micah: I could see him becoming more of a consultant to the Ministry, as opposed to being an Auror. I know that was always his ambition, but when you kind of reach peak level at 17 and defeat Voldemort…
Andrew: [laughs] Right, what’s next?
Micah: … there’s really nowhere else to go in your career as an Auror. So he should just have been given some sort of honorary recognition and allowed to pursue another career. I think, to the point that gets raised, he is a good teacher, and Defense Against the Dark Arts is his bread and butter. And I think it would have been a nice tribute, really, to Lupin, who is the one who really builds the foundation for him in Defense Against the Dark Arts, to go and to teach at Hogwarts.
Eric: Yeah, and there’s just in general… it’s kind of a blind spot of the series, is career paths. They make a big deal about giving career advice to Harry, but he’s set in his way, and we don’t really learn is there a wizarding secondary school? Meaning college, or tertiary education, I guess you’d call it. But what’s out there? We don’t know. It’s a huge, huge, huge, wide world. We don’t really know what else Harry could have done.
Micah: It’s also surprising to me that Harry would want to go and work for the Ministry after everything it has put him through in his childhood.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, maybe he wants to get involved so the Ministry doesn’t ever go back to how they were in his first seven years.
Micah: But you’ve got Hermione for that. She’s Minister.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I kind of wish Harry went back to Hogwarts. That would have been cool. Plus, yeah, to the caller’s point, he just did not get the experience that most students did; he was distracted by everything else going on. So it would have been nice to help out these fellow kids and give them…
Micah: Maybe there’s too much trauma there, everything that he’s been through.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s a good point. That’s a good point.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, also, he didn’t actually graduate, did he? So could he even teach at Hogwarts?
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Fair point.
Laura: Yeah, they’re like, “You get an honorary diploma because you vanquished the Dark Lord. Thank you.”
Andrew: I’m sure they would grant an exception. Okay, so before we get to Chapter by Chapter, MuggleCast has launched a listener survey so we can learn what you do and don’t like about the show. This will help us improve the podcast and plan for the future. It should only take you a couple of minutes to complete; look for a link on our social media channels or check out the show notes of this episode for the link. Thank you in advance. It is a big help, so we appreciate you taking a couple of minutes to do this for us. And thank you to everybody who already filled it out. We’ve gotten lots of great feedback; we’re going to sort through it all in a meeting in the weeks ahead and figure out the path forward for MuggleCast.
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Andrew: It’s time now for Chapter by Chapter. We are discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 17, “Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four,” and we will start, as always, with our Seven Word Summary. However, this time we have a music timer, y’all.
Laura: Oh no.
Andrew: So we have to complete this in about 34 seconds.
Micah: Wow.
Andrew: And how this is going to work each week is the first person is going to say their word, and then the timer is going to start. Micah picked this music, so if you don’t like it, blame him.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: Here we go. Sirius…
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Laura: … is…
Eric: … in…
Micah: … trouble…
Andrew: … with…
Laura: … Umbridge… [laughs]
Eric: How many seconds do we have left?
Andrew: 20.
Eric: Awesome. Okay, great.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Oh, what about “Umbridge’s”?
Eric: Thank you.
Micah: Well, you just wasted another five.
Eric: See, if you had said Dolores…
Andrew: Hurry!
Micah: Finish, come on.
Eric: … reach.
Laura: There we go.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: If you had said Dolores, I would have made it Dolores apostrophe. That would have been clever.
Andrew: This is much more fun with music.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Yeah, it’s very stressful.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I love how we’re all yelling at Eric to finish up. [laughs]
Eric: I’m like, “How much is left? Good.” So “Sirius is in trouble with Umbridge’s reach.”
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Andrew: Before we get to Sirius, though, I really love that this chapter opened with Harry feeling happy, something we don’t get to see him experience much, especially in this book…
Laura: Yep.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: … because he has a purpose now. He’s really liking his decision to pursue Dumbledore’s Army, and nothing can get in his way now.
Micah: Yeah, I thought you were going to maybe play a little Pharrell. There’d be some Minions jumping around. No?
Andrew: [singing] “Celebrate good times, four or five pages!”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Yeah, more like two. Or one and a half, because by the time Harry makes his way down to the common room, he finds out that Professor Umbridge has completely covered the board there with the news of her new Educational Decree. And I wanted to just talk a little bit about the symbolism of the fact that this piece of parchment is literally covering all the other cool stuff that is on the board, and she is slowly but surely taking over at Hogwarts.
Eric: That’s cool.
Andrew: It makes you re-appreciate the good old days when they had all these cool activities to participate in – Quidditch they could play, these clubs – and now it’s being taken away, so maybe they are going to re-appreciate and take it all less for granted.
Eric: Yeah, that notice board, I take that for granted all the time, but it was one of the coolest areas of… I think it was the Chamber of Secrets game, because you could interact with it, and there would be new tasks and to-do list things.
Andrew: Oh, that’s clever.
Eric: Yeah, all that kind of stuff. It’s just so cool because in the book she goes through what’s on there, and it’s just like Micah was saying; it’s stuff for the Gobstones Club, it’s stuff for… people are selling books, secondhand books to each other… although it’s well past the start of the year, so I hope they’re not… people really need some books to start new classes. I wonder if students drop classes middle of the year. You never really hear that happening, but presumably they could do that?
Laura: Well, Hermione does it in Prisoner of Azkaban.
Micah: Well, she’s taking a few others, so it’s okay.
Andrew: She’s not selling her books, though. She keeps all of her books.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: She’s not one to part with it.
Micah: She’s got a secret stash of Divination textbooks that she doesn’t tell anybody about.
Eric: [laughs] She’s read them all back to front and knows everything she needs to know.
Micah: So the immediate reaction from Harry is, “Oh shit, we got found out,” because the Educational Decree is tied directly to student organizations, societies, teams, groups, and clubs. This whole thing, by the way, which we’ll read, sounds like it was written by Percy, if I had to guess.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: But the Decree starts out by saying, “All student organizations, societies, teams, groups, and clubs are henceforth disbanded. An organization, society, team, group, or club is hereby defined as a regular meeting of three or more students. Permission to re-form may be sought from the High Inquisitor (Professor Umbridge). No student organization, society, team, group, or club may exist without the knowledge and approval of the High Inquisitor. Any student found to have formed, or to belong to, an organization, society, team, group, or club that has not been approved by the High Inquisitor will be expelled. The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number 24.”
Andrew: Expelling seems so harsh. Now, okay, for Dumbledore’s Army, yes, I get it, because you’re going against Umbridge’s wishes. But to expel a student over Gobstones seems extremely harsh.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: You just wonder, did Dumbledore want to step in on a Decree like this? I mean, he must have.
Eric: It’s so transparent to threaten with expulsion. That’s such a… what’s the word? It’s not measurable; it’s just so… it’s such an extreme…
Andrew: Over the line?
