Transcript #551

 

MuggleCast 551 Transcript

 

Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #551, The Importance of Black Representation in Harry Potter (feat. Adriana Redding)


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.

Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.

Andrew: And on this week’s episode, we are discussing diversity in Harry Potter, specifically the lack of Black characters across the story in honor of Black History Month, and so we can recognize the importance of diversity in the stories that we consume, not just with Harry Potter, but elsewhere. And to help us with today’s discussion, we are joined by Adriana Redding. Hi, Adriana. Welcome to the show.

Adriana Redding: Hi, thanks for having me! I’m super excited.

Andrew: Awesome! Well, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Adriana: So my name is Adriana, but sometimes people on the Internet know me as @BibbidiBobbidi_Broke. I am a theme park blogger/influencer and I also may have been seen on Harry Potter: Tournament of Houses.

Andrew: We didn’t just see you; we saw you win!

Adriana: I won! [laughs]

Andrew: She was on team Hufflepuff. Such a fun show; we loved it. We were talking about it for a few weeks on the podcast. Let’s start with that. So what was that experience like? That must have been so cool.

Adriana: Oh my goodness. From the beginning, I was just super excited. There was a whole audition process and all those fun things to be on the show, and going through that took months. And when I made it… because we really didn’t know that we had made it onto the show until Helen Mirren called our name…

Andrew and Eric: Wow.

Adriana: … so that is a very real moment of seeing us react because, yeah, there was a potential 24 of us, and so we knew that 12 of us out of the 24 were going to make it and the other 12 weren’t. So we didn’t know until literally it happened live during the recording, and that excitement was a lot because we just saw the set and it was beautiful and it looked like a Hogwarts library. And the crowd was hyping; you were seeing everybody in your House colors and everybody just wanted to represent their Houses so well. And so to get called and to know that you’re about to represent your house in front of thousands if not millions of people on television, it’s a lofty thing to take on, but it was definitely fun.

Andrew: Yeah!

Eric: You did Hufflepuff House proud. Thank you so much.

Laura: Yes, you did.

Andrew: Eric is a Hufflepuff.

Adriana: I hope I did my House proud, so here is my little piece…

[Everyone gasps]

Adriana: … wow, ooh!

Andrew: She got a trophy! A real trophy.

Laura: That is so cool.

Adriana: So yeah, and it says on here… it has my name. It says Harry Potter: Tournament of Houses, Adriana Redding, Hufflepuff, Winter 2021. And this is exactly what the giant trophy that they show on TV, this is what it looks like. And then they did a spell on it and divided it into three equal pieces so me, Luke, and David can share…

[Everyone laughs]

Adriana: … and we all got our own little piece of the trophy.

Eric: I love it.

Andrew: That is amazing. Thank you for sharing all that. I thought of auditioning, but then I was thinking about what if I did… it was extremely unlikely, but let’s say I do get to compete on the show. If I failed answering some of the questions, I would be so embarrassed, so that alone stopped me from even thinking of auditioning. [laughs]

Adriana: So honestly, I’ve heard so many people say that, especially people who grew up with Harry, been a part of the fandom for 20 years; more than 20 years, because the books came out more than 20 years ago. But that’s what the show was celebrating, the 20-year anniversary of Philosopher’s Stone. And I think that for me personally, it was pressure because I was the newbie; I was the person who hadn’t grew up with Harry Potter

Laura: Ooh.

Adriana: … but I also didn’t feel that insane pressure like you felt, some of you. If I had a podcast that was solely about Harry Potter

Andrew: Exactly. [laughs]

Adriana: … I would say everybody would think that I know every single thing, and so I kind of felt like, “Oh, well, I don’t have that pressure. I have pressure because I have social media and people… I don’t want to go on this show and make a fool of myself.” But also, I was like, “I’m just going to go and have fun,” so I can totally understand you being like, “That would just be too much.”

[Adriana and Andrew laugh]

Andrew: No, your position makes a lot of sense being newer. So you mentioned that you are newer; how long ago did you get into Harry Potter?

Adriana: I watched Harry Potter when it first came out 20 years ago, yes, just like everybody. It was a big part of pop culture, but it never really stuck with me, and I never read the books. I had only seen really up to movie number three, so I wasn’t a huge Harry Potter fan. But I do really love Disney and I love sci-fi, and I love the concept of magic in itself, and so I really wanted to get into Harry Potter, and I had kept saying, “I’m going to read it, I’m going to read it, I’m going to read it,” but it’s a lofty thing to pick up.

Laura: Absolutely.

Adriana: It’s seven books, it’s eight movies, it’s a huge fandom, and a huge universe to navigate. And then 2019, my mom passed away, and I just was in this hole of like, I didn’t really believe in the magic anymore. I didn’t really have a lot of things that I was excited about. And I was like, “I just need to throw myself into something and let something consume me,” and so I started reading Harry Potter. And I finished all seven books in about three months, and then I started watching the movies again and really getting into it. And then when quarantine started, some of my friends were like, “Let’s start a Black Harry Potter book club,” and I was like, “Yeah, I’m down, I want to be in a book club.” So then that was my second time going through it and reading it, and it was just such a fun experience to do this with other people during a time where we didn’t know what was going on in the world, and to come and do that every week, it was really fun. And so then I got the call for the show, and they were like, “Hey, do you think you’d want to be a part?” because I was so much Hufflepuff once I got into it. I was Hufflepuff down to the socks.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: Nice.

Adriana: Yeah, absolutely. So on my social media, you can see I’m the Hufflepuff girl. People know. And so they were like, “You want to do this?” and I was like, “Trivia? I don’t think I know everything, but I could try.”

Andrew: Yeah. Oh, that’s an incredible story. Well, welcome to the show; it’s so great to have you on. And Adriana, your username on social media is @BibbidiBobbidi_Broke, and we’ll have links in the show notes for today’s episode. And of course, we’ll tag you on social media, too, so everybody can easily find you. Your social media is such a joy, by the way, your Instagram. I’m just living for it.

Laura: It really is.

Andrew: Especially that Dunkin’ Donuts post because I’m a big Dunkin’ Donuts fan. [laughs]

Adriana: I am a Dunkin’ Donuts girl.

Laura: You are in good company. We are Dunkin’ lovers here.


Main Discussion: Black representation in Harry Potter


Laura: Well, as we dive into today’s discussion, we wanted to ask about your relationship with the core Harry Potter books through the lens of representation. We’ve all spoken about the ways in which we see ourselves represented in these books, and we also know that there is room in this franchise to improve on representation of non-white characters. Could you speak to the impact of consuming a piece of popular media that contains characters who look like you?

Adriana: Yeah, absolutely. So I think one of the amazing things about being a part of a fandom, or being a part of a fandom that is fantasy, you can see yourself in a lot of different characters. And when it’s fantasy, you can kind of suspend belief, and I can almost see a little bit of myself in each character. It’s not so much about them, about their individual color, but at the same time it is. So it’s like, when you first consume it, you can kind of let those things go, and you’re like, “Yeah, I just really want to get into the story,” but then once you really become a fan, you do really want to see yourself represented within these characters. And that was one of the things that I was very weary about when I first started reading Harry Potter, because I had only really seen two and a half movies. And so originally, the first book we get Lee Jordan as the first person of color we see. In one of the very first couple of chapters we were introduced to Lee Jordan; it’s very obvious that he’s Black. They talk about his dreadlocks and they talk about how he’s friends with Fred and George. And so I’m like, “Okay, there’s a character,” but then we don’t really get him a lot. And we get Dean Thomas, and we get pieces here and there. So every character of color, or every Black character specifically, you don’t get a lot of of them. And I think that’s where the missed opportunity is, because if we’re going to be honest about it, every character in Harry Potter is so very well-rounded. It is a full thought-up character with the backstory, and it gives us little inklings of that backstory, and it’s like, “Why?” We just want more, and they could have been featured in such an impactful way. More specifically, I think about Kingsley Shacklebolt a lot as a character that just could have been so much more than he actually was. He’s obviously someone of a standing in the wizarding world. They talk about him being part of the Sacred 28, he has such a well-known wizarding world name, he’s pure-blood, and they just give us little quips. The Black person comes in and they’re funny, or they’re witty, and it’s like, “We want more. We want to be a part of the story as well.”

Andrew: Yeah. And to this point, I thought we could run through the non-white somewhat prominent characters in the original Harry Potter books, because exactly what you’re saying: There aren’t many Black characters or people of color, and where there are, they have very small roles, or they have those witty lines. So Dean Thomas, Cho Chang, Padma and Parvati Patil, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Lee Jordan, Angelina Johnson, Blaise Zabini. Five of those characters are Black. And all the lead characters are white in the Harry Potter books, and all people in leadership type roles – save for Kingsley – are white as well. It’s just a very noticeable issue with these books. And some people say, “Well, during the ’90s, there weren’t as many Black people over in the UK.” And I actually did look at some census data. In 1991, 7% of the population in England and Wales was non-white; this figure did grow to 14% in 2011. So some people try to make that argument that because England and the UK weren’t Black, the books weren’t going to be either. On the other hand, [laughs] it’s a fantasy series. Everything is possible.

Adriana: I think everything is possible, but also, I cannot believe that in your daily… everybody sees people of color in their daily life. Everybody sees Black people in their daily life every single day. So for you to be like, “Oh, well, you know, that’s just indicative of the type of people that were around at that time” is a complete and total lie, and it’s an excuse that people use in order to get away with or just dismiss not having a diverse set of characters, or having the diversity but they’re smaller roles. They’re not intricate to the storyline. It’s definitely an excuse, and it’s naivety.

Andrew and Laura: Yeah.

Laura: I always find this argument funny when people want to go the route of saying “It was just a different time,” as though Black people didn’t exist in the ’90s.

Andrew: [laughs] 20 years ago.

Adriana: We just popped up, yeah, and then people were like, “Oh, you do exist?” No, and I consume so much pop culture, and I consume so many different fandoms, and I remember when The Harder They Fall came out, and people were like, “Why are we making cowboys Black? Cowboys weren’t Black.” And I’m like, “Did you think that in the world of all the cowboys, there wasn’t a couple Black cowboys? Or maybe more than you thought of? And you know what, history was written predominantly by white people, so they might have left out a lot.” So I just don’t buy that argument at all, and I do think it’s an excuse, and it’s just weird to even hear people say it out loud. You’re like, “Ooh, is that what you really think?” [laughs]

Laura: I think that it’s possible to accept multiple truths here and say we love Harry Potter. Harry Potter had an immense impact on all of us in one way or another. But it can also be true that the author is a white woman, and likely grew up around and socialized mostly with white people, and due to that, she wrote what she knew or maybe was most comfortable with.

Adriana: Yes, absolutely.

Laura: But just because of that does not mean that we can’t critique the series and say this is a fandom that has not died out, it’s a fandom that is living on, and if we’re looking at expanding the fandom – whether it’s through plays, whether it’s through the Fantastic Beasts franchise, whether it’s through perhaps rebooting the Harry Potter series as a TV show, which I know we would all love – there is enormous room in there to tell that story through a lens of better representation of the world as it really looks.

Adriana: Absolutely. And I don’t want to get too too far off topic of just the books, but I do think there is something to be said about, “Okay, well, how do we fix that now?” We can always sit around and critique what isn’t there, but now that we’re aware of it, now it’s like, “What’s being done?” And so the show Harry Potter: Tournament of Houses was a great opportunity, and the blogs and the Twitter and people’s reactions were going crazy. And I do think a lot of people saw the diversity in the show. Some people might have not liked it; I’ve seen quite a few comments about the diversity in the show and people not accepting it.

