Episode #547: The Rise and Fall of Severus Snape and Lily Potter
Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #547, The Rise and Fall of Severus Snape and Lily Potter
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the wizarding world fandom. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: And on this week’s episode, we are going to recognize the January birthdays of both Lily Potter and Severus Snape by having an in-depth conversation about the complexities of their relationship, and then towards the end we’ll unveil another MuggleCast exclusive for everybody: the best pickup lines Snape used on Lily. And to assist us with today’s discussion, we are joined by a longtime member of the Harry Potter fandom, a MuggleCast listener himself, a Harry Potter podcaster himself, Irvin! Welcome to the show, Irvin.
Irvin Khaytman: Hello! Yes, thank you so much for having me on. I’m so psyched to be here.
Andrew: Awesome. Well, Irvin came prepared; he’s got his… not only did he bring notes to the discussion, but he’s also sporting a MuggleCast T-shirt. He’s wearing… and I love this hat, the Hogwarts Express cap from the Wizarding World theme park.
Micah: Choo-choo.
Andrew: Looking good, looking good. Oh, and he’s got the MuggleCast mug! Right.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: He does.
Andrew: He brought it all tonight.
Irvin: I’m all decked out.
Laura: Do I dare say that Irvin is better prepared than we are for today’s episode?
Andrew and Eric: Yes.
Laura: Okay.
Eric: Consistently.
Laura: I think it’s accurate. [laughs]
Irvin: It’s humbling. I’m pretty sure y’all said that the last time I was on. It was the History of Magic: The Exhibition book; we were reviewing that, and I showed up having read it and made notes about the pages and the reveals and everything. This is just my Ravenclaw self, how I do.
Andrew: [laughs] That was Episode 342 that Irvin was on.
Micah: Oh, wow.
Andrew: Yeah, as one of our Slug Club patrons. And one reason we’re actually having you on today, because not only all those things that I just read off, but Irvin just published a book about Dumbledore, and it’s called Dumbledore: The Life and Lies of Hogwarts’s Renowned Headmaster.
Irvin: Yes.
Andrew: And he’s holding it right now. We’re actually going to give copies away at the end of today’s episode. Tell us about the book, Irvin.
Irvin: Sure, so I’ve been a columnist over at MuggleNet for over 10 years, and I just kept writing more and more about Dumbledore; he’s the character who fascinated me more than anything. So I finally decided to just put it all together in a book, just to figure out the whole story of what he was up to behind the scenes of the Harry Potter books, what he knew, when he knew it, what he planned, and how it always went miserably wrong. I published it as a physical book back in 2018 with another publisher; that indie publisher went belly up, as indie publishers tend to do, and so a new publisher expressed interest in the rights and just reissued it as a fancy pants hardcover this October.
Andrew: Oh, fantastic. It is fancy pants. I mean, the cover is beautiful; it’s a gorgeous cover.
Irvin: Thank you very much. I remember when I walked into Barnes & Noble and picked it up, I was like, “Oh my God, it’s so hefty. It feels like such a book!”
Andrew: Oh, you can buy it at Barnes & Noble? That’s so cool. Good for you. Damn.
Irvin: Yes, you can buy it absolutely everywhere books are sold: Amazon, bookshop, Barnes & Noble, your local independent bookstore…
Andrew: Yes.
Irvin: … and all the links and all the information is at the website LifeAndLiesOfDumbledore.com.
Andrew: Fantastic.
Laura: I love that.
Andrew: LifeAndLiesOfDumbledore.com. [laughs] Great domain name.
Irvin: Thank you very much.
Laura: I have to ask, Irvin, I have to ask: What is that feeling like? I mean, walking into a big chain bookstore and being able to pick up a copy of your own book?
Irvin: It’s kind of like the feeling you read about in Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry wins the Quidditch Cup, where he wished there was a Dementor around; he felt he could have produced a perfect Patronus.
Laura: Oh, that is so perfect. I love that.
Andrew: Well, congrats, Irvin, on the rerelease, I guess we can call it, of Dumbledore: The Life and Lies of Hogwarts’s Renowned Headmaster.
Irvin: Thank you very much. I call it Dumbledore: The Life and Lies. That’s really enough title for anyone.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Oh, okay. All right, all right. Yeah, it’s so interesting – tell me if we should cut this – but publishers love doing this long subtitle to really give you a full description. [laughs] It’s a big trend.
Irvin: Oh, do they ever. The title of the book has been an open conversation through all of my publishers throughout the process.
Andrew: Oh, wow.
Irvin: It was actually originally published as The Life and Lies of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, because I thought that was clever.
[Andrew laughs]
Irvin: And my new publisher agreed that it was clever, but brought up the very good point that the keyword of “Dumbledore” was so far in the title, search engines weren’t even picking it up.
Andrew: SEO. Very important. So before we get to our discussion on Snape and Lily, we do have a couple of items to discuss concerning this show, actually. Believe it or not, everybody, our Patreon is turning six years old this month. Where has the time gone? It’s truly changed the show. Before the Patreon, we actually… long story short, we were doing weekly episodes for years, we slowed down, and then we wanted to ramp back up again, but we needed support from listeners, so we said, “Can you help us out?” And listeners turned out big time, and we’ve been rocking and rolling ever since, both with the show and the Patreon. As we enter the new year, we have a couple new benefits to share, and we are adjusting one of our existing benefits. So first of all, here’s a new benefit for Dumbledore’s Army level patrons and higher, meaning those who pledge $5 or more per month: We’re calling this Fandom Lookback, and throughout the year, the hosts will be sharing treasured fandom items from their past and shooting these things and showing them off on video, maybe just in podcast form, maybe sometimes writing – I think they’re primarily going to be video reviews, though – be it a signed book, a rare collectible, or a wholesome piece of MuggleCast history. Lots of things. We all have so many things from over the years, we want to share them with everybody, so we’ll be recording these and then posting them on Patreon as part of this new Fandom Lookback feature. Like our AMAs were last year, this is going to be a limited time benefit for 2022, so we’re running this through the year. Second, we are adjusting our physical gift offerings. So since the start of our Patreon in 2016, we have offered a different physical gift at the $5 pledge level each year, like Irvin showed off the mug, for example. But in that time, the cost of producing and mailing physical goods has risen, as a lot of people may know. And since our Patreon has to also support running the show, we are now moving the traditional physical gift to the $10 level. However, at the $5 level, we are introducing something brand new called the MuggleCast Collector’s Club, and each year for the next five years, we will send those who are pledged at the $5 level or higher a few new and limited time stickers. And we will also be sending you what we’re calling for now a Club Card, and it’s probably going to be the size of a standard piece of paper and it’s going to have a few dozen empty sticker slots on it, and then over the next five years, you can try to fill in as many of these slots as possible to have the ultimate MuggleCast collection. And we’re going to put a lot of effort into these stickers; they’re going to be really nicely made. We’re actually designing the stickers with our longtime MuggleCast designer Anna, who made our latest album art. And these stickers will only be made and sent out once, and they’re going to reference the show’s history as well as make inside jokes and references to the current years. And we’re also going to occasionally offer a challenge, and for completing one of these challenges, you will receive a sticker for your club card. So do you guys remember…? Okay, I’m going to be a geek for a moment. Surprise, it’s a Harry Potter podcast. I used to collect quarters.
Eric: The state quarters?
Irvin: The state quarters!
Andrew: Yes!
Laura: I do remember.
Andrew: That’s how I envision this. It’s like collecting the state quarters, and you get a board and you pop the quarters into the US map, so that’s kind of what this is like. And the Club Card is going to have a unique design as well. So more details to come, but ultimately, we see this as a fun collecting game for the next few years. More details to come, but in the meantime, if you want to pledge and receive any of these benefits throughout the year, Patreon.com/MuggleCast to get this and many more benefits. And by the way, we already know what we’re doing for $10 patrons this year in terms of a physical gift; it’s going to be a pretty good one, so stay tuned. And we have some exciting social media updates.
Laura: Andrew and I are going to be doing an AMA on the MuggleCast Instagram on January 26 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern/5:00 p.m. Pacific. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Y’all may have tuned in for the AMA that Micah and Eric did most recently; they had a great time. I think we’re anticipating that Micah at the very least might show up to our AMA to troll us a little bit.
[Andrew sighs]
Micah: Never.
Laura: [laughs] But these are so much fun. It’s just a great opportunity for us to get to know our audience on the Instagram side of things and to take y’all’s questions, and I had a great time the last time I did one of these for another podcast we work on, so we’re looking forward to it.
Andrew: Yes. Again, that’s January 26 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. Follow us; we are @MuggleCast on Instagram. We have two more pieces of social media news: First of all, there is now a poll on our social media channels to find out which Hogwarts House you’re in. This is running for a few days. Last week, we spoke about figuring out – or was it during the AMA? I can’t remember – that we did on Patreon. We want to see what Hogwarts Houses our listeners are in. Is there one House that really stands out, leads the pack? We’re going to figure that out finally, so check that out on our social media channels. And also, big announcement: We are jumping in on the TikTok game, y’all. [laughs]
Laura: Oh my God.