Eric: Yeah, it’s such an extreme punishment that clearly… it’s just such a transparent way of Umbridge seizing control. And it’s not just like, “In order for groups to exist, you’ve got to get approved. Here’s a deadline to get approved by.” No, it’s “Everything has to stop right now and cannot continue until approved.” It’s a great… it’s just… everything is shut down.
Micah: But what’s the reasoning, though? We know that she wants to have control over all of the students and over all non-class activity, and this allows her to do that. But is this because she knew about the meeting that took place at the Hog’s Head? Or was this something maybe she was already thinking about, and the first weekend visit to Hogsmeade allowed her to do that? She saw too many things going on that she just didn’t care for. We know she’s a control freak.
Eric: Well, Andrew, you said that Willy Widdershins tells Umbridge later? You did some research on that?
Andrew: Yeah, she finds out through this Willy Widdershins guy, just somebody you hear about once and then never again, evidently.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: He was arrested by the Ministry of Magic for enchanting the regurgitating toilets, which are brought up earlier in this book. But then he made a deal with the Ministry that if he spied on Harry Potter and his friends, they would let him go.
Eric: Oh my God, so he’s also following Harry in addition to Dung?
Andrew: Yeah, multiple people.
Eric: [sighs] So yeah, it just seems too coincidental for Umbridge. Although I think she probably was planning something similar to this, this sealed the deal and made it… this needed to be Educational Decree 24, not 25/26/31, whatever.
Micah: Yeah. One other thing that I thought about, though, was doesn’t this seem like something that you could complain to your Head of House about, or to your parents about? Particularly the Heads of House, because if you have an established club that you’ve been running already for several months at Hogwarts, why should you have that taken away from you?
Eric: Well, their hands are tied, right? Because there’s this new role in High Inquisitor that is allowing Umbridge to insert herself in all these goings-on. So even if a club is the best club of all time for morale and is doing really wonderful things, the High Inquisitor has her own set of goals that she is presumably fairly, and with a balanced mind, rating… basically the High Inquisitor is able to determine the educational value of every gathering and put the ax on it if she doesn’t deem it to be appropriate. It’s just an insane power grab.
Laura: Yeah, I also wonder, for parents and people who are not immediately involved in the daily goings-on at Hogwarts, how much they would even know about this, to what extent they would be aware. It’s not like the wizarding world has 24-hour cable news where everybody’s constantly inundated with the latest outrage. So I think the biggest dose of news these parents could get is their kid writing a letter to them being like, “Umbridge banned Gobstones Club; she’s such a B.”
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. David, who’s listening live, also brings up a good point. He says, “So by definition, does the trio count as a society, team, group, club? Because in this Decree, she says three or more.”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: That’s awesome.
Andrew: Yeah. Three does seem like a low number. I mean, there are groups of three. I mean, we would be banned. We’re a club.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: “No podcasting.”
Laura: Oh, Umbridge would absolutely hate us.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Oh my God, Umbridge really could have gone all the way and banned the trio. Wow.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. They meet regularly.
Micah: Well, the staircase in the girls dormitory tries to disband them.
Eric: I would guess that maybe the common rooms are exempt, because immediately you have a group larger than three at all times in the Gryffindor common room, and you don’t need permission to… that’s your common space.
Micah: That’s interesting.
Eric: But it’s not all Gryffindors in Dumbledore’s Army, and so that’s why Harry still has this problem now, and it’s even harder for him to figure out where they’re going to meet.
Laura: I also think this just goes to show how hampered Umbridge is by rules. She doesn’t have any real deep human friendships with anyone, I mean, so she can’t conceive of the fact that technically, the trio could fall under this ban, because she doesn’t have any friends.
Andrew: [laughs] “You can be friends with more than one person and hang out with them simultaneously? Ew!”
Laura: Right.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Or like, “You can hang out with people just because you want to, not because you have some common purpose you’re working towards? Wow.”
Andrew: “Ew!”
Eric: Well, we know Umbridge’s best friend is Cornelius, and when your friend’s the Minister of Magic, who needs any others?
Micah: Laura, one other thing I wanted to ask you about, though – and we’ll probably talk a little bit more about this later on in the chapter – but this really lends to Hogwarts becoming more and more of a police state, where now Umbridge is in control of student activity and what they are and are not allowed to do. She has started to really keep track of communication into and out of the school; we’ll see that with Hedwig a little bit later on in the chapter, but then also with Sirius, where she’s controlling the Floo Network. So when you’re in a situation where student activity and communication into and out of Hogwarts are being controlled by this one person, that was the first thing that came to my mind.
Laura: Yeah, and there are numerous historical examples of this happening. I mean, any time a regime is trying to get its population into lockstep and to be compliant, the first thing they go after are the educational institutions, every single time, so this is just another example of that. I think probably the biggest example we can point to is educational institutions during World War II, the Nazi era. It was incredibly common for the Nazi party to go after these “subversive” mindsets of students at colleges and universities in order to quash the notion that what was going on was wrong.
Micah: Absolutely. And even the Educational Decrees themselves have some… they feel like they’re very much Nazi Germany-esque in terms of telling people what they are and are not allowed to do.
Laura: Oh, yeah, completely.
Eric: Yep.
Micah: All that said, couldn’t Umbridge have just received a list of existing clubs and just basically gone through…?
[Eric laughs]
Micah: She’s evaluating all the teachers; she should have gone through, checked off Gobstones, checked off Slytherin Quidditch team… why does everybody have to resubmit?
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: Well, this is one of those things that she clearly just… she knows about Harry meeting a bunch of people in a group, trying to start something. This is her way of setting a rule for everybody, which is really a rule that’s specifically about Harry, right?
Andrew: And maybe it’s to quash potential future clubs. Maybe she fears that Harry isn’t the only one who’s going to come up with an idea like this.
Micah: It’s a fair point.
Andrew: Because you’re right, Umbridge already knows about the club, so why does she have to force everybody to come in and apply, so to speak, for their clubs? She’s just doing it to warn people, “Don’t do what Harry did.”
Eric: Right.
Micah: And you can imagine that this moment when Harry reads the Educational Decree, it’s one of those moments probably where your insides just freeze up because you feel like you’ve been found out, or clearly Umbridge has knowledge of what they’re up to. Maybe she doesn’t know the specifics, but she knows that something is in the works. And the first thought by Harry and Ron is to go run up and talk with Hermione, and we get one of really the more comical moments of the chapter. And I think something that we as readers probably had been wondering for a while; I’m not sure if this ever comes up in some of the other books, but when they try and go up into the girls’ dormitory, doesn’t go so well for them.
Andrew: No, it turns into a slide. You’ve been wondering about this? I don’t really wonder about it much.
Micah: No, no, no, back in the day.
Andrew: Oh.