Andrew: What?!

Adriana: [laughs] Yeah. We’re gonna call a spade a spade. There’s definitely…

Andrew: Well, I’m glad you’re calling it out. I’m just shocked that people actually said that.

Adriana: Oh, yeah, there’s definitely pushback. I understand that the Internet is an ugly place and people feel real brave behind a keyboard, but I’ve seen comments that was like, “Oh, it’s obvious that these aren’t real fans, that they’re…”

Laura: Oh… my God.

Eric: Wow.

Adriana: Yeah, that the show is playing the diversity card. Yeah, “It’s all good for more diversity, but give us real Harry Potter fans.” I do want to say, the producer of the show was amazing. I’m not just saying that because I was a winner.

[Everyone laughs]

Adriana: I’m saying that there was an effort, right?

Eric: I believe you. This is genuine.

Andrew: “I might have a trophy, but…” [laughs] Yeah.

Adriana: There was definitely effort made to make sure that everyone felt represented, and that their teams represented more than just white people. And like I said, it got pushback, but the show is very, very diverse, so that’s one of the opportunities that people took in order to show the true diversity of the fandom, even though the stories lacked that sometimes.

Andrew: Yeah. Well, and I think in a way that this was Wizarding World Inc.’s chance to start diversifying Harry Potter. We’ll touch on diversity in Fantastic Beasts in a little bit. But I think we actually noted this on MuggleCast when we first started talking about the trivia show that it was refreshingly diverse! I mean, as a gay person myself, finally seeing somebody gay involved with Harry Potter in official capacity was like, “Oh, about time.” [laughs]

Adriana: There was two there. Luke and Annie – I love them both very much – were two contestants on Harry Potter: Tournament of Houses that were openly gay and talked about it, and talked about being gay and what Harry Potter meant to them. And I just felt like it was such a refreshing moment to see that and to feel that everyone felt represented. And even age groups; there wasn’t just 30-somethings who love Harry Potter. David is 77. Sophia is 15. It was so broad. It just showed that any and everyone can be a Harry Potter fan and needs to be shown, because if we don’t see ourselves, we don’t know what it is that we can really do. People can’t ascend to their highest self if they don’t see themselves represented in social media, in media, in movies, in books, and in everything.

Andrew: Amen.

Laura: Yeah, I mean, as a fandom – and I love this fandom – but we can talk about how Hogwarts welcomes everyone home, but in order for that to be true, we have to be welcoming to everyone. So that’s why I’m really glad that you called out some of the social media responses you saw with regard to some less than desirable opinions about the casting in Tournament of Houses, because there’s just not room, in my opinion, for that kind of attitude in this fandom. On this show I know, all the major fan sites, the major podcasts, the last couple of years in particular, there has been a lot of conversation about the importance of making this fandom inclusive for everyone, and it’s a great reminder that everyone means every one.

Adriana: Every single person. Absolutely.

Eric: I’m proud to love something that reaches so many people from so many different backgrounds. The more people that like something that I like, the more affirmed I am in that.

Andrew: Yeah, that it’s a really good high-quality story, too, that it can reach so many different people, appeal to so many different people.

Eric: In spite of itself.

Andrew: Yeah. So I know, Adriana, one thing that I was excited to talk to you about was the recasting of Lavender Brown, because we were talking about this the other day, and you said this really bothers you. And this was a real issue with the movies. So the role of Lavender Brown was originally played by a Black actress in Chamber of Secrets. Her name was Kathleen Cauley. And then in Prisoner of Azkaban, she was played by another Black actress, Jennifer Smith. But then the role went to Jessie Cave, a white actress, in Half-Blood Prince. What the heck happened there? [laughs] I think we can assume that she went from being played by two Black actresses to a white actress when they needed to make Lavender Ron’s love interest and they said, “Oh, God forbid we have Ron interested in a Black girl. People wouldn’t be able to handle it.” They whitewashed the character.

Adriana: They absolutely whitewashed the character. And like I said, I’m not the… I cannot pull out every tidbit about Harry Potter ever. But I do really want to know whether it was, “Okay, this character is named Lavender Brown. We could take this and make it more diverse. Lavender, Brown, sounds like a Black name. We’re just gonna call it what it is,” and they cast a Black actress twice. And I know Harry Potter is very specific about keeping the actors the same, and so whatever happened with the first actor, they still recasted another Black actress. And then, I don’t know whether it was when they got the text, they were like, “Oh, okay, the way they described this character, whoops, we made a mistake, and this character is Black. Let’s change it to white.” Or was it really, “Well, we don’t know how people are going to react to Ron having a Black love interest, so let’s just make her white.” I want to know, really, what the difference was. And also, even if it was the first thing where it was like, “Okay, ooh, we didn’t get to this book yet, and we realized that this character is white and we made her Black,” why couldn’t you just run with it?

Laura: Great question.

Adriana: What was wrong with just keeping…? Because that’s the thing in Harry Potter: They keep all the actors the same…

Eric: Yes, yes.

Adriana: … unless there is an issue, like they just can’t do it anymore.

Eric: Or like, are in jail. [laughs]

Adriana: Yeah, right, right, or are in jail. And also, is it that the actress that is playing Lavender Brown at that time, is she not what is conventionally pretty? Because it is a dark-skinned Black girl that plays Lavender Brown. Is it too much? Is she not, you know, Eurocentric enough? I really want to know what it is. But it really makes me upset, because I feel like that was such an opportunity that they could have took to take a character who was not Black, or that they thought wasn’t Black, and to keep her Black and add that diversity, because I would have loved Won-Won.

[Everyone laughs]

Adriana: I would’ve loved hearing that come… that even sounds like something a Black girl would say.

Eric: I didn’t know about this until we started preparing for this episode. It really seems damning. Also, consider this is not 1997, 1998, when the first books are coming out. This is 2002, 2003, 2005, and we’re talking about diversity being an ever forward-moving momentum thing. For them to have made that decision when the sixth film was coming out, that is a heck of a lot of… even a just different conversation in general in origin than you’re talking about with the books.

Andrew: And the Half-Blood Prince movie came out in 2009, so there’s even less of an excuse.

Adriana: Black people existed in 2009.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Adriana has confirmed it, thank you. We’re reporting this to CNN now and all the other news outlets. Associated Press, are you listening?

[Adriana laughs]

Andrew: What’s ironic, of course, is that they did eventually make Hermione Black for the Cursed Child, which was amazing, but that’s Ron being with a Hermione who’s Black, [laughs] so he does end up being with a Black girl anyway.

Eric: That’s an interesting point.

Adriana: It is interesting. Also, George ends up with a Black girl as well, Angelina Johnson.

Eric: So what were they afraid of?

Adriana: So many opportunities that are just missed in Harry Potter in the books and in the films. And I think going forward in the films, like we said, Fantastic Beasts really has an opportunity to knock it out of the park, and I think the fans deserve to get what they want.

Laura: I agree. When I think about this case with the recasting, and giving this role to Jessie Cave… no hate towards her.

Andrew: No.

Laura: She was great in the role. Great actress. But it also makes me wonder about what level of unconscious bias was at play here, that someone somewhere was like, “Oh yeah, Jessie is perfect for this,” and nobody thought to point out, “But… she used to be Black.”

Andrew: [laughs] Twice!

Laura: “Why are we changing this?”

Andrew: Oh, you know they thought it, though. I’m not going to pretend that they, like, “Oops, we forgot she was Black in Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban.” They knew, and they didn’t want to put Ron with a Black girl on screen because they were afraid of some sort of backlash or something. It’s extremely unfortunate, but I’m willing to bet that’s what happened.

Adriana: We’ve talked about this at length in our book club, and so this is just one of the hot topics where I’m just like, “I don’t understand the reasoning.” And it would have played so well onscreen because she’s such a funny character too. And she’s not a character that is going to even be around. Well, she’s around, but she’s not a main character. She comes in for a moment, and she has her moment and you love her, and then she kind of fades into the background with the other kids for the rest of the time.

Andrew: Right. Okay, so continuing on, Eric, I know you wanted to bring up a point about Dean.

Eric: I want to talk about Dean Thomas specifically, because we talked about his backstory, and J.K. Rowling has this comprehensive backstory for all of her characters. And I was reminded, actually, that J.K. Rowling talked about Dean having this extensive backstory that she had written down. I think it was the classic napkins type story where she’s writing out furiously his whole backstory. She did eventually address this on her own website, and I found a quote here. Now, as a lead into this, I’m wondering if it was better or worse that we did never get this Dean Thomas backstory. So what she said is, “I had a lot of background on Dean, though I had never found the right place to use it. His story was included in an early draft of Chamber of Secrets but then cut by me, because it felt like an unnecessary digression. Now I don’t think his history will ever make it into the books. Dean is from what he always thought was a pure Muggle background. He has been raised by his mother and his stepfather; his father walked out on the family when Dean was very young. Naturally, when the letter came from Hogwarts, Dean’s mother wondered whether his father might have been a wizard, but nobody has ever discovered the truth: that Dean’s father, who never told his wife what he was because he wanted to protect her, got himself killed by Death Eaters when he refused to join them.” And that was J.K. Rowling’s own words on it. So you have a hero dad, who dies doing the right thing, right? “Death Eaters? No way, I’m not joining you.” But in this backstory, if it made it into the books, you have a Black character, one of the series’ only Black characters, having an absent father. And I’m like, that perpetuates its own kind of stereotype.

Adriana: 110%.

Eric: So what do we think about this in general?

Adriana: If Dean Thomas was a bigger character and he had this backstory, I feel like we could look over it being so haphazard. But because he’s such a small character, if we would have got this weird backstory of like, his father really was a hero, but this father walked out on the kid. And it’s just like, everybody has two parents in Hogwarts, every single person, and a mother and a father. So why is the Black kid the only one without a mother and a father?

Eric: Well, he does have a stepfather, she says, but still, it’s kind of the same thing.

Adriana: Right, exactly.

Eric: It’s like, “Oh, broken family” kind of thing. It’s like, “Why is that kid the one with it?”

Adriana: And then, okay, so if we’re really going to go there to think, “Oh, it’s never going to make it in,” or it felt like it was a weird digression, Seamus Finnigan tells us his whole family story over breakfast.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: I know, that’s what I was thinking. We get so much exposition on ancillary characters’ background stories. Why did it feel like Dean’s was not relevant?

Andrew: Interesting.

Eric: Reportedly, it was Neville’s backstory that pushed out Dean’s, and you can understand with the Harry prophecy thing why that became the more central winning plot backstory. But at the same time, because of the extensive work J.K. Rowling does – again, I don’t think we’re calling her racist – I think that there’s a lot of missed opportunity in terms of representation and equality with what we were given in Harry Potter to be even more… looking at it now, we can look back and say, “This could have been better,” or “This was omitted and possibly should not have been.”

Adriana and Laura: Yeah.

Adriana: And I would like to go on record: For me personally, She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named is a lot of things…

[Andrew laughs]

Adriana: … but I do not think racist is one of the things I would consider her. I just think, like Laura said earlier, it is a bias. It’s an unconscious bias. And now that we’re aware of it, it just needs to be addressed and fixed.

Laura: Agreed.

Andrew: Right.

Eric: Love it.