Andrew: Our new social media manager, Chloé, has a lot of great ideas, and we’re going to take a crack at it. Her and I actually just attended a webinar today about making a TikTok for podcasters. So our username on TikTok is @MuggleCastPod – follow us now – and we’ll see how it goes. Laura, I liked your “Oh my God,” because that felt a little scared, and I’m scared. [laughs]
Laura: No, I’m not scared at all. It’s anxious excitement, I would describe it as. I’m a big fan of TikTok, for anyone who doesn’t know; I waste countless hours of my time very frequently scrolling through TikTok, and I’ve really wanted our podcast to take the plunge into the world of TikTok for quite some time. But as what we would call an elder Millennial, I’m not the best versed in how to manage a TikTok, so I’m super excited that we have Chloé helping us do this, because she’s great and I think it’s going to be awesome and a ton of fun.
Micah: Wait, who has @MuggleCast?
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Well, that’s… yeah, so I tried to get @MuggleCast earlier…
Micah: Do we need to send a cease and desist?
Andrew: I mean, if we owned a trademark on the name. [laughs] There is a private account called @MuggleCast with three followers.
Eric: This is just like Instagram all over again.
Laura: I know.
Eric: Do you remember how we contacted that person or something and had to oust them?
Andrew: Yes. If you’re out there, owner of the MuggleCast TikTok @MuggleCast, please, we would like to have that username. But in the meantime, we are going with @MuggleCastPod, so stay tuned. Wow, we already have five followers. I guess it’s people listening live on the Patreon.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Again, that’s @MuggleCastPod on TikTok.
Main Discussion: Severus Snape and Lily Potter
Laura: All right, well, we’re going to jump into our main discussion today, and as promised, we’re going to talk about the very complicated friendship – and unrequited love on the part of one party – of Lily Evans and Severus Snape. Now, what I really appreciate about this, their birthdays are both in January. Snape is January 9, and Lily is January 30. And Eric, I believe you pulled together some astrological background on these birthdays and what characteristics would be associated with people born in these timeframes.
Eric: These just keep on giving, these whole Zodiac things. We do character discussions; I’m blown away because it really does seem like no birthday was just an afterthought when these were being created and revealed on the JKRowling.com website or anything like that. It’s just they’re so interesting, and there’s always something that we, I think, deeply can connect to the characters.
Laura: I think so too. So there are a couple of things that I think you bolded here that stick out to you about Capricorns, right? So Snape being born January 9 is a Capricorn. Believe it or not, even though she’s born in the same month, Lily is an Aquarius, born on January 30.
Eric: Ah, that cusp. Or that cut-off.
Andrew: Aquarius!
Laura: I know.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: Some of the highlights we have here are that Capricorns love the moments when their merits are being recognized and rewarded…
Eric: Snape.
Laura: [laughs] … and they hate having to deal with ignorance or having to postpone their plans.
Eric: “If you aren’t a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: What about this sticks out to you as relevant to Snape’s, I guess we could call it, obsession with Lily?
Eric: As it pertains to Lily, I think that it would just have to be that Lily is the opposite of ignorance. She’s with it, she’s smart, she’s competent, she’s capable. I think that’s pretty much what he digs about her, as well as probably her looks. She is someone that is Snape’s intellectual equal, if not superior. I think he sees it too. She’s just the kind of person that you would want to engage with, and especially the kind of person you’d want as your best friend.
Laura: Right.
Micah: I was going to say, Laura, the next bolded text you have here would probably apply most directly in terms of Snape’s relationship with Lily.
Laura: Yes, I’m so glad you point this out. So it says that Capricorns, when they decide to commit, they do it for a lifetime, and although extremely complex and often problematic, we have to give Snape this one. He definitely commits to Lily for his life, even years after her death.
Andrew: You could say he committed… always.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: And you can conquer the heart of a Capricorn by being an honest and supportive partner. And although they weren’t romantic, I think that we can recognize that Lily was this as a friend to Snape. She never lied to him, and she was always ready to tell him the hard truths, maybe ones that he wasn’t ready to hear.
Eric: Yeah, it was when she stopped being able to be a supportive partner that his heart broke and things turned dark. So yeah, definitely fits Snape up to a tee. I think the more you research Capricorns, the more you can find. Interestingly, the astrological symbol for Capricorn is the goat. I thought that was really interesting. But it has to do with stubbornness.
Micah: I’m glad that it was brought up because I thought for a minute we were going to get through this whole conversation about Capricorn and not mention the tie to the goat.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I wonder when Aberforth was born.
Andrew: But is there anything there? Yeah.
Micah: I was going to look that up. Is it worth seeing when Aberforth was born? But the stubbornness aspect…
Irvin: I don’t think we have a birthday for him.
Laura: I was going to say, I think I remember us trying to find that before and realizing that there’s no birthday.
Andrew: Well, we know what we need to do.
Laura: We can do like Jacob. We can give him a birthday.
Andrew: When’s National Goat Day?
Micah: There has to be.
[Everyone laughs]
Irvin: Have y’all given Albus Dumbledore a birthday yet? Because I really need him to have one.
Andrew: He doesn’t have one either?
Irvin: No!
Andrew and Micah: Wow.
Irvin: I kept looking for something. I was like, “I want to have a book launch party or something, and there’s no birthday for Dumbledore.”
Andrew: That’s so messed up.
Eric: Albus should be one of those February 29 birthdays that only occur every four years. So when J.K. Rowling said he was 150, she really meant he was 40 or…
Irvin: 600 years old?
Eric: [laughs] Yeah, yeah. That could explain all the math in Harry Potter.
Andrew: So National Dairy Goat Awareness Week… [laughs]
Micah: Week?
Andrew: … falls on November 24. Micah, that should be exciting to you; a whole week on dairy goats.
Micah: Yeah, okay.
Andrew: Dairy Goat Awareness Week, November 24. Mark it down.
Micah: All right, well, that is Aberforth’s assigned birthday now. November the 24th.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Which would make him what in astrological signs? But in terms of Snape being a Capricorn, definitely the stubbornness aspect stands or shines through.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: He’d be Sagittarius.
Laura: Oh my gosh, that’s my sign. So Aberforth is a Sagittarius?
Eric: Kindred spirits. But it always changes on like, the 22nd, so I think he just got in.
Andrew: That’s right. Yeah, November 22 – December 21.
Eric: The thing about Snape and this whole being recognized and rewarded, I go straight to Prisoner of Azkaban when he thinks Sirius is about to be kissed by the Dementors and he’s talking about… well, he’s talking to the Minister, and the Minister is like, “Yeah, Order of Merlin, second class, I should think; first if I can wrangle it!” And it’s like, “Oh, yeah, here’s a man who is just absolutely the most God awful… he’s going to accept those rewards and he’s going to boast about how accomplished he is, even though he has reasonable doubt now, or reason to believe that his own assumptions about Sirius Black are wrong based on that brief time in the Shrieking Shack.” So he’s a bad dude.
Micah: Speaking of goats, do we think Snape is the GOAT of the series? Now, you could look at that one of two ways…
Andrew: Greatest of all time?
Eric: Wow. That’s a great question.
Micah: Well, greatest of all time, or is he just the goat of the series, meaning that he’s the one who has just been manipulated to no end by Dumbledore?
Irvin: The second one.
Micah: Irvin?
Irvin: I would definitely go with the second one.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Our resident Dumbledore expert.
Eric: Do you feel a lot of sympathy for Snape as a result of what your man Dumbledore did to him, or their interactions?
Irvin: More than I expected to, honestly. I never liked Snape; I think he’s a terrible person, but as I was working on my book and I saw how he really got screwed over by Dumbledore every which way, I did end up feeling bad for him, and I did not see that coming.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: At times it almost feels like Snape is not given the ability to recover by Dumbledore. It feels like Dumbledore just assumes Snape is already broken, so he’s like, “Hey, since you’re already broke, I’m just going to have you do all of these things and not completely clue you in on my plans until the very last minute.”
Eric and Irvin: Yeah.
Eric: That’s evident in rereading the Prince’s Tale chapter from Deathly Hallows.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Eric: It’s just one thing after the other, because it’s presented that way, but it’s not a false depiction of reality. I think Dumbledore really was that pressing. He’s like, “You’re the only person who could be doing what you’re doing.” He barely says thanks.
Irvin: Well, because almost uniquely among all of Dumbledore’s allies and acolytes, Snape really has nothing to lose, no one to live for, so that makes him a very valuable agent.
Eric: That’s a good point.
Laura: True.
Eric: And personal feelings about the character aside, he’s the linchpin of the entire Harry Potter series. I don’t think… you could argue about the prophecy and how that shaped events, but without Snape, the resolution to everything would never have been found or discovered, and without his many years of hard work double agenting, Harry never would have lived to see his 17th birthday, let alone his 18th.