Micah: No, because there were moments where Hermione would be in the boys’ dormitory with Harry and Ron, but I don’t think we ever saw…
Andrew: A boy run up, yeah.
Micah: … another student, a boy try and get into the girls’ dormitory.
Andrew: Yeah, it was funny. It was classic J.K. Rowling and classic Hogwarts that something this goofy would happen, that the stairs are enchanted so a boy runs up and then it turns into a slide. I like it. I mean, this is something that could be great in the Muggle world. And then it got me thinking, how could we actually have this type of magic? I think it would be possible, if our phones know our gender and then we’re banning this gender from entering doors and cars and clubs. [laughs] We’d be able to easily prevent people we don’t want from coming into spaces that we’re in.
Eric: I always forget what chapter this is in where Ron tries to go up and gets shut down, because it’s obviously not the point of the chapter or whatever; it’s one of those throwaway very humor moments. But these two girls slide down right after Ron and are like, “Ooh, who tried to get up?” [laughs]
Andrew: I kind of take it that J.K. Rowling wanted to put this in somewhere for a while, but just didn’t have a space for it, because it seems like something that Ron would have known about prior to this scene. You still see the foot of the staircase, and surely somebody has accidentally tried to climb it from time to time.
Eric: Yeah, I was going to say, they’re in their fifth year; they’ve never seen this happen?
Andrew: Or heard about it.
Eric: Yeah, or heard about it. I mean, but only Hermione has read Hogwarts: A History, I think. [laughs] Because she comes down and she’s like, “Yeah, Hogwarts: A History says the founders are just very old-fashioned, and they thought that boys were less trustworthy than girls.” I wonder what would have given them that idea. I wonder if that’s a subject they all agreed on or something. I don’t know.
Andrew: Well, I mean, the founders were right; that’s something definitely that boys would do more than girls.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Even today. Hermione calls it outdated, but even today.
Micah: I’m sure Fred and George have made a few attempts. So to your point of how is it possible that… and it could have just been a slip of the mind. It’s interesting that J.K. Rowling explains it that way, as if Ron and Harry didn’t know this.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Micah: But I would hope that five years into school there, they would know that rule, and it was more of just… slipped Ron’s mind in the moment; he was just looking to get to Hermione.
Eric: Well, and it’s cute that he sees something and is like, “Hermione needs to know,” and he runs up to go tell her.
Andrew: Also, there’s ways around this. I mean, you can take a broom up the stairs. You can take some… add some suction cups to your feet and walk up that way.
Eric: Oh my God.
Micah: How does it tell? How do we think it knows?
Laura: I think what the founders were underestimating here is that hormones find a way.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, the boys would just wait at the end of the staircase for the girl they, I don’t know, have a crush on to come on down and see them.
Eric: Well, at least Harry is able to get his mind cleared a little bit, because he is worried about having been found out and he says, “What if somebody told on us?” Or Ron says that, and Hermione says, “No, no, I put a jinx on the paper.” And this, to me, is a show of how devious Hermione is, because if you go back to the last chapter, she tells everyone, “Hey, there’s this thing; I kind of want you to sign it, and I feel like maybe we shouldn’t talk about this to other people, whatever.” Everybody signs it, but now we find out that she jinxed it, and if anybody does reveal, or if anybody went telling Umbridge, they would be faced with what we eventually know happens, a condition that makes Eloise Midgen’s acne look like a few spots.
Micah: Poor Eloise.
Eric: Just like, man, Hermione flat out… I’m not 100% okay with what Hermione did.
Micah: She’s savage.
Andrew: Well, would there have been harm to telling everybody that, “Hey, if you tell, this is what’s going to happen to you”? I don’t think there would have been.
Eric: Fewer people would have signed.
Andrew: Well, but that’s okay.
Micah: Tell them afterwards. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, yeah. I don’t know. It is underhanded for her not to be… she’s real shady about it. Hermione is not often shady, but she’s really shady in that moment.
Micah: Well, I think she realizes the importance of this particular moment, and it goes under the radar for good reason. And one of the things that I think that could have been problematic for Dumbledore’s Army was how other students react to having read the Educational Decree, and then in the Great Hall later on that morning, they’re all trying to come over and talk with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, and Hermione rightly is telling them, “Stay away. If you come and talk to us and we’re all congregating, that’s going to be a really big hat tip to Umbridge as to the fact that something is going on.”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Let’s go to History of Magic. A great class. Always energetic.
Andrew: I’m taking a nap.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Go ahead, Andrew.
Eric: Well, it has the potential to be useful. They’re talking about giant wars today. Hmm, who is this relevant to? I wonder where Hagrid is. Huh.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Little bit of a hint from J.K. Rowling?
Eric: Too bad it’s a sleeper. Why don’t we see Umbridge in Professor Binns’s class? I think that would be comedic goals.
Andrew: Because even she knows it’s so boring she doesn’t want to type it.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Well, no, I mean… well, okay, so assuming she did eventually go to the class – we just don’t see her go to the class – she probably would have liked this class a lot, because you’re just studying a book. You’re going off of history and… well, I guess he would be talking about Voldemort a little bit, so maybe that would make her a tad uncomfortable. But largely, I think Umbridge would like Binns’s class.
Laura: Yeah, because he’s just lecturing. There’s no dialogue.
Andrew: Yeah, exactly. There’s no wand work. Yeah, he’s just going off of history.
Micah: During this class, though, Hedwig shows up at the window – answer to this week’s Quizzitch question…
Eric: Woohoo!
Micah: … and she’s injured, and this is part of what we were talking about earlier with the lines of communication being monitored. I can’t recall if we find out who is responsible for injuring her later on – we’ll discuss that in another chapter if that’s the case – but this is a situation where now Harry should be extremely careful about how he’s communicating with the outside world and who he is communicating with, and when he goes to take Hedwig to get help from Professor Grubbly-Plank, McGonagall tells him as much, and it just blows my mind that he would then at the end of this chapter still communicate with Sirius.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Because it’s such a tip of the hat as to what is to come. McGonagall is telling him straight out, “Be very, very mindful of what you’re doing here,” and she’s not just talking, I don’t think, about owls; she’s talking about all forms of communication. And then he’s reckless again. I don’t know how he would have been able to communicate with Sirius in such a short span to let him know not to show up in the Floo Network…
Eric: Right.
Micah: … but maybe when he first shows up to say to him, “Look, communication lines are being monitored.” And I think even Sirius…
Andrew: “Can’t talk, bye.”
Micah: Yeah, Sirius, I think, says something along those lines, where he may even think that there’s a chance that he’s being watched. So it just… it’s very, very reckless, classic Sirius.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Well, it’s worked for Harry so far. He’s proud of his cryptic messages. He really needs to speak to Sirius; it makes him feel good. He knows Sirius enjoys talking to them too. There are more benefits to continuing speaking with Sirius than there are cons for Harry at this point, and he thinks he will be able to get away with it. He gets away with a lot, and this is just something else that he thinks is going to work in his favor. Plus, he does have an adult, Sirius, willingly speaking to him. It may have been one thing if Sirius was like, “No, I don’t want to do this anymore; it’s too risky,” but Sirius is encouraging him as well.