Laura: The acknowledgement of it, the recognition of it, and then doing the work to make progress is what this is about. I don’t think anyone here is coming on this panel to say, “I think J.K. Rowling is a racist.” It’s more about a lot of people have unconscious bias and a lot of people have blind spots that they are not aware of, and I think this is one of them, especially at the time these books were written. Maybe things are different now, and we’ll see this when we get into some of the more diverse casting for Fantastic Beasts. Maybe there has been work done to improve on this, but it’s still totally valid to point out that this is a valid critique of these books.

Adriana: 110%. And I hope… am I saying it…? Kuma? I’m probably saying his name wrong. I’m pretty sure I’m saying it wrong. In Fantastic Beasts

Andrew: Oh, Yusuf Kama?

Adriana: Yeah, Kama.

Laura: There we go.

Adriana: I was like, what’s that?

[Andrew laughs]

Adriana: Yusuf Kama. I hope that they’re going to give us more of his backstory, because even in the preview they’re like, “Someone from a very old wizarding family…” I’m like, “Okay, I know that’s him,” so I hope that they give us what we want.

Andrew: Yeah, or even Leta, played by ZoĆ« Kravitz. Excellent role; I would love to see more there. We also…

Adriana: They did Leta dirty.

Eric: Yes.

Laura: Yeah, they did.

Andrew: Well, they did, I know. And it doesn’t seem like she’ll be in the third, but I feel like the door may have been left open. I think she may have said she might come back. I don’t know. We can see her in Batman next month at least. [laughs]

Laura: I was going to say, she was too busy filming Batman, so that’s why she’s not in the third.

Andrew: [laughs] WB was like, “Come to Batman; this franchise is going a lot better than Fantastic Beasts.” But while we’re on the subject of Fantastic Beasts, just to bring up a look at how maybe they’re trying to diversify, Claudia Kim was cast as Nagini. This is a South Korean actress. Unfortunately, there was a lot of backlash around this, too, because you’re having one of very few people of color playing a character who is cursed and becomes a slave to Voldemort. It’s not a good luck.

Adriana: It’s not a good look, and also, it’s another instance of a person of color not being a human, which is a constant theme in pop culture. It’s like, turning us into frogs or blobs or snakes. [laughs]

Eric: I can name the recent movies that came out where that same thing just happened that you just mentioned.

Adriana: And it’s like, what are we doing here? Why does this keep happening? And nobody’s pointing out that it’s weird, and it continues to happen over and over and over. Even when Soul came out, we were like, “But he’s a blob!”

Andrew: Transforming again. Come on, Pixar. You can do better than that. [laughs] You’re Pixar. Bam.

Laura: Well, it just makes you wonder who’s in the room when these concepts are being conceived.

Andrew: Right.

Adriana: Exactly. And we’re not in the room where it happens.

Andrew: Yeah, I mean, if you look at senior leadership of Pixar and Disney alone, it’s a very white picture. But one character I think, objectively, we can say “Great casting,” all that – Seraphina Picquery, whose Funko I think you actually have behind you.

Adriana: Yes!

Laura: Love her.

Eric: Yay.

Andrew: So she’s the Minister of Magic at MACUSA, so that was exciting to see. And then of course, Hermione in the Cursed Child, now played by Black actresses; she’s the Minister for Magic at England’s Ministry of Magic. So that’s all great, but I think we’re all in agreement that they haven’t gone far enough with Fantastic Beasts.

Eric and Laura: Yeah.

Adriana: So when Fantastic Beasts first came out, there was a big backlash about it being even more white than Harry Potter in general. Because even in Harry Potter, you get a lot of background characters and side characters, so side and background characters who are of color. If you watch Harry Potter, you can count at least two or three Black people or people of color on the screen at all times, unless it’s just the trio. And in Fantastic Beasts, you cannot. Everybody white. [laughs] At least, the first Fantastic Beasts. So I think once the first Fantastic Beasts came out, people were like, “Okay, let’s try to fix that and add some more to it.” And I think with Crimes of Grindelwald, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings and opinions, and I hope that we get the diversity that we deserve. But I’m excited to see more than just Serafina and Yusuf.

Andrew and Laura: Yeah.

Laura: I’m excited for Jessica Williams. I love her.

Andrew: Oh, yeah. Eulalie Hicks, an Ilvermorny professor. Yeah, that’ll be great. I think we… did we get a couple of glimpses of her in the trailer? I think.

Laura: We did.

Eric: She’s one of the group that’s going to be traveling around and paired with the heroes.

Andrew: Right. Yeah, okay.

Adriana: Yeah, we did. We got glimpses of her in the trailer. And she’s an amazing actress and I love her; when I saw her, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, this is going to be so cool.”

Andrew: And she has also said she is a huge, huge Harry Potter fan, and you don’t see that too often with the actors coming out and being like, “I’m a diehard Harry Potter fan.” Like, Evanna Lynch, Luna Lovegood: diehard Harry Potter, unapologetic. I get the same impression from Jessica Williams, so I can’t wait to see her in a wizarding world role.

Laura: Plus, I think all of us have followed her career to some extent, but I remember back when she was on The Daily Show, she was one of my favorite correspondents. And I remember hearing that she was a huge Harry Potter fan and I was like, “Oh my gosh, that’s amazing,” because I already love her, so it made me love her more. And then hearing that she was going to be in this franchise was just like, “Oh, that’s just spot on.” It’s perfect. I can’t wait to see her.

Adriana: Yeah, I’m very excited.

Laura: Jumping back to Cursed Child, around the time that Noma Dumezweni’s casting was announced for the role of Hermione in Cursed Child, J.K. Rowling implied that the casting of Hermione, or around that time, that Hermione was not written as explicitly white. I think her tweet said something along the lines as, “Hermione is described as having brown eyes and bushy hair,” and she included a winky face as though to say like, “I never said she was white.” And unfortunately, people had feelings and reactions to that; we all remember. But I do know from being on this podcast over the years, from speaking to others in the fandom, that that has been a headcanon for people for quite some time, long before Cursed Child came out, that Hermione could be read as a Black character. And I’m wondering if we think there are any other characters that are like Hermione in this respect, that can be read through a different lens and not seen as white.

Adriana: So I don’t think that she wrote her as a Black character, or could be a Black character. I 100% think that Hermione is her; it’s JK. And I mean, she could be, so we can take that and say, “Sure, she could be,” but she wrote her so vaguely because she’s her. You always insert yourself into a story, and it’s very obvious that Hermione is her. But I do like that she could be recasted as a Black character, and a lot of people, yeah, headcanon… a lot of people saw Hermione, even reading for the first time and being familiar with Emma Watson being Hermione, I still could see where Hermione could be Black. They talk about her being tan a lot, they talk about her curly hair, they talk about her brown eyes. But also, in literature people do this really weird thing that I wish that they would stop doing, which is when a character is Black, they won’t just say that the character is Black. They’ll use other words to describe Black. And I’m like, “That’s weird; just say Black,” because Black isn’t a bad word. But I do enjoy, and I’m going to see, Cursed Child – thank you winnings from the show…

[Eric laughs]

Adriana: I am going to go see Cursed Child in New York, so I will be very excited to see this Hermione.

Andrew: Oh, I’m so excited for you.

Laura: That’s awesome. I know on a previous show – this has probably been a year and a half ago or so – we did talk about our headcanon recasting of characters if a TV show were to happen, and someone who always stuck out to me as somebody who I would love to see playing the role of McGonagall is Viola Davis. I just feel like she could embody that character so well. And when I think about McGonagall’s character in the books, to me, I think that is a perception, that’s a reading, that I could have of the book. I could see McGonagall not being explicitly white. There’s so much room for several of the characters to look different than I think the default setting that we’re given through the early books provides us.

Adriana: I 100% can see Viola Davis as McGonagall. I guess my headcanon characters that could possibly be Black or be recasted as Black: Go ahead and do the whole Weasley family.

Andrew: Oh! [laughs]

Adriana: Black people can have red hair all day long.

Laura: Yes, they can.

Adriana: So for whatever reason, Black people really do feel kin to the Weasleys. Everything about the Weasleys is so fun. And my boyfriend always jokes all the time that he’s like, “That’s my family. I’m a Weasley.”

Eric: Aww.

[Andrew laughs]

Adriana: And so I feel like we could just redo the entire Weasley family as a Black family. I would love that. [laughs]

Laura: That’s amazing. I love that idea. So thinking about what the core books represent, and the opportunity that exists to diversify this franchise, I’m curious if you think that a lack of representation in the stories could have an impact on a diverse audience’s connection to the story.

Adriana: 110%. I think if you don’t see yourself, you don’t think something is for you. I don’t think that Black people, specifically people of color – not so much in Asian culture – but I feel like Black people have never really seen themselves be magical. I feel like all our lives, we’ve been told… as children, “You’re girl; you like princesses. Black girls can’t be princesses.” That’s the number one of kids being like, “Well, you can’t be a princess because you’re Black.” And you’re just like, “Who told you that?” So I think that if there was more representation in Harry Potter, 110% you would see more diversity in the fandom. And I think it’s become… not a new thing, but it’s more prominent now, Black people coming up and being like, “I’ve always been a Harry Potter fan. I’m a huge Harry Potter fan.” And I think this weird misconception that Black people aren’t nerdy and don’t like fandoms is a misconception because there’s so many… I grew up and my cousins loved comic books, and had crates and crates and crates of comic books, and were into video games and anime, and it was just a part of life. And so when you’re like, “Oh, yeah…” I did something recently and somebody was like… I gave them my phone to take a picture, and they didn’t realize whose phone it was, and it was like, “Oh, is somebody a Harry Potter fan?” And I’m like, “Oh, yeah, it’s me.” They’re like, “Oh, cool, I’m a Slytherin,” and I’m like, “Yeah, I’m a Hufflepuff.”

[Andrew laughs]

Adriana: The surprise in their eyes. And I’m like, “You think I can’t like Harry Potter?”

Eric: Did they give the phone back, a decidedly un-Slytherin trait?

[Andrew laughs]

Adriana: They gave the phone back. And sometimes when people find out that I’m a Harry Potter fan, I try not to slight flex, [laughs] but I’m like, “Yeah,” they’re like, “Oh, cool,” and they’ll start talking about their level of fandoms and whatnot, or their level of Harry Potter, and I want to resist the urge to be like, “Yeah, and I was on a Harry Potter TV show and I won it.”

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: You should!

Andrew: “I’m the real deal.”

Adriana: “You want me to blow your mind? I can really blow your mind.”

[Adriana and Andrew laugh]

Eric: I love that so much.

Laura: Wear that loud and proud.

Adriana: I do kind of get shy about it sometimes because I don’t ever want to feel braggy, especially in the Wizarding World. But when I’m there with my boyfriend, he’s very much like, “Oh, did you see the show?” And they’re like, “What?” [laughs]

Eric: You’ve got to have a wingman like that. You’ve got to get a shirt that says “Watch me now on HBO Max.”

Andrew: Yeah, I was just going to say that, so you don’t have to tell people; they can just read your shirt and be like, “Oh, okay, cool.”