Laura: Right. Well, shifting focus back to talk about Lily’s sign, Lily is an Aquarius. A really, I think, important highlight that you found here, Eric, is Aquariuses are caring free thinkers with great supervisory skills. They enjoy having to fight for a cause and having close mates around. They hate boring settings and being disconcerted by other people. Wow, if that isn’t Lily to a tee.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah. It’s a bit creepy. This is spooky, every time we do these. But I think that, again, that’s the bane of her existence, this idea that Snape disconcerts her by who he’s choosing to hang out with. If you want the answer to what ended their friendship and ended their potential of a relationship, it’s exactly that. But she wasn’t about to let it go; she is fighting for the cause of good, and Snape is hanging around with real dark people, and that’s really concerning for her. And she can’t let that go, because ultimately – she points this out during the Prince’s Tale – but Snape’s choice in who he hangs out with is the same as choosing to do the same Dark magic stuff on some of the classmates that his friends do. It’s very close. And I don’t think he sees it, and I don’t think he ever sees it until it’s too late, she’s dead, but ultimately, Lily’s personality was not one that could easily forgive the choices – or the lack of choices – Snape was making in their teenage years, which is when they had the potential for romance.
Laura: Right. And I think we have to call out there, too; a prime example of this, of Lily being able to maintain her values and know what she thinks is right but also act on them even in complicated situations, is when James and Sirius, primarily, were bullying Snape. At that point, Snape was already hanging out with types like Mulciber and Avery, who Lily didn’t like – she’d already told him that she found these types very dark and very suspicious – and even still, she wasn’t about to let somebody bully somebody else. It didn’t matter if it was Snape or if it was someone else that she didn’t know at all. She stood up for what was right.
Eric: In this Zodiac explanation of Aquarius, I also found maybe the reason James and Lily work as a relationship, as a romantic pairing. I wasn’t expecting to find this.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: But it says that they’re attracted to people… because regardless of how I feel about Snape, James, and Lily, it’s another question, right? James, we’re told, matured later in life, but we don’t see it on paper, so who knows? But this says that Aquariuses are attracted to people who can accept their eccentricities and keep up with them. You can conquer the heart of Aquarius if you master the art of revealing who you are step by step so they never get bored. I think that alone speaks volumes about Lily’s first impressions of James and how coinciding with his maturing, supposed maturing, he gradually shows himself to be the real hero, a genuinely good person who maybe was just raised weird around dark arts, and she’s able to fall in love because he can keep up with her. I think there’s several lines in the Harry Potter books about what a great team Lily and James really were, what a formidable group; I mean, they thrice defied Voldemort. And so it was really interesting to see that there was a puzzle aspect to Aquarius, where she likes the slowly unfurling reality of James’s character being less intolerable to her, mostly coinciding with Snape’s gradual reveal that he’s maybe not such a good guy.
Laura: And it’s funny, too, because when you think about a character who would be able to keep up with Lily intellectually, to me I think of Snape before I think of James. Not to say that James doesn’t get there – he obviously does – but early on, I think Snape had the advantage, and it just so happens that he made some bad choices that took that advantage away from him.
Eric: Snape is the one that tells Lily she’s a witch. They grew up on the same block, or just around the creek. But it’s a real advantage I think that Snape could have had there.
Irvin: I think Lily, kind of like Hermione, isn’t necessarily looking for someone who can keep up with her intellectually in a romantic partner; that she wants someone who’s different and who challenges her. So just like Hermione goes for Ron, Lily would go for James, because otherwise, even with Snape out of the picture, I feel like she would have gone for Lupin if she just wanted the brains.
Micah: Ooh.
Eric and Laura: That’s a fair point.
Laura: And there have been histories over time… I mean, especially when the books were not finished, there were a lot of fans who wondered if there might have been a romantic history between Lily and Lupin, I think particularly because of the way Lupin is written in the Prisoner of Azkaban film.
Irvin and Micah: Yeah.
Eric: Right, there was that quote.
Laura: Yeah, and people were like, “Is this a sign?”
Micah: “She was there at the time for me,” that was the one, right?
Andrew: There you go.
Irvin: Because Jo also said in an interview back then that there were things in the Prisoner of Azkaban movie that weren’t in the books but were spot on in terms of foreshadowing stuff in the books, and everyone was like, “Is that it? Is that it? Did we get it?”
Laura: Right.
Eric: Yeah, so that line about Lily seeing the best in others when they couldn’t even see it in themselves, we’re like, “Oh man, her and Lupin,” but apparently, it really meant she and Snape because of the way that she continued to give him chances as they grew up.
Micah: Well, just to wrap up the Zodiac part of this, I did look up the relationship between Capricorns and Aquariuses from a romantic standpoint, and it flat out says – at least if I’m trusting Google – they won’t be too compatible. When it comes to intimacy and romance, Capricorn is very traditional, practical, and low-key; Aquarius, free-spirited, open to trying new things, and fast.
Andrew: They should have seen it in the stars.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Did anybody ask a centaur? I feel like you should have your… even teen relationships at Hogwarts, you should have it blessed by the local centaurs.
Andrew: Yes.
[Irvin laughs]
Laura: Go to Firenze.
Andrew: Teens today would. They would check in with the centaurs.
Eric: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Laura: I think so too.
Andrew: JY, who’s listening live, said Dumbledore’s birthday should be on International Sock Day.
Irvin: Oh my God, it should. Yes.
Laura: There we go. When is that?
Andrew: I’m Googling it. Of course it exists, December 4.
Laura: I see Dumbledore as a December baby. That works.
Andrew: Yeah, born close to Christmas. He is Jesus, in a way, so it makes a lot of sense.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: And Voldemort is also a week away from Christmas.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Laura: I like that.
Micah: Or National Astronomy Tower Day.
[Andrew and Irvin laugh]
Eric: Oh my God.
Laura: Micah, we’ve already got some dark humor coming at the end of the episode…
Micah: We do.
Laura: … so I think we need to just keep it measured how much of that we’re doling out.
Micah: Who added that?
Laura: I wonder who.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: But looking back now, let’s rewind all the way to the beginning to the origins of the Lily and Snape friendship. We know just based on excerpts that we see from the Prince’s Tale chapter that Lily did develop knowledge of Snape hanging out with Death Eaters prior to him calling her a Mudblood, so I’m wondering how long do we think this was going on? How long was she willing to tolerate this while still telling her friend the truth? Had they started growing apart as a result of this?
Micah: Irvin knows.
Irvin: Well, yeah, I did find a quote from Jo on the topic. It’s from the 2007 live chat she did for Bloomsbury where someone named Nithya asked, “Lily detested Mulciber, Avery. If Snape really loved her, why didn’t he sacrifice their company for her sake?” And Jo replied, “Well, that is Snape’s tragedy. Given his time over again, he would not have become a Death Eater, but like many insecure, vulnerable people (like Wormtail), he craved membership of something big and powerful, something impressive. He wanted Lily and he wanted Mulciber too. He never really understood Lily’s aversion; he was so blinded by his attraction to the dark side, he thought she would find him impressive if he became a real Death Eater.”
Eric: That’s a pretty clear answer.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: When we have these discussions, I try to think about inserting ourselves into these situations and what we would do, and I feel like one reason breaking up with these bad people was difficult was because Snape was friends with the group before they became Death Eaters.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: And when you fall into a friend group and then they start going a certain way, maybe you start seeing them through rose-colored glasses, or maybe you want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you’re in denial that they’re going this way, so I can completely understand why Snape didn’t completely cut ties from them when Lily was asking him to.
Micah: I didn’t know Snape wanted Mulciber. This is news to me.
[Irvin and Laura laugh]
Micah: Just like he wanted Lily.
Andrew: Wanted Muulciber? No, not in that way.
Micah: Oh,
Eric: “Never Sever Us 2.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Prequel, coming soon.
Laura: Mulciber Boogaloo. [laughs]
Andrew: It’s a figure of speech.
Micah: I guarantee there’s fanfiction. Right, Laura?
Irvin: 100% is out there.
Andrew: What Boogaloo, Laura?
Laura: Mulciber Boogalooo.
Andrew: Oh. [laughs]
Laura: I had an interesting question about this, because I saw your note, Andrew, about how it’s hard when you fall into a group that you consider to be your friends and they start doing things that you disagree with, or maybe they start doing things that you’re willing to go along with because it’s the group think mentality, and I think about Snape growing up in this abusive Household and think that Snape as a child probably had no idea how to actually make real friends, because he didn’t know what it was like to be treated well by people, except for Lily. She seems to be the only person that’s ever treated him like he’s worth a damn. So this is also, I think, part of Snape’s tragedy, that he didn’t have the tools to form meaningful relationships with people, and instead, these relationships were probably based on Dark Arts ability, respect around academic prowess for Snape, so he’s probably not best friends with these people in the way that he describes himself as being best friends with Lily.
Eric: That’s a great point. And it’s said that… I think Dumbledore says, “Voldemort doesn’t have friends.” The whole Death Eaters, they’re not friends. They are gathered together around a purpose, which many often times has hate at its core, and distrust and intolerance, but they’re not friends. And so I do wonder what those relationships with Snape and his peers were like in Slytherin House, but I think ultimately, Snape wanted something of his own. He needed something of his own, that kind of respect you’d get for being real good at something a little darker than usual, the respect you get from your classmates. It’s the only thing Snape had in the off hours whenever he wasn’t able to roam the castle with Lily.
Irvin: Well, also, we don’t really have much evidence that Snape wasn’t into what Mulciber and Avery were into. He clearly was very into the Dark Arts, we hear from multiple sources, and he’s an expert in it, and growing up in an abusive household with a very bad relationship with his Muggle father, you could see why he wouldn’t like Muggles. I think for him, it was respecting Lily that was the exception not putting up with Mulciber and Avery.