Eric: Yeah. And I think for me, at least – not to jump to the very end of the chapter – but when the hand is in the fireplace, I didn’t know that that was a thing that could happen, right?
Laura: No.
Eric: The Floo Network can be so…
Andrew: It’s really creepy.
Eric: It’s creepy. The visuals are very striking, and it’s a complete game changer as far as what you thought was safe or secure, right? So for me, McGonagall saying that to Harry… and it’s underscored by what happens. But man, Hogwarts is a police state, to your point, Micah. It’s scary how not secure… how much control Umbridge has.
Laura: It reminds me of when here in the States, we found out that the National Security Administration literally had access to all of our text messages, could listen to all of our phone calls if they wanted to.
Micah: Right. And McGonagall legitimately seems concerned, not for Hedwig, but for Harry, and…
Andrew: Screw the owl. Who cares?
[Eric laughs]
Micah: … especially when Harry, through his own code, tells her who he was corresponding with, and I just think that Harry needs to be a lot more careful, especially given the fact that Umbridge is starting to lay down all these Educational Decrees.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, let’s hope this is a learning lesson for Harry. It also cracked me up that Grubbly-Plank was smoking a pipe indoors.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: She comes out to help Harry. Does that not smell in the wizarding world? I wonder what’s going on there. Do they not cause cancer?
Micah: I thought you were going to…
Laura: No, they can just Evanesco the cancer.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Yeah, yeah. I think it absolutely smells, but this is J.K. Rowling’s idea of what a wizard is, right? It’s very… the wizards in Lord of the Rings are always smoking Longbottom Leaf and the…
Andrew: Is she smoking Floo Powder?
Micah: [laughs] Longbottom Leaf.
Eric: Maybe. That’s what it’s called.
Micah: Is it really?
Eric: Or the Hobbits. The Hobbits smoke it, yeah. The name Longbottom comes from Lord of the Rings; it’s a direct pull.
Andrew: [gasps] J.K. Rowling stole something.
Micah: I thought maybe you’d say that Harry showed up at just the right time because Grubbly-Plank and McGonagall had just finished, since she was smoking a pipe.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Getting high?
Eric: Oh!
Micah: Well, that’s one way of looking at what I said, but there’s a whole ‘nother way of looking at it as well.
Andrew: Oh, I see.
Eric: Anyway, I think wizards can probably deal with the fallout. They can use a magical filter, so only the…
Andrew: Right, there’s… I can’t imagine… now, a lot of people over in England smoke. Every time I go over to London, I’m like, “Wow, there are a lot of smokers over here.” Here in America, I think a lot of people have caught on to the dangers, and it’s become less cool to smoke, but over in London, you can’t step ten feet outside without somebody smoking in your face.
Micah: Can’t wait for those emails now.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: No, I think it’s important to just note that there’s cultural differences there. I think that’s 100% valid.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. That’s why I…
Laura: Well, and the good news for McGonagall and Grubbly-Plank is that they are less than three people, so they can keep on their smoking club in peace.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Andrew: They can continue smoking those pipes together.
Micah: This spoke to me, though, as an opportunity for yet again the readers to see Grubbly-Plank as being a effective professor, because she is caring for Hedwig. We presume that she is going to do right by her and heal her. And I’m not sure – not to get into too much of a debate here – would Hagrid be able to be helpful in this situation, do we think, with Hedwig?
Laura: I think so.
Eric: Yes.
Andrew: I think so too. I mean, that’s who they initially want to turn to. That’s who Harry wants to turn to, and then he remembers that he’s not there.
Eric: The one clue from this chapter is that Grubbly-Plank is talking about what could have injured Hedwig, and she says the Thestrals sometimes go for owls, or sometimes can go for owls, but what she says is that Hagrid has trained the Hogwarts Thestrals so darn well that they don’t ever, not once, go for owls. So I think if Hagrid can train Thestrals, he absolutely could have handled the owl the way that she’s doing.
Micah: But that’s sort of ironic, because don’t we see a Thestral jump out of the forest while Harry is in the owlery?
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: For no apparent reason.
Micah: The Thestrals are going rogue now that Hagrid is not there. Great another quick Thestral drop on the part of J.K. Rowling; we obviously, at this point, don’t know what they are.
Eric: Yeah, exactly, and Harry is like, “I don’t know what that is, but I do not care.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: “But meanwhile, I keep seeing these boney winged horses everywhere. Huh, that’s weird.”
Andrew: “Am I contact high? What am I looking at?”
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Let’s talk about Neville and Draco, and Draco, of course, is really just bragging about the fact that the Slytherin Quidditch team has received approval to continue on with their activities, and he talks about people with addled brains and that there’s a special place for them in St. Mungo’s, and this draws a reaction from Neville, and understandably so. And we’ve never seen Neville respond in this way before. Harry knows why he is responding in this manner, but most of the other students – probably all of the other students – have no clue.
Andrew: No.
Micah: And it was really kind of a sad moment, and I would have liked to see Neville deck Draco, personally.
Eric: Well, even Draco has his jaw on the floor seeing Neville come at him. Draco just runs his mouth and runs his mouth and never expects that something he said… he’s ever going to pay for it, and I hate that type of person, but it would have been very satisfying.
Laura: Yeah, and going a little deeper here, we have to remember that Draco’s aunt was one of the participants who actually tortured Frank and Alice Longbottom to the point where they had to be put in St. Mungo’s, and I’m sure Neville is aware of that familial connection.
Eric: Oh, God. Yeah, so Draco… not cool, bro.
Micah: And we will see Frank and Alice Longbottom later on in this book. We’ll also run into Professor Lockhart in the same part of St. Mungo’s, so a little bit of… not foreshadowing, but interesting that J.K. Rowling would drop that here, and then we go get to experience that a little bit later on in this book.
Eric: Classic Jo.
Andrew: It’s also a good learning lesson for young readers. Treat others the way you wish to be treated, and be mindful that what you say can affect people in ways that you do not realize. Because too often we might make jokes amongst peers – or even here on the show – that might be insensitive towards others, but we just don’t know their backstory, so it’s just a good reminder that… just don’t ever say anything mean, because there’s a chance that somebody could be really offended by something. They could take it personally for reasons you may never know.
Micah: Absolutely. And I jokingly thought that given that Harry is “fighting” with Neville… Snape makes the decision to take ten points from Gryffindor. I thought he would have given ten points to Gryffindor, given that two of those students were fighting with each other.
Andrew: [laughs] I completely agree with that, actually. That seems like something that would be right up his alley. [imitating Snape] “Ten points for punching Neville in the face.”