Adriana: He’s totally my hype man. But no, to bring it back to if people see themselves represented, they’ll be more into it; so I have a really fun story. When Celebration happened at Universal about two or three weeks ago, and a lot of people from the show… it was the last week of January. A lot of people from the show got together and we all went to the Wizarding World, and because it was such a big event, it was one of our first times all being out together. And I do get recognized sometimes because my hair is the same. But this time, we got recognized more because there was just people who are more aware there, and also, we all had on our sweaters, so we looked like we looked on TV. [laughs] But anyway, long story short, people were coming up to us. A lot of kids coming up to us. “Oh my gosh, I watched you on the show; it was fun.” But it caused… not a huge commotion, but a little bit of commotion. I was walking out of Wizarding World and a whole Black family walked up to me and they were like, “Hey, what TV show were you on?” And I was like, “Oh, yeah, it’s called Harry Potter: Tournament of Houses.” And they were like, “Yeah, we want to watch it, because we didn’t know we was on it!” I’m like, “Yeah!”

[Andrew laughs]

Adriana: My friend Alex – Alex was one of the 24 contestants – she didn’t make it on the show. She’s a wonderful, wonderful person. She was itching to tell them… she’s like, “You haven’t seen it? Oh, you’ve got to watch.” She wanted to tell them so bad, “And she won!”

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: I know. Oh my gosh.

Adriana: I was like, “Let them be surprised!”

Laura: Imagine their reaction when they’re at home in their living room and you win.

Adriana: Right?

Eric: Amazing.

Andrew: “Why didn’t we get a picture with her? Darn it!”

Adriana: Right, that’s so… I have a social media following; even my followers who aren’t Hufflepuffs, they’re like, “I’ve never rooted for a Hufflepuff so hard.”

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Adriana: They were like, “We were just so excited to see you on the show, but to see that you actually won…” And I had to hold that secret for months. [laughs]

Andrew: Yeah, I was going to say, that must’ve been tough.

Adriana: It was very hard.

Andrew: Speaking of representation and normalizing, this show is very helpful for normalizing Hufflepuffs, because Hufflepuffs always get a bad rap. And look at you guys now; you’re the winners. [laughs]

Adriana: No, that made it feel even sweeter because no one expected the Hufflepuffs to win. And there’s a point in my vlog where it’s right after the first episode, and we’re getting ready to do promo shots. It’s like, five o’clock in the morning, we’re trying to hype ourselves up, and I turn the camera to Luke and he goes, “We’re doing it for the Puffs.” And I’m like, “Yes, we are! We’re doing it for the Puffs!”

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: That’s so great.

Laura: Oh my gosh, I love that. I love the energy.

Andrew: Well, speaking of – and just getting back to something from a few minutes ago – Adriana, you said that others thought that Harry Potter wasn’t for Black people or pop culture wasn’t for Black people because they’re not represented. And maybe these white people would actually realize that Black people are into it, too, if they actually saw Black people in these stories. So that’s another reason why I think it’s important to actually have lots of diversity in these stories.

Adriana: I think that’s one of the big things, is that when people are surprised that Black people like Harry Potter or Star Wars or different fandoms, you hit the nail on the head. It’s because we aren’t represented in these things. And if you never see yourself, you never know that you could do it. And it’s such an opposite feeling, because how do I tell you, “Well, you don’t think that I like this because you’ve never seen someone like me like this, and what is it like to have not ever not seen yourself?” Everybody is white. If you watch a sci-fi, the hero is… any movie, the hero is always white. Sometimes it’s a white woman. Sometimes it’s a white man. But the majority of the heroes are always white, and the side characters are always white. So if we had more representation, people wouldn’t be so surprised, and they’d be like, “Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Duh.”

Laura: It is funny to push back on people who… perhaps they’re well-intentioned, and they just don’t understand the importance of representation. But I can just speak for myself here and say I started reading Harry Potter when I was 11, and as a little white girl, I saw myself represented in those books quite a bit. And if you encourage people to put themselves in someone else’s shoes and think about how would you have felt as an 11-year-old, as a child, if you were reading this series that you loved, but you didn’t see anyone or you only saw very few glimpses of people who looked like you?

Adriana: Yes.

Laura: It’s a different experience.

Adriana: There’s something to be said about it. To this day, I get teary-eyed when I see kids dressed up in the Wizarding World and they look like me. I wish that when I was 9 or 10 or 11, that I had this connection to this book, that I could cosplay and dress up and do all of those things. But I also didn’t think those things were for me, because I didn’t see myself represented as well. So it’s just like, I feel like it’s a missed opportunity for… not so much a missed opportunity for other people, but also, for the person who’s consuming it, I would have really liked those things too. I would have liked to have those experiences. But now I’m an adult and I can afford to do it on my own, ha ha.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Laura: Exactly. You’ve got that disposable income.

[Adriana and Andrew laugh]

Adriana: Right, nobody can tell me. I can have seven butterbeers if I want. [laughs]

Andrew: Yeah, no one’s going to tell me it’s too much sugar. [laughs]

Adriana: Exactly. Until I pass out.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: So Adriana, turning our attention back to our discussion with you today, I assume one big aspect of being in the Harry Potter fandom for you has been the community you’ve found here, right? And meeting fellow Black Harry Potter fans?

Adriana: Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, I got into Harry Potter when my mom passed away. A lot of the story does resonate with me, dealing with grief. I didn’t realize that the story was about… he literally has to relive the death of his parents every book and learn how to deal with that. And so reading it, and grieving and learning how to get over my grief through Harry Potter, and then finding a group of people who liked what I liked as well, and it wasn’t… there’s a Black Disney community as well, and so I was already a part of the Black Disney community. And so then when I got into Harry Potter, and I found… I’m like, “Okay, y’all like Disney; y’all like Harry Potter too?” And so we all got together and it was a great experience. And we all have our own little backstory; everybody has their own original character, but we all have our own little backstories and where we fit in the story. What was we doing when Harry caught the Snitch? Is there a Black Student Union? Are the girls doing a little cheer on the sidelines?

Andrew: I love that.

Laura: Can we just make that a thing in the TV show whenever the time comes?

Eric: Yes.

Andrew: [laughs] We’re going to have a big list of requests.

Adriana: Absolutely. There 100% needs to be a Black Student Union. There is one at every college, so it might as well happen at Hogwarts.

Laura: Right.

Andrew: Yeah, really. And by the way, in the next week or so, we’re going to have a post on our social media channels highlighting some Black Harry Potter content creators, including Adriana, of course, but also Bradley Bakes; we actually had him on the show last March. We had a great interview with him on his YouTube channel, what he’s doing. We’re also going to be featuring Nikki of @ItsDarlingNikki; Trey, who is @IAmBlackHarry, who was on the trivia show as well; Brittany Noelle, @B_NoelleFitness; Chanel Williams, at @ChanWills; Niky, who is @MagicParatus; and Briona, who is @StitchesAndSpells; and then Gerard Oliver, who is @DapperMinisterOfMagic; so stay tuned for that post coming to our social media channels. But yeah, so to start wrapping this up, we also got a little bit of feedback from our listeners. We reached out asking them, our Black listeners, if they had any feedback here. Danielle said, “Growing up I saw myself in Hermione and Angelina Johnson. As a kid the way they were described physically in the books I was for sure they were both black. I was very disappointed to find out Hermione was not black because I really identified with her.” And then in terms of how she’d like to see herself represented in Harry Potter, Danielle said, “I would have loved to go further into what it is like to be a black Wizarding family and what that community would be like. It seems like there were very few in England so I would want to know that experience.” Well, stay tuned, Danielle, because if Adriana and the rest of us get our way, we’re going to have a whole Black Weasley family, and then we’re going to be finding out. [laughs]

Adriana: 110%.

Andrew: @Singa4hire actually had a critical piece of feedback. “Black people in Harry Potter? That’s crazy because people almost boycotted Hermione being Black in the Broadway show. But you can’t ask a transphobic billionaire in the hills of Scotland to write about something she knows nothing about.”

Laura: You’re not wrong.

Adriana: That part. [laughs] I do think, 110%, we cannot continue to ask anything more of a person who isn’t aware of the world as a whole. But what we can do is move forward, like we’ve been saying this entire podcast, and demand for more representation. Not only for Black characters; we need trans characters, we need gay characters, we need more Asian characters… everybody needs to see themselves and be a wizard. We’re all magical, so why can’t we see that on the screen?

Andrew: Aww.

Laura: That is perfect.

Eric: That’s a great thought.

Andrew: Anything else, Adriana, you want to discuss today? Want to make sure we…?

Adriana: No, I mean, I don’t have anything to add other than, one, thank you for having me on.

Andrew: Absolutely.

Adriana: This has been an amazing conversation. I think conversations like this need to be had more often. And I encourage everybody who’s listening to be more aware of that everyone needs to be represented. If you’re part of a community that is always represented, a way you can be a good ally is to demand for representation of other people. And let’s just all work together and be in this together, because at the end of the day, it’s entertainment, and if that’s what the masses want, they’re going to give it to us, so we just need to be strong in speaking up and asking for these things. As the old adage goes, closed mouths don’t get fed, so we need to ask them to give us what we want.

Eric: Wow. That’s really good.

Laura: So great.

Andrew: And you know what, I think we as a fandom are teed up to ask for more diversity. WB is listening. They’re a little desperate right now in a couple of ways. [laughs]

Eric: That’s true.

Andrew: I mean, Fantastic Beasts hasn’t gone too well, so I really think that now, the next few years, is a great time to be speaking up and making sure WB notices, because you really can get the fans rallied right now.

Adriana: What I love very much about the Harry Potter fandom is that we are so strong that we literally excommunicated the creator.

[Andrew laughs]

Adriana: When you’re just like, “No, thank you; we took this from you,” that’s such a strong community. And if we can do that, what else can we do?

Andrew: Exactly, exactly. And this is my point; we can see it working. We can see what happens when we get together and speak out, so that’s why now is the time to be calling for more diversity in these stories. Adriana, where can people find you online?

Adriana: So you can find me on Instagram at @BibbidiBobbidi_Broke, and I’m also on TikTok. Same exact way it’s spelled. @BibbidiBobbidi_Broke.

Andrew: Awesome.

Eric: Adriana, something we ask all of our guests: What is your favorite book and movie, by the way?

Adriana: Ooh, okay. This is a good question because they’re different. My favorite movie is Half-Blood Prince

Eric: Okay.

Adriana: … because it’s so emotionally charged, and it’s really the movie where shit gets real.

Laura: [laughs] Good summary.

Adriana: And people are really going to have to deal with the choices that they’ve made, and it gets a little violent at that point. And you can tell that it’s getting to a climactic end; it’s the rise. And I’ll say my favorite book is probably going to be Sorcerer’s Stone. It’s just the classic. It’s the beginning of the… it’s where the magic starts. And it’s never going to be the best story, but it is where it all begins, and so I never want to let go of the beginning. It’s the movie that I watch the most. It’s the book that I go back to the most. It’s where we fall in love with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. It’s where we fall in love with this world. So that’s why it’s my favorite.

Laura: Great answer.

Andrew: That’s why Sorcerer’s Stone movie is my favorite movie; between that and Deathly Hallows – Part 2 I’m always tied up. Because it is the beginning, and it’s extra whimsical.

Adriana: So the first movie is extra, extra whimsical. It’s where we get the infamous scene where we’re seeing Hogwarts for the first time. I get chills every time I think about it.

Eric: John Williams’s clanging and banging score.

Adriana: Yes! Oh yes, the score, the music. It’s where we all connect to it. But Deathly Hallows – Part 2 is so heavy and it’s so good, and you’re just emotionally… it’s probably the one I’ve watched the least amount of times, and it’s not for lack of loving it; it’s because I literally sob from beginning to end, and I’m like, “Today I just can’t be an emotional wreck.”

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Brutal.