Laura: Right.
Eric: That’s a great point.
Laura: Such a great point. And I’m wondering, putting ourselves, to Andrew’s point, in the shoes of this scenario, have we ever found ourselves having to end a friendship potentially because the person one way or another went down a negative path? Because I think it’s very easy to commentate on the literature from the outside and say, “Well, why would Snape be friends with these people? He should have just dumped them and joined the good side.” Micah, to your question that you just private messaged us, yes. [laughs] I think that does count.
Micah: I think it’s a very real example, though, and I won’t get into specifics. I’ll just say that I think that anytime that there is very distinct differences in politics, that could certainly lead to friendships deteriorating as a result of that, and I think particularly over the course of the last five to six years.
Andrew: And also outside of politics, if you see a friend going down a certain path that you don’t agree with, maybe personal choices, life choices… this starts getting dark, but maybe drug and alcohol choices, and you just have to try to do what you can to push them down another path, but sometimes they won’t go that way and there’s no getting them back, as much as you try to help them and have other people help them.
Laura: Right.
Andrew: So yes, there are definitely situations that I’ve been in over my 32 years of seeing people go different directions, and you just do not agree with them. Of course, and to be clear, it’s okay if somebody goes a different direction in certain types of ways, but then there’s very harmful, dangerous ways, and when they go in that direction, that’s when it’s a problem.
Eric: And there’s really no… as a kid, you don’t have the awareness or ability – and in fact, even adults don’t either – to really understand all the psychological factors at play while your friend might be going off and wanting to party more, do more drugs, and you have a clearly defined comfort zone that rests outside of, speaking from personal experience. So I think that it’s real difficult to be a kid, and if I had the chance to relive teenage years, I really wouldn’t choose to do that because of all of the different directions we’re being pulled in when we are the same age that Snape and Lily were, and to make those kinds of hard decisions. But she has the choice made for her when Snape uses the slur on her, because if he’s using it on her, he’s using it on everyone else, and she says as much.
Micah: I think it does raise an interesting question, though, about Lily, because I don’t know that we get a whole lot of insight into how much she actually did try to sway Snape, and not to say that at 13/14/15 years old, that’s her responsibility. But in terms of trying to… like Andrew, you’re talking about if you see somebody going down a dark path, you might try and intervene; you might try and do something to help. I don’t know that we get a whole lot of background on if she really did try to sway Snape in the other direction, and part of that may have been impossible with the way that James and the others treated him.
Laura: Yeah, I’m not sure. I mean, we do get that one moment where Lily and Snape are walking together through a courtyard, I think, and she alludes to Mulciber having done something really cruel to her friend, Mary. She doesn’t say what it was, but there are a couple of moments like this, where she does call out “How can you hang out with these people when they’re doing things like that?” But to your point, Micah, it’s not like we see this peppered throughout the whole series, but I think we’re meant to assume that Lily was pretty vocal with Snape about her thoughts. Putting myself in the shoes of being a teenager and coming up with the closest scenario that I can think of to what Lily was dealing with with Snape, I had the experience of having male friends when I was younger who clearly did not respect women, and it’s really hard when you find yourself in the situation where you really love and truly do care about someone but you realize that they view you as an exception to something that they find less than them, right?
Eric: It’s a good opportunity to tell you you’re one of the cool ones, Laura.
Laura: That’s the thing. “You’re different. You’re not like the other girls.” And it’s like, “Well, if you say that to me, you’re actually exactly like every other guy. So please, piss off.” But no, I mean, I have had the experience of being told if something, I don’t know, undesirable happens that’s not the end of the world, but I’ve had the experience of being told, “Oh, man, my girlfriend would be losing her mind right now. She’d be freaking out. You’re being so cool about it.” And I kind of feel like that’s the real world representation of what’s happening between Lily and Snape. He really views her as an exception case to this class of people that he finds to be morally, intellectually inferior to himself, and it’s a really tricky situation when you find yourself being close friends with someone who thinks that way because you love them and you want to help pull them out of that mindset, but it does reach a point where you’ve done what you can. And to Lily’s point, Snape chose his path, she chose hers, and that’s the end.
Micah: And I think that’s reflected, though, in how Snape views Lily’s family. We have a question in here about “What does he think of her family?” Obviously, he uses the term “Mudblood” towards her in the series, but what does he make of her family? What does he make of Petunia? We know that they knew each other briefly.
Eric: He calls Petunia a Muggle to her face; she doesn’t know the word, but she knows what it means from his intonation. He revels in this, basically just throws it in her face, and Lily, who also can discern in that scene what it means, knows that simply this boy has called her sister this dirty name that’s going to hurt her more than he’s intending to, and she’s very protective of Petunia in that moment. But he goes too far; he consistently goes too far and he’s arrogant in doing so, and that’s a bit rough.
Irvin: I think it’s the difference between Lily being a Gryffindor and Snape being a Slytherin. Whereas Lily has that sense of chivalry that most Gryffindors do where if she sees someone who is hurting anyone else she’s like, “No, that’s wrong; you don’t hurt people,” and that’s why she calls out James and Sirius when they’re bullying Snape, Snape as a Slytherin, he doesn’t mind as long as you’re not hurting any of his people. So I think if Mulciber or Avery did anything to harm Lily, then Snape would have not had it, but as long as they’re messing with people he doesn’t care about, he doesn’t see what’s wrong with it.
Laura: That’s such a good point.
Eric: To the question of how hard Lily fought to sway Snape, I also think she wouldn’t have begged him or ever gotten down on her knees. She knows that he knows that what she thinks of what he’s doing is wrong, and she’s not about to say, “Oh, Sev, please, you can’t really like them, change your mind, change your mind.” They respect each other intellectually enough that simply her pointing it out and saying, “Hey, this is a low blow,” or “Hey, this is awful and I don’t like this” is really enough that if he truly cared in a healthy way, he would consider at least mounting an argument for why he needs to be friends with these people or hanging out with these people.
Laura: Right. And to your question, Micah, about how Snape feels about Lily’s family, we see – like Eric mentioned – examples early on in their friendship as 11-year-olds where he’s very dismissive. When Lily gets on the Hogwarts Express, she’s extremely upset because Petunia had just called her a freak, and we witness this really difficult exchange between sisters that made Lily cry on her first trip to Hogwarts, and Snape just says to her, “So what? She’s only a -” and then he caught himself right before he said “Muggle.” So it’s clear from the very start that he just does not, at this point, have the capability to humanize people of non-wizarding status.
Micah: But we’ve oftentimes on the show given certain characters a free pass when they’re 11 years old, or 12 years old…
Laura: Sure.
Micah: … and I think that that is only fair to do, and pass judgment on them as they get older. I’m thinking back to the conversation we had about Draco in particular, but certainly Snape’s record speaks for itself.
Laura: Yeah, unfortunately, it doesn’t get much better. [laughs] Something I wanted to call out, though, because there is an interesting contrast going on in this train compartment, when Lily and Snape are in the train compartment they find themselves with a couple of the future Marauders, James and Sirius, and Sirius says, “My whole family has been in Slytherin,” and James is like, “Oh man, I thought you seemed all right,” and Sirius, at the age of 11, says, “Eh, maybe I’ll break the family tradition.” So you have two examples of children that came from extremely abusive households, two examples of children that were kind of destined to go down the dark path based on their upbringing, and Sirius made the conscious choice at the age of 11 not to do that.
Eric: That’s a heck of a point.
Laura: Right. So not to say that we say Snape was doomed from this moment, but it is just interesting to see the different levels of maturity represented amongst these kids. Well, I think that brings us to a great point to start the next part of our discussion, which is Snape: nature versus nurture. So we know that a great deal of Snape’s initial dismissal of Muggles comes from his abusive Muggle father, as Irvin stated earlier. Kind of like we talked about in the discussion with Draco, at what point in Snape’s adolescence/young adulthood do we think that this was no longer an excuse?
Eric: That’s a tough question, but it would have to be once he gets to Hogwarts, because there is… even though you generally hang around with the people in your House, you still have classes with the other Houses. You’re still really shown the whole wide wizarding world of variety in terms of people and friendships that you could make. His own mother was in a club, Gobstones Club, which I bet was inter-House. So you have to think that once you’re introduced to the whole litany of different people, that is where you begin to take some kind of responsibility for your beliefs, because you’re in a situation where you’re surrounded by people who think a certain way. You have a choice to get out and change the tune a little bit, and you have the freedom to do so. Snape can’t really change how he feels or thinks when he’s at home because it’s such an oppressive, sad, terrible atmosphere, but when he’s at school, I think things start to change for him, or could have.
Andrew: And presumably, once you do enter Hogwarts you are being taught – maybe they don’t hit you over the head with it – but you’re being taught to accept everybody no matter what House they’re in.
Irvin: Not in the Slytherin common room you’re not.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Well, right, but I’m thinking Great Hall, professors just sort of… you would catch that kind of vibe, I hope.
Eric: Yeah, especially because the teachers are also the Heads of certain Houses and we’re in those Houses growing up at Hogwarts. You really get a sense of… I don’t think your favorite teacher has to be the one that’s also the Head of your House, even though with Draco and Snape that seems to be the case.