Micah: Well, you mentioned that Umbridge was not in Professor Binns’s class earlier. She is in Potions with Professor Snape, and this was just a great sequence during the Order of the Phoenix film between Imelda Staunton and Alan Rickman. And Harry just can’t, I don’t think, get enough of this. He’s watching it the whole time as it’s transpiring, and it ends up backfiring on him because Snape catches him watching and he gets some extra work as a result of it. But we learn a little bit about Snape in this exchange between him and Umbridge, particularly that he has tried many, many times to be Defense Against the Dark Arts professor and not been given that position.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s a big revelation, and something that I was always fascinated by. I can see why this was really embarrassing for Snape, too, because the kids are learning that he’s been a failure. He’s had this thing that he’s really wanted to do for a long time, and for some reason, Dumbledore has not given it to him. So it’s embarrassing to have this announced to his classroom.
Laura: I do wonder where Umbridge got that information.
Eric: Right? Dumbledore wouldn’t have made that known that… unless Snape… unless the application process is some kind of formal paperwork thing that involves the Ministry.
Andrew: That’s what I’m thinking.
Eric: Oh, maybe… you know what? Maybe it does, because if he’s applying, clearly the Ministry would oversee certain appointments. And if Dumbledore is reaching out to the wider world, maybe they have a paper trail.
Andrew: Yeah, or maybe just at Hogwarts, you have to apply on paper, and Umbridge, since she has no life, has just been sorting through all that paperwork and found these numerous applications from Snape.
Eric: Yeah, good point.
Micah: I bet it was Willy Widdershins. He tipped her off again.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: You definitely want… I thought the lesson was going pretty well, and then when Umbridge brings that up, you’re like, “Ooh, he’s going to get even with her so hard.” And you’re just waiting for her immediate downfall that I don’t know comes right away, but she crossed a line there in bringing that up.
Andrew: Harry says that he doesn’t know who he wants to win because he hates them both so much, but I think he should want Snape to win in this case, because Umbridge has been permanently scarring him.
Laura: I think for Harry, it’s a bit like watching a train wreck. He’s just… it’s so horrible, but he can’t look away.
Micah: Yeah, Harry definitely enjoys himself up until the moment where he gets extra homework, so… typical Snape. We also visit Trelawney’s classroom. We learn the fact that she has been put on probation; don’t think we’re much surprised by this, given how her evaluation went. Any thoughts on Trelawney?
Eric: It’s real unfortunate, because hers was the most transparently useless appointment at Hogwarts. She just goes out of her way… like when she predicted something for Umbridge, it just was such a clear attempt to scare her, and I’m just not surprised by this result at all.
Laura: No.
Andrew: I think this was hard to read because we have to see Trelawney so emotional in front of the students. You should never have to see a teacher this way ever.
Laura: Yeah, I think what makes this hard is that Trelawney definitely deserved to be put on probation because she’s not a good teacher, but it’s hard to accept that because the way that it happened with Umbridge undermining her in front of her class was incredibly unprofessional. So it’s kind of like, yeah, she does deserve this, but at the same time, the timing of this and the method that was used to put her on probation was also very unprofessional.
Micah: And honestly, not all that legitimate, because as we talked about, who is Umbridge to evaluate anybody?
Laura: Exactly.
Andrew: [laughs] A Ministry official, Micah. Don’t you dare question her.
Laura: They should let McGonagall observe Umbridge’s class.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Love it.
Andrew: Yeah. I don’t even think she would want to. She just doesn’t have time. She doesn’t care. She’s not interested in judging these other teachers in the way that Umbridge is, even if Umbridge doesn’t deserve to be judging all them. What does it mean, though, that Trelawney is on probation, though? Just like, “This is a warning; if you screw up one or two more times, you’re out”?
Micah: Yeah, I think that means that she’s subject to further evaluation. Maybe it goes up to Fudge or to somebody else at the Ministry to evaluate while she is on probation.
Andrew: “So we’ve got this crazy Seer at Hogwarts.”
Micah: Yeah, it is definitely tough to read this part of the chapter, and it is important, I think, too, though, to note some of the information that we’re getting during these moments, because as a first time reader, something like Snape saying that he applied multiple times for Defense Against the Dark Arts, that’s confirmation of something that we as readers take for granted, because at this point we’ve read all seven books, but that’s a first time reveal that, I think, is important. And then I think Trelawney also drops the amount of time that she has been working at the school, kind of as she’s muttering under her breath, so just little nuggets of information that are important. All right, let’s all get cozy by the fire and go to the Gryffindor common room. There can only be two of us on the couch…
[Laura laughs]
Micah: … and then two of us far away by the staircase that goes up to the boys’ dormitory, so that we’re not three or more together. Sirius does show up, and he’s kind of excited; he’s happy that the trio are fighting back and sticking it to Umbridge. And one of the first points, though, that he does raise is that Hermione has a lot to learn, because her decision for this group to meet up in the Hog’s Head wasn’t the best one, because there aren’t that many people there. That would make you think that, “Oh, that’s a great location, because there aren’t a lot of people.” But yet, there’s something to be said for meeting in a public setting where you would be expected to be in the first place, right? So the Three Broomsticks, if you had gone there and you’re congregating, and there’s other people from other Houses and you’re having a conversation… yeah, I mean, what do you all make of this? I think it would have been less coincidental for them to all be in that location.
Eric: I love the nuance there.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: I completely agree with Sirius. On the other hand, they would have been very noticeable, this large group hanging out at the Three Broomsticks, all congregating. And since it’s loud in there, they’d have to all be tight together so they can hear each other speak. I’m of two minds of that on this issue, because I believe Sirius is right, but on the other hand, they would have stuck out like a sore thumb.
Eric: Yeah, and they did, but it would have been impossible to have the conversation they needed to have in the Three Broomsticks. You just couldn’t do it. You’d be… it would have been… you’d have to play whisper down the alley, or I guess people call it telephone; don’t know why.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: One person telling one person, “He says he’s not going to tell us about Cedric,” and then he turns to the… you know, to have the conversation.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Granted, there is that space above the Three Broomsticks where Harry overhears the whole Peter Pettigrew discussion back in Book 3, and maybe they could have convinced Rosmerta. Ron could have gone up and blushed real hard and said, “Hey, we have a slightly larger group; can we go upstairs?” But even then you have a lot of people taking note of where they’re going. Yeah, I don’t know that there’s a right or wrong way for them to have done what they did.
Micah: No, I mean, I think you can make arguments for either one. I mean, the flip side is that you’re in a location where then everything that you say can be overheard, whether it’s by the Yorkshire Dementors or the goat lover or Mundungus. All those people in that bar clearly heard what they were talking about. And I hear you, because then if you’re in the Three Broomsticks, you would have to scream pretty loudly.