Andrew: I still vividly remember being in the theater for that movie, midnight release, and just hearing people all around me crying in surround sound. Everybody’s sobbing during…

Eric: We still suspect they were paid to do that, right? Professional criers at every…

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: No, I didn’t get paid. Where’s my check for that? [laughs]

Eric: It seemed that way in my group.

Adriana: So it’s in my vlog. If you ever want to see any of the behind the scenes for Harry Potter: Tournament of Houses, I have three vlogs on my Instagram. If you go to videos, you’ll see them; they say part one, part two, part three. But in part three, me and Luke, the day of the finale, we decide, “What movie haven’t we watched enough? Which movie haven’t we internalized enough?” So we order coffee and we watch seven part 2, and I kid you not, from beginning to end, we sit on that bed and just cry, because it was just such a cool experience, but also, this movie is so good. And then we started laughing because we’re like, “Look at us, two Harry Potter nerds just sobbing profusely. This is like, the seventh time we’ve seen this movie, and we’re still like, [cries] ‘Harry is brave!'”

Eric: Amazing.

Laura: Oh, yeah. No, we’ve all been there.

Adriana: So I don’t want to go over time too much, but I do want to know… everybody has different opinions on what they want. Each one of you, what do you want to see going forward? Do you want to see a TV show? Do you want new movies? A cartoon? What do you see for the future of Harry Potter?

Andrew: I’ll tell you exactly what I want in one breath: Reboot the Harry Potter books as a TV series. That way we would get everything in the books, and there’s tons to work with, obviously. They could add so much that we never saw in the movies, so that’s all I want.

Eric: I want an inexpensive – that’s a joke now these days – Hogwarts Hotel.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Go take classes. Be part of the experience for a weekend, whatever. At least a quarter of the cost of Universal tickets. Let everybody in. Let them go to Hogwarts.

Adriana: Oh my God, that would be… talk about tears. Oh my God, I would cry the entire time.

Eric: Andrew, when you said you were going to do it all in one breath, I thought you were going to say, “Dumbledore’s Astronomy Tower of Terror!”

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: The whole ride idea.

Andrew: I do have a theme park ride. So Adriana, you’re a big Disney fan. You know Tower of Terror? I think they should do a Dumbledore’s Tower of Death. What do I call it? Astronomy Tower of Death or something.

Eric: It was a whole thing, yeah.

Andrew: Anyway, you fall like Dumbledore, but then you go back up and you fall again. [laughs] I’m sick, I know.

Adriana: You want us to relive Dumbledore’s death every time we ride this?

Andrew: I’m sick.

Adriana: Sir, seek help.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: He does have help. He has us. We boost him.

Andrew: [laughs] They encourage this.

Eric: We’re like, “Yeah, great idea, buddy.”

Laura: Are we good help, though?

Andrew: I think so.

Eric: We’re not better help. He’s got to seek better help.

Laura: That’s a nice reference to one of our sponsors.

Eric: Real quick, guys, I had an idea. We don’t have to use it. I thought, what if we did Quizzitch, but I ask Adriana last week’s question as one other trivia question, given that she was on Tournament of Houses?

Laura: Ooh. You okay being put on the spot like that?

Eric: I just thought of it.

Adriana: I’m okay with it. I like answering trivia questions.

Andrew: But hold on – Laura didn’t get in her idea.

Eric: Yeah, when Quizzitch comes we’ll do the whole thing, but I just thought of that.

Laura: I’m going to sound like a broken record to all of our listeners, and to Andrew and Eric, but I really want the TV show, obviously, but I think that the survival of this franchise depends on the decision to let other creators into the sandbox and play with the story. I want to see something similar to what Disney has done with Star Wars in terms of letting other creators in. I want to see something similar to what the MCU has done in terms of letting multiple people come in and help tell the story and shape future narratives. That is my dream scenario. I don’t know if we’re going to get it, but it’s really what I want, and I talk about it all the time.

[Andrew laughs]

Adriana: I 110% agree with Laura. I want it to kind of be an MCU situation. I want you to give us some more movies, and I also want a TV series, and I need them all to coexist and work within each other but all be different voices. But more specifically, I would like a show that’s about what the other kids were doing during the Harry Potter series, and I just think it’d be a comedy almost, like literally, “Oh, you know those three weird kids that always get in trouble? Yeah, I don’t know about them.”

Eric: Like Puffs. Like an adaptation of… have you seen Puffs, the play?

Adriana: Yes! I would love that. And it could have cameos of the three main characters, but I don’t want the show to be about them. I want the show to fully follow another storyline of some other magical things that was happening, and other maybe little… you know how when you play a game, you got the big boss, but you’ve got the side missions?

Andrew: Yeah, the side quests.

Adriana: I want to see others. Yeah, I want side quests of other things, like, “They’re over there fighting Voldemort; meanwhile, we’re trying to do X, Y, and Z.”

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Meanwhile, things are heating up at the Gobstones Club.

[Andrew laughs]

Adriana: Exactly.

Laura: Or like, final exams got cancelled because of the Chamber of Secrets being open; what were the seventh years supposed to do? They’re trying to graduate and they’re like “Oh my God…”

Eric: There’s the one study bug that’s really upset about it besides Hermione.

[Laura laughs]

Adriana: And I also think it could be like an anthology, where it doesn’t follow one story, just a bunch of different stories. I would like that as well.

Andrew: Absolutely. Great idea, great idea. Well, hopefully… HBO Max, they need ideas, so I think this would be a great one. Listeners, we’ll put Adriana’s Instagram and TikTok handles and links in our social media channels and in the show notes; please do follow her. This has been a great discussion. Thank you so much, Adriana. This has been really, really special.

Laura: You’ve been fantastic.

Andrew: And 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 voice messages, just record the message using the Voice Memo app on your phone. You can also use the contact form on MuggleCast.com, or you can leave a voicemail on our phone; the number is 1-920-3-MUGGLE.


Quizzitch


Andrew: Okay, now it’s time for Quizzitch.

[Quizzitch music plays]

Eric: Welcome to this special edition of Quizzitch, where first we are going to be asking last week’s question to Adriana, who led her team Hufflepuff to victory on Hogwarts Tournament of Houses. Adriana, are you ready for last week’s Quizzitch question?

Adriana: I am ready.

Eric: It’s a question from Deathly Hallows. In Deathly Hallows, Hermione suggests two spells for Ron to use when it’s raining inside Yaxley’s office. What are the two spells?

Adriana: Finite Incantatem

Eric: That is one of them.

Adriana: Ooh… I don’t know.

Andrew: You can pass, it’s okay.

Adriana: I know one of them!

Andrew: I’m impressed you got one! What’s the other one?

Laura: Yeah, I wouldn’t have known either one of them…

Andrew: Me neither. [laughs]

Laura: … so you did way better than I would’ve.

Adriana: I feel like the moment you said, I’m going to be like, “Ahh, I know it!” So a bunch of the contestants on the show also feel like they put a charm inside of each question that removed more knowledge from your brain, because we legitimately… afterwards, if you asked us anything, we’d be like, “What?” [laughs]

Andrew: That’s a high-stress environment, too; you’ve got the lights, the cameras, Helen Mirren… I would totally blank on everything. [laughs]

Eric: So here’s the paragraph from page 244 of Harry Potter the Deathly Hallows. “‘Try Finite Incantatem,’ said Hermione at once. ‘That should stop the rain if it’s a hex or a curse; if it doesn’t, something’s gone wrong with an Atmospheric Charm, which will be more difficult to fix, so as an interim measure, try Impervius to protect his belongings.'” The answer is Finite Incantatem and Impervius.

Adriana: Okay, so I got half points.

Andrew: You did.

Eric: Right away. You were like, “Okay, that’s one of them.” Nice work. People who did submit the correct answer to last week’s Quizzitch include Landon; Bort Voldemort; Miss Mel; Pottaaahh; The Cactus Returns; Must be a Weasley 92; A lost packet of Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum; Me 2010; The Evil Weevil; Ron; Remus John Lupin; and Buff Daddy.

Andrew: [laughs] Love Buff Daddy.

Eric: Congratulations to all of those winners, and here is a question for next week. In honor of Black History Month, here’s a question about one of Hogwarts’s Black characters: How many Quidditch matches does Lee Jordan commentate while Harry is at Hogwarts that Harry himself plays in? How many Quidditch matches does Harry play in that Lee Jordan commentates?

Laura: Ooh. Those are some pretty specific parameters.

Andrew: Adriana, let me ask you something: Whose quiz music is better? The TV show’s who you were on, or our quiz music?

Adriana: I think you guys’ quiz music.

Andrew: Yes! Take that, Helen Mirren!

[Laura laughs]

Adriana: It’s very much better. I like your quiz music better.

Eric: Andrew is picking a fight he can’t win.

Andrew: Wow. That is the nicest thing I think anybody’s ever said about the show. Thank you, Adriana. We appreciate that.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: Yeah, we weren’t fishing for that compliment at all.

Adriana: I also have, like, PTSD attached to the show’s quiz music, so… [laughs]

Andrew: Well, anyway, couple of closing reminders before we say goodbye. Make sure you’re following MuggleCast for free in your favorite podcast app, so you never miss an episode, and leave us a review if they allow you to. Also, don’t forget to follow us on social media; our username is @MuggleCast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. And keep an eye on those social media channels this week because once again, we will include links and buttons to Adriana’s Instagram and TikTok. Thank you, everybody, for listening. This has been so fun. So insightful. I’m Andrew.

Eric: I’m Eric.

Laura: I’m Laura.

Adriana: And I’m Adriana!

Andrew: Bye, everyone!

Laura: Bye, y’all.

Transcript #549

 

MuggleCast 549 Transcript

 

Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #549, Female Friendships and Male Vulnerability in Harry 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: On this week’s episode, it’s wizarding Galentine’s Day and Valentine’s Day. We’re getting close to both, so we’re going to spend this episode looking at relationships between the women in the series to celebrate Galentine’s Day – this might be a MuggleCast first – and then we’re going to look at another MuggleCast first, the top seven moments featuring male characters getting emotionally vulnerable, with one another in particular. This is something that doesn’t really happen too often, both in fiction and the real world. And it’s a discussion…

Micah: Oh, it happens in fanfiction.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Just ask Andrew.

Laura: Gotta love fanfiction.

Andrew: We’ll get into that in a moment. But first, just a couple of quick reminders. Don’t forget to follow us on our brand new TikTok; we are now @MuggleCast. @MuggleCastPod no more; we are @MuggleCast. So follow us there for lots of fun stuff. And if you have a moment, we would appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Both of them have review features and it’ll only take a second to review us. We will not be leaving Spotify.

Micah: [laughs] I was just going to say.

Andrew: While we don’t agree with all of Spotify’s decisions, we do still have to be there, so please review us if you don’t mind. [laughs] Spotify is just a quick starred review; it just takes a split second. And then Apple Podcasts, you can actually write a review. By the way, we do see these reviews, and people write some really nice stuff. Panel, if you’re ever feeling down or anything, just go look at the Apple Podcasts reviews about the show. They are so nice.

Micah: I’m going to do that.

Laura: Agreed.


Discussion: Female friendships in Harry Potter


Andrew: All right, so let’s get straight into our main discussion today. We’re going in two different directions today; both are under the theme of love. We’ll start with female friendships in honor of Galentine’s Day, and then we’re going to look at male characters who show vulnerability, something that’s rare amongst men. [laughs] So first, Laura, what is Galentine’s Day? A lot of people don’t actually even know what this is.