Andrew: They’re all sitting at the head of the Great Hall together getting along. It’s not like they’re up there fighting. Maybe they do behind the scenes, but not in front of the students.
Eric: Right.
Micah: It reminds me a bit of our conversation about Harry and Tom Riddle and how they grew up under similar circumstances and both being orphans, and Harry with the Dursleys, you can argue he was abused – verbally, physically, emotionally – and he turned out all right in the end. Not saying that Snape’s experience was the same, but you could draw some parallels, some comparisons between the two, and Snape chose to go down a dark path as Tom Riddle did; Harry chose not to. But I think it’s also about who you meet along the way. Snape had the opportunity with Lily, and he blew it. Harry chose Ron and Hermione, and things worked out okay.
Eric: The other comparison I want to draw between Snape and Harry is the baggy clothes. And it’s very heartbreaking to read about Snape’s get-up when in the scenes when he’s interacting with Petunia and Lily, but it’s a very good way visual storytelling to describe or show the hell that must have been Snape’s home life. An abused child, a neglected child, is one that doesn’t have clothes that fit him, plain and simple. It’s the easiest way to show that kind of a thing. And that’s what Snape had to live with, just like Harry did with getting all of Dudley’s hand me downs. And so I feel bad for young Snape, I really do, and I can’t imagine what he went through, but as he begins to make choices… and I think it’s really just that he can’t see why he should be choosing or making other choices than the ones that he does.
Laura: Yeah, and to Irvin’s point about the Slytherin common room not being the best environment in which to become a more progressive person with a more open mindset, you could argue that the deal was sealed as soon as Snape was Sorted into Slytherin and he was surrounded by people like Mulciber, like Avery, like Lucius Malfoy; although he’s a few years older than Snape, he was at Hogwarts at the same time.
Irvin: Yeah, and Lucius was a prefect, so he would have interacted with the first years.
Laura: Yep.
Irvin: Yeah, I don’t think his fate was sealed when he was Sorted into Slytherin, but I definitely think the deck was stacked even further against him at that moment. He still could have made good choices, but it was a lot harder to.
Laura: Yeah. And I mean, to the point that we’ve discussed about Slytherin House in recent episodes, we do see an evolution of Slytherin House happen over the course of the wizarding world history, right? We know that Harry’s son, for example, is Sorted into Slytherin; he’s best friends with Draco Malfoy’s son. So we know that this changes, and when we’re talking about this point in time, we’re speaking about a very specific representation of who was in Slytherin House at this time. [laughs] I’m saying this to… because I know that Andrew is a Slytherin, Chloé is a Slytherin, we’ve got a lot of listeners who are Slytherin, so I feel like it’s…
Andrew: But you’re right. I mean, yeah, but speaking from personal experience, you could forget about me as soon as I was Sorted into Slytherin. I turned bad and there was no going back. I’ve killed eight people since then.
[Irvin and Laura laugh]
Andrew: So I relate to that.
Eric: I want to pick your guys’ brains about – and I want to use the same problematic language Laura was pointing out – but do we assume that Eileen Prince was one of the good Slytherins? That she wasn’t into this whole pure-blood madness, right? Because she married Muggle. I think Snape would have an opinion on the context of that relationship, whether it was maybe she was tricked into marrying him or something like that, ridiculous, but I would think that his mother would have a more soft, caring sort of opinion on how he could use his Sorting into the House Slytherin to his advantage. I think she could give him some tips about how he would really thrive in that House, and those tips aren’t “Go hang around with everybody who does Dark Arts on Mudbloods.” I think it’s going to be more, I don’t know, something different, but we don’t know what kind of a relationship they had in his childhood or when he was Sorted after he was at Hogwarts.
Laura: Yeah, and it could be that he resents her for choosing his father. And if his father is continually abusive to him throughout his childhood, he could resent his mother for letting that continue to happen. We don’t know that; it’s just a guess. I would love to know more about that.
Andrew: Well, we also know she was neglectful to Snape, so there never was that conversation about how to behave yourself and what types of choices to make.
Eric: That’s actually another good point, yeah. Because if he’s wearing those clothes, he’s not cared for, it means, by his mother and his father.
Laura: Yeah, we can even see it in terms of Snape’s level of self-care when he’s an adult. He’s still described as looking bat-like in his clothes; he’s described as greasy. There are elements of personal care and personal hygiene that he might not have gotten as a child, and these things, they all add up and they could snowball into making him feel very resentful towards both of his parents.
Irvin: Well, as an adult, I think he just doesn’t especially care to look good for anyone on account of his love interest being dead.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: Fair.
Andrew: What would it all be for?
Eric: That’s goth AF. Like, “Everything I ever cared about is dead. I’m going to be sad about it.”
[Andrew laughs]
Irvin: And also, he has no time to wash his hair because he’s teaching like, 25 bajillion classes and spending all night prowling around looking for Harry breaking the rules.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: That’s a good point.
Irvin: The man never sleeps.
Eric: Way to lighten the mood, Irvin.
Irvin: I got you.
Andrew: Irvin is a Ravenclaw, by the way. Has that being said yet? He’s not a Slytherin. You might be thinking here, “Oh, he’s definitely a Slytherin.” Nope, he’s a Ravenclaw.
Laura: It is funny to maybe make the observation that Snape channels his former obsession with Lily into stalking Harry all the time.
Micah: I thought you were going to say to his hair.
[Irvin laughs]
Laura: No, I don’t think he’s paying much attention to his hair. [laughs]
Irvin: I think he’s stalking Harry to make sure Harry doesn’t turn out even more like James, because prowling around the school at night, getting up to adventures, that’s a very James thing. He’s like, “No, no, this boy will not be even more like James than he already is.”
Laura: And he also makes the assumption of Harry from very early on that he is exactly like James. I mean, Dumbledore has to correct Snape on this assertion. He’s like, “Actually, I see way more of his mother’s nature in him than his father’s.”
Irvin: That’s like, the only funny scene in Prince’s Tale. It really breaks up all the tragedy and melodrama when you just see Snape and he’s like, “Arrogant, mediocre, bad as his father!”
[Andrew laughs]
Irvin: It’s almost cartoon style, and Dumbledore is just reading a magazine not listening.
Andrew: [laughs] Wrong, wrong, wrong
Eric: He says, “You see what you wish to see,” and that’s a heck of a line.
Laura: Right. Well, Irvin, I have a question for you, and I see you have a note about this here: I’m really curious to know when do we think was Snape’s opportunity to dip out of this bad crew and choose the right side of history?
Irvin: Literally the entire time up until the worst memory.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Irvin: I think once Lily cut ties with him, there was no hope left. And realistically, I think what did it was a few months before that with Sirius’s prank when Sirius essentially almost got Snape killed, oops. And he should have gotten into a lot of trouble, but Dumbledore in his propensity to always side with the Gryffindors essentially gives Sirius a slap on the wrist and tells Snape not to tell anyone, and I feel like that was a really foundational moment for Snape because I think that’s when he saw that both sides are just as bad. Voldemort is bad, but so is Dumbledore. Dumbledore has a disregard for his life, Dumbledore plays his favorites and prefers his chosen people, and I feel like that was really the turning point beyond which it would have been very, very hard, if not impossible, for Snape to turn it all around.
Laura: Yeah. But what if let’s say that after the Mudblood incident during James’s bullying of Snape, let’s say that Snape decided in that moment, after he loses Lily as a friend, he’s going to turn over a new leaf and he is going to repent, and he’s going to dump all of these Death Eater friends. Andrew, do you think that Lily would have forgiven him?
Andrew: Yes. This was my more optimistic take because I like to believe that if there was some interest there, if they had this pretty long at that point history together, and I’m Lily and I’m seeing Snape turning over that new leaf, presumably for me, to convince me that he’s not so much of a bad guy after all, I might give that some thought. I might give him another chance. Now, maybe she was also like, “Well, James is also around; he’s a real jerk, but maybe in time,” maybe she was leaning a little more towards James or just moving the hell on at that point. But I like to think that seeing Snape make a big decision like that would have convinced her to give Snape another look. But he also stopped washing his hair, and that can be a dealbreaker for people.
Eric: Sure.
Laura: Did he ever wash his hair, though?
[Andrew and Irvin laugh]
Laura: Well, I want to talk about what did Lily see in Snape as a friend. We see this moment again where they’re arguing about Snape’s choice in other friends, and Snape is like, “I thought we were supposed to be best friends,” and Lily says, “We are, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging around with. I’m sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber. Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev? He’s creepy.” So we see here Lily telling Snape, “You are my best friend, but I’m worried about the choices that you’re making.”
Eric: Great validation. What does she see in Snape? I think from a young age… again, he’s the one that tells her she’s magical; he puts a name on it, and I think that really does exert some level of power. He’s this boy from down the street, kind of like the boy next door, and he knows things, and there’s a very… I think ultimately children, there’s a very selfish need in friendship sometimes, and I think the selfish need is Severus knows things about her that she does not herself know, and so if she… her friendship with him initially was “Let’s get that info,” and then in return, she also gets a healthy friendship, almost a better friendship than her sister Petunia is able to give her because of Petunia’s jealousy. And Snape from a very early age confides in Lily about his problems at home. There’s a moment where Lily asks Snape if his parents are still fighting, and he’s like, “They’re always fighting.” And I think there’s an emotional bond, and Lily’s ability to listen and care is an early highlight to their friendship. I think they form a bond over just being two way different people. It’s almost like an opposites attract kind of thing.