Laura: Yeah, but also, Willy Widdershins would have stuck out like a sore thumb in the Three Broomsticks.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Wouldn’t the best solution have been going into the forest or something? Something where there’s definitely nobody…
Micah: Hagrid’s.
Andrew: Hagrid’s, sure.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Micah: Nobody’s there.
Andrew: Then again, they are being followed, so really, there was no solution here.
Eric: I just love that there’s four people in the Hog’s Head; every single one of them is a spy [laughs] who’s following Harry for some or another… it’s pretty crazy.
Micah: Except for the Yorkshire Dementors, right? They’re just getting drunk.
Eric: Yeah, no, they’re just having a good time.
Andrew: [laughs] They’re just getting drunk.
Laura: Dementors just want to have fun.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Micah: Speaking of Mundungus, we learn that he was the witch, and he was tailing Harry. But I’m a bit confused: Was he there before they arrived? If he’s responsible for keeping tabs on Harry, how did he know that he was going to be at the Hog’s Head?
Eric: That’s kind of the thing.
Andrew: That’s a good question.
Eric: Yeah, because he… after the children come in, there are no other adults that come in, so Willy and Dung would have already had to have been in the bar. But I guess Sirius says in this chapter that Dung was banned 20 years ago, [laughs] and so I think Dung just happened to be in there. He is following Harry; that’s his job, but he went in for a pick-me-up, and that was when he happened to find Harry. I don’t know about Willy…
Andrew: So he got lucky, you’re saying.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Laura: I could definitely see Dung being like, “Oh, I’m going to nip in here for a quick drink,” and then Harry comes in and he’s like, “Oh! Awesome!”
Andrew: “Perfect! Dumbledore is going to be happy with me.”
Eric: He’s working from home today.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Micah: One other bit of information that we learn is that Molly doesn’t want Ron to be involved in this group, but surprisingly, she doesn’t make any mention of Fred, George, or Ginny, and I don’t know if that’s just because she doesn’t know about them…
Andrew: She doesn’t love them. Next topic.
Micah: [laughs] This is just more of Molly being a mom.
Andrew: I think she just isn’t aware that Fred, George, or Ginny are involved at this stage. Like, of course Ron is involved.
Eric: Here’s the thing: I don’t know what she’s playing at, trying to save Ron’s soul, right? There’s this threat of this… Percy is trying to do it too, but Molly herself has all this moral courage. She’s in the Order. She’s fighting Voldemort. She’s even on duty. They don’t know what that means, “on duty tonight.” I think it just means in the Hall of Prophecy. But she has all this courage, but she doesn’t want her own children to exercise the same courage that she is showing in defying things because she could get in trouble. I don’t know. I don’t know how she thinks they’re going to learn, really.
Laura: I think she’s just trying to protect them. She thinks that they’re children and that they shouldn’t have to be resisting in this way, especially when they’re at school. I think also she’s trying to appeal to Ron as a prefect; again, we have to remember how much emphasis she put on Ron being made a prefect earlier on in the book, so I think she’s trying to appeal to some sense of responsibility, which, of course, is not working.
Andrew: And yet she’s okay with these fireside chats? These seem like a security issue to me, so I’m surprised that she’s cool with Sirius talking to them.
Micah: I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t know about them.
Andrew: The chats?
Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: But Molly asked Sirius to relay the message, so she must know that Sirius is talking to them somehow.
Micah: Ahh. It’s a fair point. I can’t really combat that in any way.
Andrew: Maybe she doesn’t know the details, just that he is getting a message somehow.
Micah: Yeah, it does seem quite dangerous for Sirius to be putting his neck out there – no pun intended – and risking being caught by somebody like Umbridge, especially knowing now the level of control that she has over the school. With Molly, though, I wonder, too, for her… she’s suffered tremendous loss in her family during the first war; we know that her brothers died, so I wonder if there’s that extra level of concern for her family given that that happened, and knowing how involved her and Arthur are now. Remember the boggart in the wardrobe scene from earlier on in this book. I think that she’s very, very concerned for her family. We know Bill and Charlie are involved with the Order to some extent, and she doesn’t want any more of her children fighting back and putting themselves in risk.
Andrew: Totes.
Micah: Toots.
Andrew: Totes.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Andrew: No. I heard that episode a couple weeks ago. I didn’t like that version of me. [laughs]
Eric: We stopped calling you that. Why did we ever stop calling you that?
[Laura laughs]
Micah: We mentioned this earlier, but Sirius is very happy that the trio is fighting back. It’s very Marauder-esque, and he couldn’t be happier. But at the very end of this chapter, he is almost caught by Umbridge. I’m not sure exactly what tips him off that she’s there. Can he sense another witch or wizard being present? Did she kind of…?
Eric: There’s a click or something. There’s a sound that he hears, and he twitches and turns around and then…
Micah: Oh, I know what he heard, Andrew.
Andrew: Pause.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Andrew: That.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Well, but also she is trying to grab for him, so apparently you’re able to physically touch other people in the Floo Network?
Micah: Yeah. Well, that’s an interesting piece, because remember, Yaxley is able to grab onto… is it Hermione when they’re escaping the Ministry, and that’s why they don’t go back to Grimmauld Place in Deathly Hallows?
Eric: Yeah, but he just kind of held on. Umbridge not being in the Gryffindor common room fire or the Grimmauld Place fire should not be able to access their conversation. It’s like when we had landline phones, right? And somebody in the house, upstairs or downstairs, would pick up the phone when you’re on the phone, when you’re on the conversation…
Andrew: Right. I’ve done that.
Eric: Sorry, half the listeners of this show will not know what I’m talking about.
Micah: Google it.
Andrew: “What is a landline?”
[Micah laughs]
Eric: Yeah, you can get on and there’s a tiny click when somebody picks up and you can hear them breathing, maybe.
Andrew: Right. Well, if you’re good, you’re able to pick up the phone without being noticed. I got really good at that, but anyway…
Eric: [laughs] But Umbridge…
Laura: But yeah, all of… we all had experiences with our parents trying to spy on us when we were on the phone. This is what this reminds us of.
Andrew: Or vice versa. I was just bored. This was before podcasts. This was a podcast, secretly listening in on your parents’ phone conversations.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Younger children, just ask your parents about it. But Sirius, the book says, “He broke off. His face was suddenly tense, alarmed. He turned sideways, apparently looking into the solid brick wall of the fireplace.” So we don’t know exactly what you see when you’re head-only in the Floo Network, but Sirius clearly had some kind of a… he has enough experience with the Floo Network that he could detect when the call was no longer secure.
Laura: I have a question about this, and I might have missed something, but in order for Sirius to talk to them this way through the Floo Network, is he literally on all fours with his head in the fireplace?
Eric: That’s what I understand. Because when Harry does it later, that’s what happens.