Laura: Yeah, I’m so glad that you asked. Galentine’s Day is actually February 13th, not the 14th, and it’s the day when women celebrate their female friendships. The holiday was “created” in 2010 during an episode of Parks and Recreation, and it’s now become a huge deal and is celebrated across the world amongst women who want to celebrate their friendships and their bonds with each other. Something else that I wanted to say here is an enormous thanks to our social media manager, ChloĆ©. When this concept came up, actually, it was her brainchild; she went all in on the Galentine’s Day research, put together some amazing documentation for me to draw from when I was putting this discussion together, and I just want to say, ChloĆ© is my Galentine.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Aww.

Laura: She’s amazing.

Andrew: That’s so sweet.

Eric: Laura, what’s a bigger holiday, Galentine’s Day or National Pastry Day? What do we think?

Laura: Oh, definitely Galentine’s Day.

Eric: Really? Okay.

Laura: Definitely.

Andrew: Didn’t you and ChloĆ© have a Galentine’s Day of your own this weekend? Didn’t you two hop on the phone and chat?

Laura: Yeah, we hung out. It was super fun.

Andrew: That’s so cute. That’s so great. That’s a MuggleCast first, by the way.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Laura: We don’t hang out with each other.

Andrew: None of us are just like, “You want to talk on the phone?”

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Micah: Andrew never calls.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: But I thought it was really interesting that we were approaching a Valentine’s Day-themed discussion looking at the love of friendship. I think oftentimes when it comes to shipping – not just in the Harry Potter fandom, but in general – people tend to prioritize romantic relationships. And to be honest, within the realm of canon, we’ve done that to death. I feel like there is no more romantic development that we can talk about in the core seven Harry Potter books; I think that we’ve just unpacked that theme over and over and over over the years. So it seemed like this was a really cool way to do something different for Valentine’s Day and to celebrate platonic relationships.

Eric: And they’re so important.

Laura: They are.

Eric: I think in our life we’ll have a lot more platonic relationships than romantic relationships.

Andrew: [laughs] Hopefully.

Eric: So to shed some light on those would be very valuable.

Laura: So to kick this off, I wanted to chat a little bit about the importance of female friendships and look into some examples from the Harry Potter books. But I did first want to give a little disclaimer here, acknowledging that the language of “female friendships” or “women friendships,” it can feel antiquated, especially with a lot of the conversations that have been happening in the fandom lately around identity and gender. So I do want to specify that many of the themes present in Galentine’s type relationships cross over to relationships between cis women and gay men, for example, as well as other nonbinary folk. I think that all of these groups can oftentimes have a lot of the same crossover that we typically see represented in cisgendered female friendships. I certainly feel that way myself; there are just some areas of common ground that exist between myself and friends of mine who belong to these groups, and it’s really what makes these friendships so powerful. There are just some things that I’m only going to speak with certain of my friends about, and it’s because of that common ground. So I just wanted to establish that. I didn’t want anyone to feel alienated, or like we’re only talking about assigned female at birth, definitely socialized as female as part of this conversation, as well.

Andrew: That’s fair. We’re leaning into the general theme of Galentine’s Day and what it stands for.

Laura: Right, but I think there’s room for everyone in the conversation, and that’s really what I’m hoping for people to get out of it. So looking at probably the most obvious example of a female friendship in Harry Potter, we can look at Hermione and Ginny. I really like this one, because you could look at Hermione and Ginny and say: Are they best friends?

Eric: That would be hard to justify. I think more often than not, they get lumped together because Hermione is visiting the Burrow for the holidays, and Ginny is the only girl in the Weasley family. They room together; they would inevitably… I think part of friendship when you’re young is exposure; you have friends of proximity. And to that end, I think Ginny and Hermione would get to know each other a lot very early on. Whether that translates into a stronger actual substantive friendship, I don’t know.

Andrew: Yeah. And I’m also just thinking about the situation at the Burrow; you do have Molly, but then you have so many boys there, and Hermione and Ginny just need to stick together and get a break from all these guys. So I wouldn’t call them best friends either, but you see why they immediately latch on to each other. And then you also consider that Hermione, of course, is part of the trio. Again, Ginny is a break from the trio for Hermione.

Micah: Ginny saw opportunity, though. That’s what I think. She was like, “Oh, if I become friends with Hermione, then I can get closer to Harry.”

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Micah: I’m just kidding.

Eric: Yeah, I don’t know that it was that strategic. Keep in mind, she is a year younger than everybody else.

Micah: Yeah. And adding on to what you were saying, Eric, though, I think it is interesting that they do become sisters-in-law, and certainly they would bond over that down the road. But I think at school, it is kind of hard to tell. They’re definitely friendly, but I don’t know about best friends.

Laura: Yeah, that’s how I tend to feel as well. I don’t feel like Hermione and Ginny are best friends in the way that Hermione is with Harry and Ron, but there are just certain things that Hermione and Ginny will have common ground about that they’re not going to have with Harry and Ron. And as a result, certain topics that probably get brought up during those times when they’re bunking together at the Burrow or at Grimmauld Place or at the Quidditch World Cup that Harry, the books being told from his point of view, he’s never going to get to see that. I think some really important points here… and again, ChloĆ©, all of these details are just [makes chef’s kiss sound] Ginny knew about Viktor Krum taking Hermione to the ball before Harry and Ron did, she also knew that he and Hermione had kissed way before Harry and Ron ever knew, and that just goes to show that there’s a level of trust and solidarity that these two found in each other. Not to say that they wouldn’t be able to find it with their male friends, but there’s again that degree of common experience, particularly for the two of them, Ginny coming from a family of all brothers and Hermione being the only girl in her friend group. I’m sure they can go to each other and say, “Oh my God, these guys are so annoying.”

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: I was going to say that. Yeah, go on, Micah.

Micah: You mentioned Viktor Krum and it made me think about how the reunion when we transition into Goblet of Fire, it was the coming of age, right? Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix. Do you think that Hermione, Ginny, as they both come of age, they need somebody who’s another female to connect with? Is that just a natural progression for somebody? Just because there are things, to your point, Laura, that they can bond over, they can talk about, that Hermione is not going to be sharing with Harry and Ron.

Laura: Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I think back on all of my female friendships at that particular age, and there were absolutely topics that were completely off-limits with my male friends. It was like, I wouldn’t even go there. But with my girlfriends, we could sit up all night dissecting and just digging into everything, because there was a feeling of that being a safe space.

Eric: Well, having a safe space is definitely huge. Was there also a maturity angle? If you tried to bring up any of these feelings or thoughts with Ron, he would gag and turn red and run for the hills. Some of these topics, I feel like the reason you couldn’t bring them up, the reason that you need to discuss them with other people who share your gender, are because there’s just a lack of maturity or sensitivity around some of these topics, and it would have fallen, I think, short. Telling Ron or confiding in Ron about her feelings for Viktor would not have ended very well for Hermione at all; he would have gotten defensive and all that stuff that he was anyway when he did find out.

Laura: Right, well, Ron was obviously jealous of Viktor, and there’s also that weird sort of dynamic where Ron was obsessed with Viktor to begin with. He was an idol, and then when he found out Mister Steal Your Girl came over to Hogwarts and took Hermione to the Yule Ball, he probably felt really undermined by that and really threatened by that, right?

Eric: Didn’t he have a toy Viktor? He had a little doll?

Laura: He did, and he broke it. Like, let’s talk about fragile ego here.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Harry found Viktor Krum’s broken arm under his bed.

Eric: I hope that wasn’t alive. [laughs]

Laura: I know, it was definitely charmed. But yeah, I think that, again, it goes back to having that common experience. And also, when you’re growing up… I think this is something we can all relate to to some degree; there is that feeling when you’re 14-15 of thinking that you’re feeling things and experiencing things that are completely new, and you’re thinking, “Oh my God, nobody’s ever felt this way before.” But maybe when you’re looking at friends of yours who have common ground with you, a lot of shared experiences, there is that feeling of safety and being able to build each other up, offer each other advice, etc.

Andrew: Yeah. You know that when you come to somebody, like looking back at Hermione, Ginny, they can say whatever they want to each other and it’s a safe space.

Laura: Exactly.

Andrew: Like you’re saying, they will be supported.

Micah: They also had a rather odd bonding – or experience that I guess you could say they could bond over – with the Chamber of Secrets and the Basilisk in that both were victims of Tom Riddle. Ginny, obviously, being taken in and being manipulated throughout the school year, and Hermione inevitably getting Petrified by the Basilisk. I’m not saying that that’s something that people normally bond over, but given that we are talking about the Harry Potter series, it’s something that they could talk about, express their feelings on, I guess.

Laura: Yeah, there’s shared trauma there. And obviously, we’ve made the same argument for Harry and Ginny, too, right? Because they’ve both been possessed by Voldemort.

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Eric: I try to think about anybody in Hermione’s year that would be an alternate to Ginny, and I fall short. We don’t really see her relating to any of the girls her age. More often than not, she’s actually antagonistic towards Lavender Brown and other characters, so it’s pretty much… and same with Ginny. We don’t know who Ginny’s friends are that are in her grade that are dormmates really at all.

Laura: Yeah. And that’s one of the more flawed sides of these characters. All characters have them, but both Hermione and Ginny are pretty dismissive towards anyone who comes across as too, in their eyes, excessively feminine or a “girly” girl. And we’ll get to it a little bit later, but I think the argument definitely stands that the author may also have some bias against overly girly girlish women or overly feminine women. I mean, I’ve never seen someone write so much about hating the color pink.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: For starters. That’s scratching the surface. [laughs] There was a really good note here that ChloĆ© included. I feel like we co-planned this. ChloĆ© said, “I wish we could have seen Hermione and Ginny get ready with each other before the Yule Ball. Those are the best moments, getting ready before a night out with your girlfriends.” And I 100% agree. What’s mixed into this is like, there’s pep talks; there’s some nervous preparation; there’s some excitement; your friend is usually helping you prepare your outfit and your makeup and your hair, if you do those things. There’s so much solidarity and advice given, and I just personally have a ton of wonderful memories of doing this with my friends when I was coming of age. And I feel like we miss out by not getting to see more of this side of the female characters, of getting to see them interact directly with each other without a man being present or without talking about a man.

Eric: It’s also such a production, isn’t it, getting ready for a nice ball? There’s the smell of hairspray in the room for hours, and somebody’s mom comes and helps usually, most of the time, I mean, from what I know. I just think it’s a wonderful bonding experience that is missed out in the books, but probably definitely happened.

Laura: Yeah, well, Eric, you have a sister, right?

Eric: I do have a younger sister, yeah.

Laura: So I was going to say, there’s some degree of this, which you probably saw growing up with your sister and her friends.

Eric: Yeah, for sure. Or there’d be sleepovers, and I was the older brother so it’s like, “Ew, get out of here, boy.”

Laura: Right.

[Micah laughs]

Eric: Yeah, from what I saw, there was a lot of bonding going on, a lot of TV, a lot of laughter.

Micah: What’s funny, Laura, is that instead of that, we get Harry and Ron getting ready for the Yule Ball.