Irvin and Laura: Yeah.
Irvin: And then afterwards, I think it’s just the inertia of childhood friendships.
Eric: Yep.
Irvin: I think we all have that experience where you became best friends with someone at five years old because you shared a cupcake at lunch, or you live down the street or you met at the park, and then just you’re friends with them because you’ve always been friends with them. You may have nothing in common anymore, you may have completely different people, but it’s hard to just be like, “No, let’s call time of death on this friendship, because what is it even based on anymore beyond shared history?”
Laura: Right. I think that’s so true of Lily and Snape, especially when we’re looking at examples of Lily straight up calling Snape out on having these friends who detest Muggles and Muggle-borns, right? But she still considers Snape her best friend. And I wonder, and maybe some of this can be attributed to age, maybe some of it can be attributed to a little bit of imposter syndrome on Lily’s part; she is Muggle-born going to Hogwarts, she’s been thrust into learning about this whole world that she’s a part of at the age of 11 that she didn’t know about previously, and her first connection to that world was Snape. So is it possible, or is it safe to say that she overlooked his prejudice for a time because it wasn’t specifically directed at her?
Eric: Yeah, and she understood where it came from. I think if you blame his Muggle dad, I think she can even make excuses for like, “Well, that Muggle is no good. And also, Petunia is not the nicest to me when I come home for Christmas.” I think she could really justify it in her own way, as long as Snape is nice to her, which, that stops being true, too. I think it’s the one-two punch of she really needed to be called a dirty name like that for the other side of her brain to be like, “No, actually, okay, this is a serious problem, and everything I dislike about him, he would treat me the same, and I’m the exception.”
Laura: Right, I mean, especially when he calls her that in the midst of her defending him from his bullies.
Eric: Yeah! That’s rough.
Laura: It’s really rough. Let’s think about some of the problematic aspects of this relationship.
Micah: Hell yeah.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Irvin: All day.
Laura: Micah is rubbing his hands together. He’s so ready. I really thought it was great that we’re doing this episode this week, because last week when we had Roshni on, a conversation came up for us about how to some people, the quote “After all this time? Always” is deeply meaningful and means a lot, and others view it as problematic because of the problematic relationship between Lily and Snape, Snape’s obsession with Lily. What do we think of this?
Irvin: Yes to both of them.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Go ahead, Micah. You first.
Micah: I guess it depends how you want to look at it, right? And I think if you look at it through the lens of the movies, it’s much different than looking at it through the lens of the books. I think in the movies this character has a complete about-face in the Prince’s Tale, and you’re meant to sympathize with him; not to say that you don’t sympathize with him in the book, but I think knowing more about the relationship, this idea of “After all this time? Always” does lend itself to be a bit of an unhealthy obsession. And we can talk about the whole Patronus thing as being a part of that; I think that when you’re looking at the fact that the two of them share a Patronus, it can be seen kind of as a sign of affection, but also as a sign of a manifestation of an unhealthy obsession with somebody, right?
Eric: Possession, even.
Micah: Like you’re copying them. It’s different than James having a stag and Lily having a doe, right? Those two usually are in a relationship. But to copy her Patronus, to have the exact same one, I don’t know. You can look at it both ways. You can say, “Oh, look at that.” And people, when they saw it in the movies, they thought Snape was his father.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, that was great.
Micah: Because I’ve had people… honestly, people asked about that because he’s got the same Patronus as her.
Andrew: I know, yeah.
Micah: But the flip side of that is yeah, it’s kind of creepy.
Andrew: Could you spin the Patronus as a sort of tribute to Lily? This is Snape’s new protector?
Laura: You could. That’s one interpretation.
Eric: Yeah, I think it means something totally different to Dumbledore, though. Because when Dumbledore is shocked that Snape’s Patronus is the doe and has been after all this time, that means something different to Dumbledore. Because it’s a Patronus, which changes – again, Tonks – can change, nevertheless does represent your core most inner being, and the idea that Snape has sort of sacrificed his own core, most inner being, whatever else his Patronus would have been so that it can be Lily’s, shows a actually surprising amount of self-muting. He’s taking away whatever his Patronus would have been and making it her, his whole life is about her, his purpose is her, and that’s also not healthy to do in anything. You can love somebody who died without living for them, I think, in a way.
Andrew: That’s the key problem. This would be a very different discussion if Snape did end up meeting somebody else, right? I mean, we’re not even sure if he tried or not.
Irvin: Don’t think so.
Laura: Probably not.
Eric: It’s the Capricorn thing. They’re in love for life.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I think there’s a lot of nuance here. I think when you pair the Patronus being sort of like paying homage to Hil… Lily. Not Hilary. I don’t know where I was going with that.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: When you look at the context clues that we get from the Prince’s Tale chapter, there’s a point when they’re children where it describes Snape looking at Lily “greedily,” and there are points where she’s talking to… they’re arguing about his choice in friends and he immediately tries to pivot: “Well, what about Potter and all his friends?”
Eric: Ahh, the whataboutism.
Irvin and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: And she says, “Well, what about them?” And he starts telling her – because he knows that James fancies Lily – he starts telling her, “I won’t let you,” and that speaks to him seeing some level of entitlement to Lily’s time and who Lily is able to spend time with.
Eric: Oh, and he actively doesn’t listen to the second half of her whole reasoning against him because as soon as she agrees that James kind of sucks – she calls him, what, an arrogant toe-rag? – he’s sailing on cloud nine. That’s all he cares about, the fact that he doesn’t need to worry about her being romantically interested in James, and he stops listening to her; he doesn’t actually hear what she has to say about her problems with his Dark Arts friends.
Laura: Right.
Eric: It’s selfish.
Irvin: His version of loving her is possessing her, essentially.
Eric: Yeah, “You’re mine. No one else can have you; you’re mine.” And that’s all the extension of him having her as a Patronus is to me, is this “You’re mine; I’m going to…” And so is it romantic that he’s dedicating that much of himself to her? It drives the plot forward, he needs to protect Harry, but there’s a way to do it without being so, I think, self-serving about it. Here’s an example, and I’d forgot this happened in Prince’s Tale: He goes to the photo of Lily and James and decides he’s going to take it; the second page of the letter where she signs “All my love” or whatever, “Lily,” he takes that. And then the photo of Lily and James, they’re probably happy, great. If I saw a photo of let’s say my ex, or somebody I had a lot of care for, with a romantic partner, would I rip it straight down the middle and take it with me? No, because it’s still a photo of her with someone else. I would know where that photo came from. So every time he pulls out his little photo of Lily, he probably completely forgets that it was her happy with her family, the family that she chose, the family he wasn’t worthy of being a part of. And he just looks at her and is like, “Ah, Lily,” rose-colored glasses. But I would never touch the photo because it’s not mine for the taking, and that’s possessive love.
Irvin: Well, because he thinks he can just remove her from her family and her loved ones and everything around her and just have it be the two of them. We see this at the beginning of the Prince’s Tale when he’s like, “Oh, it’s Petunia. We don’t want to hang out with Petunia. I just want it to be you and me.” And then we see it at the end of the Prince’s Tale when he tears away James and Harry, and he’s like, “Lily, she’s mine, separate from her family.” He really never does learn.
Andrew: I would actually go further, Eric, with ripping the photo in half. You said that he’s forgotten that James was in that photo? I bet he doesn’t.
Eric: Yeah. Because I would never be able to enjoy that photo with her cut out of it being like, “Oh, she’s beautiful,” when she’s with the family that… she didn’t choose me. That photo would be a reminder.
Andrew: Right. It’s disingenuous.
Laura: And I think it’s interesting when you look at the Patronus conversation – and we could potentially call Snape a bit of a hypocrite for this – in Order of the Phoenix when Tonks changes her Patronus because she’s longing for Remus. He says to her, “I think you were better off with the old one,” and he said it with malice in his voice that was unmistakable. “The new one looks weak.”
Eric: Wow.
Laura: You damn hypocrite. [laughs]
Irvin: That is 100% the closeted gay kid lashing out at other gay kids.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Right!
Irvin: That’s just him picking on what he doesn’t like in himself.
Andrew: Oh, wow.
Eric: Man, I wish that context were clearer in the actual… I bet Tonks was hurt by that.
Irvin: Oh, no, because it says in Half-Blood Prince in that scene that Tonks had a look of hurt on her face as the darkness swallowed her up.
Eric: There you go.
Micah: Maybe the one thing you could say with the Patronus, though, is that with it being a manifestation of Lily and the fact that it is Lily’s Patronus, even though it’s Snape’s Patronus that shows up in the forest and helps to save Harry in guiding him to the Sword of Gryffindor, that’s a mother’s protection. That’s a mother’s love. That may be a stretch, but it was just something that came to mind.
Eric: I think you’re right. I think whether it was a conscious choice to make Lily his Patronus, in so doing he is reminding himself… every time he sees his Patronus he’s reminding himself of Lily, but also, I think, to a lesser extent, of what she represented. He might not have ever understood fully what Lily really represented, but by having her around in such a tangible way so often, I think he is reminded to be softer. We’ve seen how he abuses the students of Hogwarts. He doesn’t have that reminder every day of “Be a little bit more like Lily.” But I really do think it softens him in a way, because in a way that he couldn’t quite ever possess Lily, he still strives to do some semblance of the right thing after it’s too late.