Laura: Okay, it’s just so funny. Can you imagine walking in a room and seeing somebody like that? [laughs]
Eric: Well, who is it who’s in the Weasleys’ fireplace in Book 4 and Molly feeds him toast? [laughs]
Laura: Oh yeah, you’re right.
Eric: Can you imagine eating like that? [laughs]
Micah: So that toast is extra crispy.
Eric: Yeah, I guess.
Laura: Good grief.
Micah: This reminds me, though, of just our larger conversation that Andrew often likes to talk about, the fact that Hogwarts is a security nightmare.
[“It’s starting to sound like a security nightmare!” sound effect plays with sirens]
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: Just think about it; anybody can use the Floo Network? Does Sirius have to do certain spells or charms to be able to access Hogwarts? Or is he getting, I don’t know, direction from somebody in the Order about how to go about doing that? It just seems like then anybody could use the Floo Network. Death Eaters could drop in.
Eric: Well, it’s like you can get a court order to tap phones, phone lines, or you used to be able to. The Floo Network is not WhatsApp, where everything is supposed to be encrypted; even WhatsApp technicians aren’t supposed to be able to see those messages. It’s not that. It’s very much just your standard telephone lines. So because it’s a public service, a Floo Network – it’s something that the government probably pays to have operating – they have a back door.
Andrew: But why can anybody just show up in any fireplace? That seems like a major issue. You should be able to turn that off.
Eric: I think it has something to do with Hogwarts, all the Floos of Hogwarts on the network. Like Umbridge’s office; she later makes it the master network, like her fireplace is the master fireplace. I think that… it’s like if you were to telephone Hogwarts, you’d telephone and then all the other fireplaces would be extensions. You know what I’m saying? Like, “Dial three for Ravenclaw,” that kind of thing.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: So I think… no, I honestly think that’s how it works, so that’s how Umbridge is able to get into the Gryffindor fireplace through whatever the master fireplace is. Maybe it’s Dumbledore’s, or maybe she makes it her own. But I think that’s why… because all the fireplaces at Hogwarts are connected to each other before they’re connected to everywhere else.
Andrew: I was also just a little disturbed by Sirius just showing up when he thought the time was right. You don’t know which students are still up. It’s noted that it’s past midnight, but I feel like a lot of kids could be up past midnight.
Micah: Definitely.
Laura: Well, and he was seen briefly by a second year the last time he did this.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Eric: Do you think they saw ember Sirius or flame Sirius?
Andrew: I hope flame Sirius. The better Sirius.
Laura: [laughs] Yeah, for their sake.
Andrew: Flaming Sirius.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: But do we have to deduct one from the Umbridge suck count for doing something that actually is a good thing, in monitoring the Floo Network? I think that’s something that should be top-of-the-list priority from a security standpoint, and Dumbledore is not doing his job.
Eric: Oh.
Andrew: Interesting. A deduction. I like this idea. I can go along with this.
Eric: Eh, I don’t.
Laura: But she’s not using her powers for good, though.
Eric: Are we going to say, “Congratulations, you didn’t suck this one time”? We’re only counting when she did suck.
Andrew: Yeah, but if Voldemort went in via the Floo Network, she probably would have tried to grab for him, too, right? Because she wouldn’t want anybody to see Voldemort. So I don’t know; I think Micah has a point.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Micah: Yeah, I would also add one to the suck count. Well, we’ll get there in a minute. But anything else to wrap up the chapter? I mean, this is, as we said earlier on, Hogwarts becoming more and more of a police state with Umbridge at the helm. She’s monitoring the lines of communication, whether it’s the Floo Network, whether it’s the owls; she’s taking over in terms of monitoring all student activity when they’re not in class.
Andrew: I just wanted to mention one little thing: Ron says, “Hark who’s talking.” I didn’t know what that meant when I was a kid. Definitely some British slang.
Laura: Isn’t it like, “Look who’s talking”?
Andrew: Exactly.
Laura: Okay.
Andrew: But “hark.”
Eric: Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
Andrew: [tearfully] I don’t understand.
Laura: It sounds very Shakespearean, I will say.
Andrew: Yes. Yes, it does.
Micah: It sounds more like Percy than Ron. “Hark” is… I don’t know. Maybe that’s just me, character-wise.
Andrew: Maybe he picked it up from his brother.
Micah: Maybe.
Andrew: He wants to sound fancy every once in a while.
Micah: Yeah. All right, let’s get to the Umbridge Suck count.
Andrew: So for Educational Decree Number 24, that’s definitely one.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Andrew: For suggesting the Strengthening Solution should be removed from the syllabus. I thought that was pretty bad.
Eric: Ugh.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Andrew: Holding off on giving the Gryffindor Quidditch team permission to practice. We didn’t talk about that too much today, but wow. That is just so blatantly BS. There’s absolutely no reason.
Eric: Right, she approves Slytherin right away.
Andrew: They should all be approved right away.
Eric: They should. They should, because they’re regular teams; the House points is tied into it. It’s too valuable to lose. But she tells Angelina that she needs time to think about it for Gryffindor, and that is such a blatant… ugh… favoritism.
Andrew: Yeah. And then are we deducting a point for Micah’s thought?
Micah: Well, I have a couple other suggestions here…
Andrew: Oh, go ahead.
Micah: … that would probably counteract the deduction.
Andrew: [laughs] The negative one.
Micah: I would say for putting Trelawney on probation.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Micah: Unless we feel strongly that she should have been put on probation.
Andrew: Ooh.
Eric: Yeah, it’s just a scare tactic, and Umbridge is spreading this fear and really contributing to Trelawney’s lack of wellbeing, so I would say so.
Andrew: I guess the question is, is she doing it because she genuinely believes that Trelawney is a bad teacher? Or is she doing it just because she’s Umbridge?
Eric: Well, she’s doing it. I doubt there’s ever been a process for probation that’s been readily enforced when teachers aren’t living up to standards, so it’s totally Umbridge being Umbridge.
Andrew: So then I would say add one to the suck count.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Micah: All right. And then one more, which was for Umbridge… if Umbridge had not enacted Educational Decree Number 24, it would never have caused Draco to say what he said and put Neville into that state of mind. So everybody loves Neville. I have to give her another suck count for that.
Eric: Okay, and that can be erased by your crediting her with…
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: If you want.
Laura: There you go.
Andrew: So one, two, three, four, five, minus one. So it looks like we’re up to 32 times Umbridge has sucked.
Eric: Man.
Micah: All right.
Laura: My goodness. We have so much book left, so many more opportunities to suck.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Connecting the Threads
Laura: We do have a few threads to connect, though. So I thought it was really interesting in this chapter that Sirius suggests the idea of the DA holding their meetings in the Shrieking Shack, because the trio first enters the Shrieking Shack after Sirius drags Ron into it. This is also Prisoner of Azkaban Chapter 17.
Andrew and Eric: Wow.