Laura: I know. And it’s so tragic, because it’s so stifled and awkward, whereas it would probably be way more fun to be experiencing the conversations that some of the girls are having getting ready, right? It would be a lot more animated, probably, because I think part of it is, too… generally speaking, when you’re looking at these kinds of tropes of teenagers – and Hogwarts is very much presented as a gender binary – it’s like, you have men and women and there shall be no in between, which is a definite criticism that we can have of the series. But with these heightened representations of masculinity and femininity, honestly, feminine representations tend to be more fun to read about because there tends to be more chatter, there’s more social awareness, whereas Ron is wearing his great uncle’s dress robes.

Micah: They look like his Great Aunt Tessie’s, yeah.

Laura: [laughs] Whereas you just have no idea how much you would actually be missing in some of the probably deeper conversations happening in the girls’ dormitory.

Eric: Yeah, Ron is miserable because he’s upset over the Hermione thing because, again, he didn’t voice his feelings. He was not emotionally vulnerable in this moment. He’s upset about Hermione going with Viktor, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it. And you know what? He and Harry both show the Patil twins a horrible time.

Micah: Yeah.

Laura: I know.

Andrew: Awful.

Laura: Justice for Parvati and Padma, seriously.

Eric: 100%. I feel so bad for them because of the way that they are treated. And on a girl’s perspective, it would be a lot of fun, you know? “Oh my gosh, is he going to ask me to dance?”, this, that, and the other thing. And to hear the disappointment that they must have felt after Ron and Harry actually show up and are just concentrating in different areas… like, come on, guys.

Laura: Yeah. Well, and also there’s the fame aspect, too; one of the twins was going with Harry Potter. And not to say that Parvati was shallow enough to say, “Oh, I’m just excited to go do this because I’m going with this high profile person,” but I think for anyone, there would be a degree of excitement about that. And then to be effectively left on the dance floor by myself, and not be shown a good time by the person who asked me to go to this big event, when that person is so, so high profile, like… eugh.

Eric: Yeah, the bar is really low, right? Slow dance a little. Look at them in the eye. Be active in the moment. And Harry is too focused on Ron and Ron is too focused on himself and they just… they aren’t.

Laura: Right. That’s such a good way to put it. But shifting a little bit to look at some of what Ginny has confided in Hermione, Hermione knows super early on in the series that Ginny has a crush on Harry. Of course, we all pretty much know; it’s very obvious. The sky is blue and Ginny has a crush on Harry. But Hermione is just a real… she is such a badass friend here. She gives Ginny the advice to just be herself and not be so panicky and nervous around Harry, and that that would probably serve her better than just being incredibly obvious and sending him embarrassing singing Valentines in the hallways during Valentine’s Day. And not only did she give Ginny this stellar advice – even though Harry is her best friend, she didn’t say a damn thing to him.

Andrew: Yeah. That’s trust.

Laura: And that is girl code right there. Just telling you.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: You know someone has your back when they can pick up on the vibes that you’re giving about who you’re into and they’re subtle about it and they don’t go and rat you out.

Andrew: Right, exactly. I hope everybody has had that type of friend in their lives, where you can trust somebody to the grave and they won’t let you down. I think, I mean, at least I – and it sounds like Laura, too, at least – have experienced this type of trust before, and it’s really great. It can be shocking if you’re Harry in the situation; like, “Wait, why didn’t you tell me?” But it does all make sense.

Micah: Yeah, tell them about our friendship, Andrew.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: No, that’s an area where Harry needed to open his eyes. That wasn’t on anyone else to do for him. But yeah, I definitely have an example of this from when I was around this age. I had a middle school boyfriend. I think people, they start dating in middle school, and it’s like, you hold hands and go to the movies and that’s the extent of your love life.

Eric: In middle school? I was married on the school yard in second grade, Laura.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: I guess I started early.

Laura: Wow, look at you.

Eric: Her name was Michelle.

Laura: Aww.

Andrew: And how long did that last, that relationship?

Eric: About a week.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: Then we just both forgot about it.

Andrew: Legit. My first relationship in middle school lasted a week as well; there was one kiss and then God knows what happened after that. I miss you, Kendall. I miss you very much.

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: But I remember, actually, a really good friend of mine who lived out of state, she came to visit over the summer. And she met my seventh grade boyfriend and they became friends, just like she and I were friends. And she really liked to write letters, so she and I used to write letters back and forth to each other. And she asked me one time, “Would it be okay if I wrote letters to him? I wanted to ask you first because I didn’t want you to think that I’m trying to like, step in on your man or anything.” Which is so funny looking back on, being 12 years old and taking it that seriously, but you do. It feels like everything at the time. And to me, looking back on that, I was like, “Yeah, she was doing the good girlfriend thing, right?”

Eric: Absolutely.

Laura: She wanted to make sure that I knew she had my back and that she wasn’t trying any funny business.

Eric: Those are good qualities to have as adults all throughout your life, that communication, that checking in, that awareness of how something you do, somebody might take it the wrong way, somebody you care about. Some people with anxiety can’t help but feel those feelings and fears all the time, but if you don’t, you’re kind of left lost having to do that extra work of really trying to be present and say, “What will these actions…? Should I check in with somebody I care about?”

Laura: Right. And then of course, Hermione always knew before anyone else who Ginny was dating. So anytime Ron found out and was super surprised, Hermione was like, “You idiot. That’s been going on forever.”

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Laura: But I will say, and to a point that was raised earlier about some of Hermione and Ginny’s treatment towards other female characters in the series, I think that we can have a critique of these two here. We’re maybe viewing them as a pair as friends who can think that they’re being supportive of maybe each other, or their families or their friends, by viewing others as threats or competition. I’m thinking specifically about Fleur Delacour. Hermione and Ginny are really dismissive towards her. So is Molly Weasley.

Eric: Yep.

Laura: And it’s that trope about ultra femininity that Fleur represents that no one likes about her.

Micah: I was going to say, though, too, do you think it has to do with the fact that this is the first woman that is coming into their family? It’s the first Weasley that’s getting married, right? Bill?

Eric: Even before that, in Goblet of Fire, when Ron is just goo goo gaga over the Veela, and there’s that rivalry of… Ron is just so enamored, and Hermione is like, “I’m right here. I’ve been right here all along.”

Micah: Yeah, no, I definitely think there’s something to that. I guess more so from the standpoint of somebody like Molly, seeing herself maybe being threatened in a way, right? She’s the matriarch of the family, and now all of a sudden her oldest… or is Charlie older? But one of her older sons – sorry, there’s so many – is getting married, right? And there’s a woman that’s coming into the family. There’s certainly some xenophobia at play here as well, which I know we’ve talked about on other episodes. But yeah, I can definitely see that. And to Laura’s point, Ginny and Hermione are not nice – neither is Molly – towards Fleur.

Eric: There’s got be a way where you can have your friendship and not tear another woman down. There’s got to be a way to talk about it that doesn’t involve…

Laura: There is.

Eric: Okay, you’re sure? Laura, you’ve discovered this?

Laura: [laughs] 100%. It’s actually funny that the example of Fleur comes up during this conversation, because I met a friend when I was in college. She was an exchange student; she was tall, blonde, French, and gorgeous, and everyone was obsessed with her. And she’s a great person and a very dear friend, and there were definitely some women who were feeling a little bit threatened by her, right? And it’s funny because I see those similarities in the way that the British Harry Potter contingent treats Fleur, right? Because she’s beautiful, she’s obviously very intelligent – she got into the Triwizard Tournament – and she’s a little bit exotic for England or Scotland when they’re in school, right?

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Laura: No offense to our UK listeners. But I definitely noticed a similar vibe towards my friend at times because of who she was. And like we said earlier, I think it also shows that the author may have some bias towards women like Fleur, who fit that stereotypical, ultra-feminine idea of womanhood.

Andrew: Going back to the pink point that you brought up.

Laura: Yeah, the pink, the also constantly describing Parvati and Padma, who as readers, I think we’re conditioned to find annoying because of the way they’re written, but they’re constantly described as being giggly. Umbridge speaks with a girlish voice. Pink is a bad color. We know the author hates pink; she was very clear about that in interviews outside of the books. But yeah, generally, anytime someone is described as being giggly or fawning over someone or having doe eyes for somebody, it’s not really captured in a flattering light in the way these books are written. Which is unfair, because there are a lot of very valid ways to be a woman, and a if ultra femininity is who you are, that’s okay. And if it’s not, that’s also okay.

Micah: One other point of comparison that I wanted to make and get your thoughts on is Hermione is obviously very book smart. Ginny could be argued to be very street smart and just seems to have these qualities about her. She’s described many times as doing these things that are really beyond her age, right? A lot of times we hear Harry is doing things that he shouldn’t be doing at his age. So I’m just curious, do you think that’s something that potentially they see in each other that they could have bonded over, with Hermione being the one who’s very good on the academic side? I’m not saying Ginny isn’t… I don’t remember her grades off of the top of my head, but she seems to be more of the street smart of the two.

Laura: Yeah, when I think of Ginny, I think of more applied skills. We see more than once in the books, Hermione has got the theory down, but it doesn’t always translate to her being good at things right off the bat. Whereas Ginny does very impressive magic, from a very young age, that kind of surprises people, so I do think of them as two sides of the same coin in that regard. But what I also appreciate about them is that we do get a glimpse into seeing that they’re not afraid to push back on one another. There’s one point in Half-Blood Prince, I think it is, where Hermione is talking smack about Quidditch and Ginny just snaps at her and is like, “Don’t pretend you know anything about Quidditch,” and Hermione doesn’t know what to say to it. And I think that’s a really important part of being a supportive friend, too, is knowing when to call each other out, when to tell your friend, “Hey, you’re out of line there,” even if it’s a lower stakes type conversation.

Micah: And not only that, but appreciating the things that your friends are interested in to know enough to not completely debase what somebody else is interested in.

Laura: Right, exactly. Well, another theme I want to look at is the idea of sisterhood in friendships, and I think a really good pair to look at for this is Ginny and Luna. So Ginny and Luna really start out as acquaintances; we’re led to believe that they become closer over the course of the final three books. They’re involved in Dumbledore’s Army; they go to the Department of Mysteries together. We know that Luna has this wonderful, just wholesome portraits of all of her friends painted in her room, even though I wouldn’t say as a group that they’ve been nice enough to her up until that point to really deserve it.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Laura: But it just goes to show what a good person Luna is. But what I appreciate about Ginny from the very beginning, when we first meet Luna, is that she’s always nice to her, even when it would be easy to be mean to her because everyone else is. It’s socially acceptable to be rude to Luna, and Ginny doesn’t do it. There’s one point where Ron is incredulous that Harry is taking Luna Lovegood – “Loony” Lovegood, as he calls her – to the Slug Club party, and Ginny calls him out and is like, “Don’t call her that,” and is like, “Hey, Harry, I’m really glad you’re taking her; she is so excited.” This is some other solidarity that I’ve just got to call out, because we know that Ginny still has a flame for Harry at this point. She’s holding the torch out for him. But she respects Luna as her friend, and she also respects who Harry is as a person by taking a friend of his to a party. Where he could have been really shallow and said, “I want to ask out the most popular girl in my year,” instead he asked his friend, and Ginny applauds that for him. There’s also this subtext that you could maybe read into it that ChloĆ© pulled out of it, which I love, because again, I think this just speaks to some of the unspoken dynamics that happen in really good and strong female friendships. It’s possible that Ginny talked to Luna about the Slug Club party and felt comfortable telling her that she was going with Harry, and it could also mean that Luna knew Ginny liked Harry and wanted her blessing. Kind of like when my friend was like, “Is it okay if I talk to your boyfriend? Is that going to be weird? Are you going to feel uncomfortable with that?” It could mean that Luna picked up on the signs that Ginny had a thing for Harry, and was like, “Hey, he asked me. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Are you okay with this?” And I love the idea of – this is my headcanon now – of them having this conversation and having this unspoken understanding that if you’re going to pursue someone that your friend was interested in, you should have a conversation about it instead of just doing it.