Laura: So speaking of doing the right thing, Micah, you had a great question here.
Micah: Yeah, and it’s certainly a question that we’ve tossed around on the show from time to time, but thought it’s relevant to this conversation, and that is: If Snape truly loved Lily, shouldn’t he have been a little bit nicer to Harry?
Laura: You’d think so. [laughs]
Irvin: Yes.
Andrew: That is one of the most frustrating parts about all this. I mean, I guess you can look at it from a reader perspective to set up the ultimate twist.
Eric: That’s a great point.
Andrew: That’s kind of the only sense I can make of it, just carrying all this guilt and sadness and depression over losing Lily, seeing Harry clearly reminds Snape of Lily, so that would frustrate him, too, and thus treat him like crap.
Irvin: I think it just keeps coming back to the fact that Snape never makes the connection that if he loves Lily, he should therefore care about the people in her life and the people she cares about, and that disconnect is complete with him.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Micah: That’s a great point, though, going back to our earlier discussion about how he views Petunia and/or other members of Lily’s family. Doesn’t matter whether it’s sister, child. He’s all in on Lily, and that’s all that matters to him.
Irvin: Yeah. The line that just always just gets me is when he’s with Dumbledore at the hilltop and he’s asking Dumbledore to protect Lily, and Dumbledore is like, “Well, if you’re so into Lily, can’t you just ask Voldemort to spare her in exchange for James and Harry?” And he’s like, “I have, I have asked for that.” And I’m like, “What? No!”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: “Don’t worry, boss, you can still kill the innocent child; I’m fine with that. Just spare her.”
Laura: Yeah, and that’s what Dumbledore shoots back at him. He’s like, “Oh, okay, so as long as you get what you want, you don’t care about the deaths of her husband and child.”
Irvin: Ding, ding, ding.
Andrew: Hits him over the head with a sock. “Stupid idiot.”
Laura: It’s an interesting comparison between perhaps Petunia and Snape here, because you could argue that Snape throughout the books is keeping Harry alive, so he’s approaching it very much with this mentality of “As long as I keep him alive, I’m doing my part,” and that’s kind of how Vernon and Petunia treat having Harry under their roof.
Eric: That’s a great point.
Irvin: Yeah, I think Dumbledore says that “Petunia took you in grudgingly, unwillingly, bitterly, but she took you in,” and I’m like, “Yeah, you could apply the same thing here.”
Micah: Speaking of Dumbledore, and we have a Dumbledore expert here…
Irvin: Yes. Yes.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: … wanted to ask the question: Does Snape ally himself with Dumbledore out of his love for Lily, or out of the shame and guilt of being responsible for her death? Or both?
Irvin: So you’re talking after Lily dies when Snape commits to protecting Harry?
Micah: Yeah.
Irvin: I think Snape allies himself with Dumbledore out of desire for revenge against Voldemort. I think he is allying himself not so much for anything as just against the man who killed Lily Potter.
Eric: I think that’s right. I think that’s his form of rebellion, is that sort of righteous anger he’ll never get to express openly for Voldemort. That’s a great point.
Irvin: Yeah. Like at the end of Prisoner of Azkaban and throughout Goblet of Fire, Snape and Dumbledore are on the outs, and a lot of people have asked, “Would Snape have left Dumbledore when they were having their fight?” And I’m like, “If Snape had an alternative option, someone else he could work with to undermine Voldemort, in a heartbeat he would have.” But I think that is just his superseding reason for doing everything.
Eric: That’s pretty amazing. But yeah, Snape just takes this task of protecting Harry like it’s your kid and you’re twisting his arm. He hates it. That’s why he’s never going to be extra nice to Harry and he never misses a step at criticizing Harry, and that’s why Harry doesn’t like him. He doesn’t even give Harry a shot.
Laura: And that’s because of his detest for James Potter, who Harry just looks a whole lot like. So Micah, related to that, I think you have another great question here.
Micah: Yeah, it’s a bit of flipping the script in that we’ve talked a lot about how there’s blame to be placed on Snape, but I’m wondering how would we have reacted if our best friend married our high school bully? Which is the position that Snape is in with Lily having married James. Now, presumably they’ve all fallen out at this point anyway, so perhaps it’s not as big of a deal, but I’m sure… we just talked about how Snape treats Harry like absolute garbage, and the reason being James, so clearly he hasn’t let go of that, and I think some of it has to do with the fact that she ended up marrying him.
Irvin: That’s like the Betty White movie You Again!
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Eric: Is it?
Laura: [laughs] It is like that.
Andrew: RIP. Snape is a unique problem. I think a lot of people bury the hatchet with their bully if they are put in that situation; Laura and I have actually spoken about this a couple times over the years. I had somebody bullying me a lot when I was growing up. I had multiple people bully me when I was growing up. I haven’t really seen them since then because obviously you go your separate ways, but if I saw them again, I wouldn’t really hold any ill will towards them. That was a different time, when we were young. Adele’s 30 out now.
[Irvin and Laura laugh]
Eric: You’re a bigger man than me, Andrew, definitely. The jaded Hufflepuff in me could probably not forgive without an apology. But I follow my bullies on Facebook and I know that I’m living a better life than them, and that keeps me going, so there’s that.
[Andrew and Irvin laugh]
Eric: What were we talking about?
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: This turned into a therapy session, everybody getting over their high school bullies.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: It would be pretty tough, honestly. It’s hard to say what other alternatives Snape really has there. But I think that ultimately, James represents Snape’s own failing. You can hate James for the personality, for the bullying and stuff, but he was the one that Lily chose. And I think it’s very… here’s another aspect of why I think Snape and Lily’s love is unhealthy, or Snape’s love for Lily is unhealthy: Any negative thing that he thinks about James is actually an insult to Lily, who chose James. So if he thinks that James is somehow not up to snuff, well, there’s more he has to learn about that, that he’s clearly not paying attention to why those people are in that relationship, because I do believe – well, it’s strongly indicated in the Harry Potter books – that James and Lily were happy, had a healthy relationship, that James came around to his childhood ways eventually. And so it’s an insult to Lily to think that James was somehow less than. He in some ways was exactly what Lily needed, because Lily chose him and I think she did so without being under duress, and so Snape needs to reconcile that part of himself that wasn’t – that couldn’t be – the James, and not go into their house and take away the photo and rip her out of it to take her with.
Micah: The last thing, though, I’ll just say on this is that remember, Lily and James married, what? 21?
Irvin: 20; they had Harry at 21.
Laura: I think they died when they were 21.
Micah: Died when they were 21. So we like to think that even in our late teens and early 20s we’re these mature individuals who are able to let things go, and maybe if time had allowed for Snape and James to reconcile, they could have. Maybe not. But I’m just saying they’re all…
Eric: Harry could have grown up saying, “Oh, Uncle Snape is coming over.”
Micah: [laughs] Yeah, but they’re all two years removed from school, high school equivalent.
Eric: It’s a great point.
Laura: Yeah, I think remembering the ages involved is a really important point to raise when we have these discussions. But to put a bow on this discussion about Lily and Snape, I want to shift to the movies, which depict the characters as being much older than they were in the books. But I want to talk in particular about a film change in Deathly Hallows – Part 2 where Snape is depicted as going to the Potters’ home on the night that Voldemort killed them. I want to know, did we like this change? And does it add to the story for us in any way?
Eric: I remember loving this when I saw it because your heart breaks with Snape’s. To see Alan Rickman cradling Geraldine Somerville and just everything that he… because regardless of whether it was two-directional, Snape really cared for her, and it hurts you to see somebody lose something they care about, whoever they are. [laughs] But it was later brought up that if that is canon, it means Snape left baby infant Harry in a wrecked house to just survive against the elements, and that actually allows me to go right back to hating Snape.
[Andrew laughs]
Irvin: I mean, it’s on brand for Snape.
Andrew: Right, right, right.
Laura: It is. [laughs]
Eric: Well, yeah, but I now no longer feel any of the feels I felt when I first saw that scene.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: And he just walks over James, too, which I think says a lot as well.
Irvin: Also on brand, yeah.
Eric: What’s he going to do, shake his hand?
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: “I’m sorry you died, sir, fighting the good fight.”
Micah: Why couldn’t he cradle James?
Andrew: [in a taunting, sing-song voice] “I lived longer, ha ha ha ha.”
Laura: “I beat you.” Oh my God.
Andrew: [laughs] “Guess who got to hug Lily last?”
Micah: Yeah, but I didn’t… I mean, I liked the scene. I think it was also in there because the Prince’s Tale was just not very easy to follow in the movie – this is my own opinion – I felt like we obviously got a lot more context out of the books, but there’s no real narration in the Prince’s Tale flashback or the Pensieve scene, so I feel like for the average viewer, it might be a little bit challenging to know exactly what the hell is going on.
Eric: I agree with that.
Andrew: Yeah. I think it also just adds to the climax after what we’re just learning, then we’re seeing suddenly Snape actually come in there and hold Lily, cry over her dead body.