Eric: Love a good throwback.
[Micah laughs]
Laura: Just beautiful, just beautiful. And then Chapter 17 of Prisoner of Azkaban ends with Snape revealing himself from under Harry’s Invisibility Cloak, and then this Chapter 17 of Order of the Phoenix ends with Umbridge’s hand appearing in the fire, trying to snatch Sirius, both cases in which enemies emerge in order to expose Sirius. Then we also learn about Snape’s Defense Against the Dark Arts aspirations and his envy of people who hold the position. So we find out at the end of Prisoner of Azkaban that Snape is the one who’s responsible for outing Lupin as a werewolf, which is the reason why he has to leave his job. And then we find out in this chapter that he has applied for this job numerous times over the years. This definitely lends a lot of context to maybe why Snape had so much animosity towards Lupin, apart from all of the childhood trauma that he endured at the hands of the Marauders.
MVP of the Week
Andrew: Okay, it’s time now for our MVP of the Week. Oh, wait, this has new music too. Are you all ready? Okay, I don’t know how we’re going to intro this, how we’re going to do this going forward. So it’s time for our MVP of the Week!
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Andrew: Ohhh boy! Look out!
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: In this corner…
Micah: Oh, wow.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: I’m going to give mine to Sirius for ducking the hands; that was impressive, because if he was caught, those hands would have been very uncomfortable on his neck, and maybe he would have died. So good job, Sirius.
Laura: I’m giving mine to Professor Grubbly-Plank. Not only is she able to take care of Hedwig, but she’s also the one who really tips Harry off to this idea that his communications might be monitored.
Micah: I’m going to give my MVP to Hedwig for taking one for the team due to Harry’s inability to listen to what McGonagall tells him.
Eric: And I’m giving mine to Fred and George. Hermione can’t find a single rule that they’re breaking after they expand their enterprise. [laughs] They’re making money, and Hermione can’t stop them, so good for them, yeah. It’s a shame.
Rename the Chapter
Andrew: Now let’s rename the chapter. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 17, “Hark the Toad, Never More.”
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Eric: Wow. That’s the most Shakespearean of all titles.
Micah: A little Edgar Allen Poe. A little Shakespeare.
Laura: Also a little bit of Poe in there?
Eric: Oh yeah, a little Poe. There you go.
Andrew: I just needed to use “Hark” and I was thinking “Hark the raven,” you know?
Eric: Hark the Craven.
Laura: I went with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 17, “Big Brother Is Watching You.”
Micah: Similar to Laura, I went with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 17…
[“Every Breath You Take” by The Police plays]
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Classic soft rock.
Andrew: That is “Every Breath You Take” by Micah.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: He wrote a song just for today.
Micah: Yep.
Eric: I named it Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix Chapter 17, “Much Ado About Barfing,” because that’s what Fred and George are doing in the common room in front of everybody, and it’s disgusting, but funny.
Andrew: If you have any feedback about today’s episode or our chapter analysis, send it on into MuggleCast@gmail.com. You can write to us or send us a voice memo that way. You can also call us 1-920-3-MUGGLE.
Quizzitch
Andrew: It’s time for Quizzitch!
Eric: Last week’s question was: Who visits Harry in History of Magic? And we were right…
Micah: Hedwig.
Eric: … when we said it was Hedwig. Yes, Micah.
Andrew: Good job, Micah.
Eric: Good job, Micah. Very, very good job.
Micah: My MVP of the Week.
Eric: We actually had some really good turnout in terms of people answering this question. It’s not likely for Harry to get visitors, so I’m glad everybody seemed to remember this moment. But the winning answers were submitted by Ryan Nolan, Annika, Steph, Riley, Prami, Alexandria, Caleb, Danny, William, ReeseWithoutHerSpoon, Cat’s Pajamas, Count Ravioli, Caleb, Matthew, Two Beers, Joseph, Stephanie, Stacy, Christina, Jason, Michael Not Eric, and others. Congratulations to everyone who got correct answer over on Twitter. And next week’s question… we need music for Quizzitch. Why do you guys get music segments for all the other…?
Micah: Go pick it out, man.
Andrew: Micah picked out those songs. Pick out your own.
Eric: Okay. It’s going to be like the Jeopardy theme.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: This week’s question: What spell does Gryffindor use to help them practice at Quidditch? So next Quizzitch question has to do with Quidditch.
Andrew: Okay. How meta.
Eric: Yeah. Submit your answers to us on Twitter using hashtag Quizzitch over on MuggleCast, at @MuggleCast.
Andrew: You can also follow us on Instagram and Facebook; username MuggleCast there as well. You will get Throwback Thursday clips, you will get show previews, so thank you for following us on social media. Before we wrap up today, we just want to let everybody know that we will be off next week. We will miss you, but we have a couple of things going on, so we will not have a new episode out. However, we will be releasing a new bonus MuggleCast in the days ahead over at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. Micah, what are we going to be talking about?
Micah: We are going to be talking about Dolores Jane Umbridge. Lot of interesting information on her over on WizardingWorld.com. We get her backstory, her rise to power within the Ministry… a lot of good stuff to talk about that lets us know why she is the person that she is in the Harry Potter series. But I will just say, I love the fact that I am coming to Chicago next week and both of you will not be there.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: Eric, this is the second time in a row this year I will be in Chicago and you will not be there.
Eric: I know.
Andrew: He’s avoiding you, obviously.
Micah: Yeah, clearly.
Eric: But Andrew and I will be in LA. [laughs]
Andrew: Right, I’m going to be learning about podcasting. Eric is going to be learning about Doctor Who. Yeah, so we’re busy nerding out over here on the West Coast, baby.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: All right.
Andrew: But yeah, we reference this piece written by J.K. Rowling about Umbridge a lot, and it was actually originally published on Potter-No-More. Luckily, it lives on on WizardingWorld.com, and since we reference it so much, we’re going to go through it, talk about the details and how it applies to our analysis of Order of the Phoenix. So again, that’ll be available at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. You get lots of bonus content there. Somebody wrote to us the other day; they said, “Will I have access to all of the previous audio content if I pledge now?” And I said, “Heck, yeah!” We have four years of content there now…
Micah: Wow.
Andrew: … so you can check it all out by going to Patreon.com/MuggleCast. In addition to all those installments of bonus MuggleCast, you will also be eligible for this year’s physical gift. You will also be able to tune in to our weekly livestreams, which we do on Saturday or Sunday morning. You get this raw, unedited behind-the-scenes look at the show, because we’re putting together the show, and trying to make it through each episode.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: So you can tune into that every weekend, and you can also participate. We have a little chatroom going on as we are recording. Thanks to everybody who is joining us today. All right, that does it for this week’s episode of MuggleCast. Thanks so much for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: We’ll see you in two weeks. Goodbye.
Eric, Laura, and Micah: Bye.