Laura: Yeah. I think it’s also meant to make it extremely clear to viewers that Snape has been a double agent this whole time.
Andrew: Ah, yeah. Great point.
Irvin: And that he was in love with Lily, just in case anyone missed it.
Laura: Yes. Right. [laughs]
Andrew: Because he is mumbling. [imitating Snape] “Always.”
Laura: [laughs] I will say, I like this scene for Alan Rickman’s performance. His performance is just stellar in this. So if you look over the canon implications that it has, it’s fine, but as soon as you start dissecting it and thinking, “Well, wait, so he just left an infant in rubble?” I don’t love that part of it.
Micah: He put a charm on him and left. How’s that? We can make up our own canon.
Laura: [laughs] Okay. But no, I mean, Alan Rickman’s performance in this scene is just beautiful and tragic to behold, so for that, I overall really like the scene.
Irvin: Yeah, I mean, it’s an addition for the movies that doesn’t actively detract from the story, so call it a win.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: Right. We’ll take it. It’s not as bad as Harry and Voldemort’s heads fusing together when they fall off the tower. [laughs]
Andrew: No.
Micah: David Yates is still talking about that.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Yeah, he’s recording a 60-hour commentary right now where he explains in depth the choices.
Micah: Well, that’s because he only speaks like, five words per minute.
[Irvin and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Y’all, it’s a new year; let’s stop with all this Yates hate. Come on.
Micah: I love David Yates.
Laura: Yeah, me too.
Irvin: Not till he makes a good movie.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Ooh, shots fired.
Eric: Both ends of the spectrum here. This is amazing.
Micah: He’s got a chance in April.
Andrew: I’m just imagining him listening to this podcast and him being like, “Oh, bother,” and swiping the podcast away. He sounds like Winnie the Pooh.
Micah: He’s the most softspoken man.
Andrew: Yes. “Oh, bother. I want some honey.”
Laura: I like David Yates, and to a point that we make on the show frequently, we criticize because we care, right?
Andrew: Right.
Laura: We care about this series.
Eric: I think that’s an important… we can’t be mean about it. We just have to be… we care.
Laura: Well, I think we do have a word from another one of our sponsors, but after that, we’re going to lighten things up by talking about the top seven pickup lines Snape tried on Lily.
[Ad break]
Micah: All right, so we are ready for the top seven pickup lines Snape tried on Lily. Number seven: Did you get a good look at my wand when James had me upside down?
Eric: Wow.
Laura: Oh my God. [laughs]
Micah: Number six: What a coincidence, my Patronus is a doe too.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Number five – this is for Andrew: Lily, never sever us.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: That’s the name of my hit fanfiction, “Never Sever Us.” Title by Eric, though. Credit to him.
Micah: Number four: But, but, I’m the Half-Blood Prince.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: “But I am the Half-Blood Prince.”
Andrew: “Come on.”
Laura: And she’s like, “So? What is a Half-Blood Prince?”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: “There are no wizarding princes, Sev, what are you talking about?”
Micah: Number three: You have Harry’s eyes.
[Everyone laughs]
Irvin: How is that a pickup?
Micah: Gotta stretch the mind a little bit for that one.
Andrew: Number two: Are you the flower or the witch? Both are so beautiful, it’s hard to tell you apart.
Laura: Aww.
Eric: I love this. This is… you can tell exactly where this would have occurred in canon.
Andrew: [imitating Snape] “Are you a witch or a flower? I cannot tell.”
[Irvin and Laura laugh]
Micah: We need somebody who can do a good Snape.
Laura: It’s also one of the more wholesome pickup lines we have here.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: That’s me. I’m an angel. I was like, “What would I use to pick up Lily?”
Micah: All right, and the number one pickup line Snape tried on Lily Potter: Been to any good Halloween parties lately?
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: It’s so dark.
Andrew: Oh, boy. That just ran the gamut there, yeah. All right, well, that was a great discussion. Thank you, Laura, for taking the lead on that. If you have any feedback about today’s discussion, you can contact us by writing or sending a voice message to MuggleCast@gmail.com. For the voice messages, just record a message using the Voice Memo app on your phone. You can also use the contact form on MuggleCast.com to write to us, or you can leave a voicemail on our phone; the number is 1-920-3-MUGGLE. That’s 1-920-368-4453. And on next week’s episode, we’re going to be looking at if there can ever be another Harry Potter level book or series. Book series. This discussion was actually inspired by a chat we had during our group AMA on our Patreon last week, and by the way, $10 patrons can check that out. It was a lot of fun; the four of us hung out for about an hour and talked about where MuggleCast has been, where it’s going, the fandom, and our own lives, so check that out on our Patreon. And yeah, I just thought we could dig into why was Harry Potter so popular and why has it yet to be replicated? We keep hearing about “the next Harry Potter.” “Oh, this is the next Harry Potter.” None of it ever is, so why is that? We’re going to dig deep on that next week.
Quizzitch
Andrew: All right, it’s time for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: Last week’s question: What was the name of Jacob Kowalski’s former fiancée? As a reminder, not Queenie. This is from the supplemental material around the Fantastic Beasts film. The correct answer is Mildred, and over 20 people got that right, including the Wild Witch of Yorkshire; Hufflepuffskein; Big Bad Snitch; Donnie’s head; Bernie; Voldemort’s balancing wand; Greta Leta; Bubotuber Pus; Scarhead; Use of Comma…
[Irvin and Laura laugh]
Eric: … and #SlytherinPride.
Andrew: Clever. clever.
Eric: Use of Comma, yeah. Very nice.
Laura: I love that.
Eric: Also, Yussus Calm Bruh.
Andrew: So for this week’s question, we actually will be selecting five people who correctly guess the answer and giving them a copy of Irvin’s book. I’m just going to give the full title again, Irvin.
Irvin: Go for it.
Andrew: Dumbledore: The Life and Lies of Hogwarts’s Renowned Headmaster.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: What are the names of Severus Snape’s parents? I need two names, because it’s a question for a prize.
Andrew: [laughs] You’ve got to work for it.
Eric: Submit your answer to us on the MuggleCast website using MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or click on “Quizzitch” at the top. And just as a note here, you will need to enter your email address now into the form, just because we need to contact you for your prize if you are chosen.
Andrew: And if you want to grab a copy of Irvin’s book, it’s available in bookstores everywhere, right, Irvin?
Irvin: Bookstores everywhere, online, Amazon, Bookshop.org… everywhere you buy books.
Andrew: Great. And we’ll have a link in the show notes of today’s episode as well, and we’ll plug it on our social media channels. So congrats again on having this new release of the book. That’s so exciting.
Irvin: Thanks very much, you guys. I think people who enjoy listening to this type of in-depth Harry Potter chat is really going to be the folks who enjoy the book.
Andrew: I’m going to pick it up. I’m going to go look for it this weekend.
Laura: Yeah, same.
Andrew: I’m actually really excited. And thanks again, Irvin, for joining us today. It was great having you on.
Irvin: Thanks very much. I had a blast.
Laura: You were fantastic.
Irvin: And if you want to listen to me talk lots more about Harry Potter and all manner of geeky stuff, you can find me on Twitter at @DarkLordOfDance, and I have a MuggleNet column with lots of Harry Potter essays, and just basically there’s a lot of me talking about Harry Potter on the Internet.
Andrew: You can also find Irvin over on Alohomora!, right? The podcast?
Irvin: Yeah, I’m one of the regular hosts on that podcast. We have similar book discussions exactly like this, just sometimes twice as long. [laughs] We tend to go on a bit.
Andrew: Irvin was like, “Oh, wow, your Google Doc is not 17 pages like Alohomora!’s planning doc is.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: “It’s only 7 or 8.” [laughs]
Irvin: Yeah, I mean, I just would’ve blocked out my entire evening and night figuring we’d be recording until the sun comes up, how we do.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: That reminds me of recording that show.
Laura: [laughs] I love the dedication.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, it’s great. But that’s the beauty of Harry Potter.
Irvin: We’ve recently had a thing where just we’ve had to start splitting up episodes in two because once you hit the two hour mark and you’re nowhere near half done, you’re like, “All right, this is just going to be two episodes. We can’t get it done.”
Andrew: Yeah. Sometimes I wish we did that with these episodes, but we never know how long the episodes are going to be sometimes. We aim for an hour, but it’s always, always more than an hour, so it’s a ongoing challenge. [laughs] By the way, coming up on our Patreon this week, we’re going to have a new bonus MuggleCast installment, and we’re going to be talking about this big casting news for Dan Radcliffe; he’s going to play Weird Al Yankovic in a biopic about Weird Al?
Eric: Yep, that’s right, Andrew. [laughs]
Andrew: Eric is very excited.
Eric: I am super stoked.
Andrew: It came out of left field, so we’re going to talk about that casting and what we think about it, so that’ll be available at Patreon.com/MuggleCast this week. Make sure you’re following MuggleCast for free in your favorite podcasting app, and leave us a review if your podcasting app allows you to. Also, don’t forget to follow us on social media; our username is @MuggleCast on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and on TikTok it’s @MuggleCastPod for now. [laughs] Thank you, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: I’m Laura.
Irvin: And I’m Irvin.
Andrew: Bye, everyone.
Laura: Bye, y’all
Irvin and Micah: Bye.