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Eric: That’s real good. I would say also, the Ginny and Luna relationship, their friendship is unique in a different way, which is to say it’s one of the few inter-House friendships that exists. We really don’t have many examples of this in the books. And I think that how it started was they probably had classes together, and Luna was awkward or shining in some of her behaviors in these classes, Ginny takes notice, and is like, “Oh, you know what? Yeah, she marches to the beat of her own drum, but she’s cool enough,” to then defend her to everyone from her brother to Harry to the rest of the school. And I just love that aspect of Ginny, where she is independently thinking about Luna at all, and then arrives at the conclusion that “No, Luna is cool; we can be friends.”

Laura: Yeah, I agree.

Eric: And she’s not somebody that caves to social stigma. And if you’ve ever had a friend who’s unpopular in school – if you’ve ever had me as a friend – then you’re doing the same calculation…

Andrew: Right.

Eric: … going, “Hey, probably got something good going on here, even though socially not accepted.”

Micah: One of the things, too, that I was just thinking about – and I had to do a quick Google search – is that when we think about Luna supporting the Gryffindor Quidditch team, we automatically think it’s in support of Harry, but I think you can easily make the argument it’s in support of Ginny.

Laura: Yeah, or just her friends in general, because what, Gryffindor was playing Slytherin in that match?

Micah: With the lion head.

Laura: Yeah, I think Gryffindor is playing Slytherin, so because Ravenclaws didn’t really have a dog in that fight, Luna was like, “Well, I’m going to support my friends.”

Micah: Luna, I could see her supporting Gryffindor over Ravenclaw, honestly.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: But maybe… I don’t know.

Laura: Yeah, if she thought it was the right thing to do, she would.

Eric: If she thought they were the underdog or the not favored one.

Laura: Right. I do want to point out something, though, and it’s something that occurs to me as we’re having this conversation, and I think some people have observed this in the Discord: Harry Potter really does not pass the Bechdel Test, which is basically, do you have two women in the same space talking about something that is not a man? And it’s pretty rare to find that in Harry Potter, especially with the main character being Harry. But something that I really do want to call out here is that much of Ginny and Luna’s relationship seems to be based on things that are not men, which is great. Ginny standing up for Luna has nothing to do with a conversation about a man, for example, whereas a lot of the bond that we see with Hermione and Ginny I think does have to do with the men in their lives, whether it’s getting some kind of break from them in their friendship with each other, or venting about romantic issues they might be having in their own lives. I think that that’s a pretty heavy theme with them that doesn’t seem to be as present with Ginny and Luna. So it might be one of the only relationships that passes the Bechdel Test in these books, and we don’t see very much of it.

Eric: I support that.

Laura: And then the last note that I wanted to bring up here is the idea of support and compassion in relationships or female friendships, and I think this is a theme that has been interwoven throughout this conversation. But honestly, although they take a lot of crap, Lavender and Parvati have a really strong friendship. They have each other’s backs. We see it as early as Book 3, where… I forget, is it Parvati’s rabbit that dies or Lavender’s? Binky.

Eric: I think it’s Lavender’s.

Laura: It’s Lavender’s, okay. And Hermione is being kind of dismissive about Lavender’s emotions around her rabbit dying.

Eric: Hugely.

Laura: She’s being obtuse about it. She’s like, “Well, how could you have known that your rabbit was going to die?” when really, the issue was she was sad her rabbit died, right? But Parvati has her back through all of that. They also have a really strong shared passion for Divination, and because Divination is a subject that is generally scoffed at, so is their academic interest. And how are two teenagers sharing a love of an academic pursuit a bad thing? I don’t get it. Maybe you don’t like the subject; that’s fine, but the fact that they were both so studious and interested in this field is a great thing. I mean, think of all the other things teenagers can be into.

Eric: [laughs] Right.

Laura: And I feel like it gets forgotten that Lavender and Parvati have this shared interest in Divination, because there’s also a heavy degree to which they’re described as giggling and they seem to talk about boys a lot. And as a result of that, I think in the book it gets lost that there’s this really strong foundational part of their friendship that is based on an academic interest.

Eric: I think that it’s possible that Parvati and Lavender are closer than Parvati and Padma, because they have a House between them; they don’t sleep in the same dorms. So I think the friendship there is real strong.

Laura: Yeah, I mean, Parvati and Padma presumably grew up together, right? So that’s a different kind of sisterhood, maybe, than you see represented between Lavender and Parvati, but I think it’s a point well taken. Another one I wanted to mention that maybe doesn’t get as much love is Tonks and Molly. So we know that Tonks confided her feelings of Remus Lupin to Molly Weasley, and according to MuggleNet, was often at the Burrow for tea and sympathy, so I just think…

Andrew: Yeah, I mean, I think…

Laura: Go ahead.

Andrew: To confide in somebody about somebody you had feelings for, I think, is really significant. If you think about who you speak to in your day-to-day life, who are you telling about your relationships? And it’s typically early, and it’s typically somebody who you really trust and are close to. So I think that’s a really good call-out. There’s something there that isn’t explored too much, or as much as it could have been.

Eric: It’s also, this is not something you see a lot in Harry Potter, but friendships that cross an age range, because everybody’s the same age group, everybody’s the same grade. But because Tonks is interested in Remus and he’s considerably older than her, it really helps that she has a friend in Molly to confide in, because Molly has more experience and also knows Remus for longer and has more insight that she could possibly give to Tonks. Just having friends of all age ranges is also a huge call-out here, so for Tonks and Molly to be friends, to be able to confide in each other, that’s huge.

Laura: I think it’s also mentorship in a way, right? There are definitely women in my life who are older than me, in some cases by a few years, in some cases old enough to be my mother, who I would say have been mentors to me. And they’ve been people that I could go to in moments of doubt, in moments of uncertainty, where I was trying to grow and going through some of those more uncomfortable adolescent, early adulthood moments where they had experience going through those things themselves and could offer their advice, wisdom, and sometimes some hard truths. I really hope – and it is my headcanon – that Molly gave Tonks some really constructive feedback around her relationship with Remus and why it’s not acceptable for someone to make you feel on the one hand wanted but then make you feel like you’re second rate or you’re forgotten or they can’t make up their mind about you the next. So I would really hope that Molly was acting as somewhat of a mentor to Tonks, because we don’t really know how close Tonks was to her own mother. I mean, we do see her at one point, but I think it’s interesting that she’s going to Molly to talk about this and not her mom.

Eric: That is really interesting, because by all accounts, Andromeda Black is pretty friggin’ cool.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: She seems cool, right?

Eric: Yeah, she’s awesome. But sometimes you also need to not tell your parents everything, right?

Laura: Right. No, that’s true. And then just a few other notable female friendships: We could probably do a whole other episode on this discussion, but definitely wanted to call out Sprout and McGonagall…

Eric: Yes.

Laura: … who we’ve actually spoken about pretty recently, who overlapped years at Hogwarts. Cho and Marietta; I think Cho in particular gets a lot of undeserved hate, particularly for the movie portrayal of her in Order of the Phoenix. And then Katie, Angelina, and Alicia, who are on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. The three of them are really tight too.

Andrew: It’s one of those things. It’s too bad there just wasn’t more, but on the other hand, there’s already so much in these stories. You think about how could it have been fit in? But I guess that’s what fanfiction is for or maybe potential spinoffs one day.

Eric: TV series.

Andrew: Yeah, those too. You would think these relationships might be better highlighted in a TV series so it’s not totally a boys’ club.

Eric: I would want that, yeah.

Laura: Same.

Eric: And I would want it handled creatively, like really interesting subplots. Find out more about Binky, Lavender’s rabbit. I’m totally interested.


Discussion: Male vulnerability in Harry Potter


Andrew: Okay, so now we are going to discuss the top seven moments male characters were emotionally vulnerable in the Harry Potter series. I think, Eric, this may have been your idea. I think it’s a really good one, because too often in our own lives, men do not open up; they are not emotionally vulnerable. And I’ll speak to that a little bit. Not me; I’m perfect. [laughs] But other people…

Eric: I was going to say, I can’t imagine what it’s like to try and date us, honestly.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: It’s real bad. I feel bad for everyone who’s had to try and date an emotionally unavailable man, or person in general. But yeah, it’s a big deal when men get vulnerable emotionally. I think it’s the cornerstone of a relationship, would be communication and trust; at least, that’s how I feel now. And I think that it’s such a key moment. So we wanted to highlight moments where characters in Harry Potter… we think of like, mostly it’s a Gryffindor show, so these just valiant Gryffindors that are not talking about any of their feelings, especially like Ron in year four, and how it all just blows up in their face as a result. So we wanted to highlight the top seven moments – bring back an old favorite segment of top seven – and also highlight moments where it really worked out, highlight moments where choosing to be emotionally vulnerable succeeded for that person; really helped them out of a pickle. And so I think that’s what the spirit was going into this discussion, and I’m really excited to get into it.

Andrew: Yeah. Number seven, Harry asking Cho Chang to the Yule Ball. Of course, this is from Goblet of Fire. So after trying for weeks to find Cho alone, thus minimizing his embarrassment in case it went badly, Harry does find Cho and is finally able to ask her, “Wangoballwime?”

[Eric laughs]

Laura: So awkward.

Andrew: And the good thing for Harry here is that although Cho reveals that she has been asked out already, this statement of intent from Harry to ask her out does end up creating the possibility later that they would go on a date, so he’s opening up the line of communication there. It is a good first step. But I think a common thread with several of these that we’re bringing up today is that too often when you are emotionally unavailable, when you do finally manage to open up, it’s too late, and this is a perfect example of that. And we’ve got a Dumbledore example later; it’s like, “Dude, where have you been?”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Guys take too long, and at that point, the damage is done. You waited too long.

Eric: For Harry, I wanted to highlight our hero first, particularly because he’s written by a woman, too; you would expect him to have this sense of emotion, at least at certain points, this intuitive self-reflection side, and he really doesn’t, for the most part. But those moments where he can put himself out there and really try when he’s familiar enough with how he’s feeling to act on it, and have it not always go okay, is very excellent. So I do like that ultimately, you have to let the people that you’re romantically interested in – or at least interested in trying to date – know that you’re interested in them, because they don’t know. You might think that they know. They don’t know. You’ve got to tell them. It’s not going to happen on its own either, so I think that Harry’s moment is very important. And sure enough, after Cedric’s untimely death and after the grieving process, Cho knows at least that Harry has been interested in her. And when she can lean on somebody for emotional support, I know it doesn’t go perfectly well, but because of what they shared together already, and that previous stated intent to date, they go on a date. And it happens all because Harry was vulnerable.

Andrew: Again, though, could have done it sooner, bud. Could’ve done it sooner. [laughs]

Eric: Maybe. He wasn’t sure. He was still not…

Andrew: Look, I get it, of course. I have struggled to ask girls out to the ball as well.

Laura: I was going to say, he was 14 at the time, and it is scary. I mean, hell, even as an adult it’s scary to put yourself out there like that when you are pursuing someone romantically. Remember, when you were 14, it was amplified; everything felt like it was a huge deal.

Andrew: The scariest thing in your life.

Eric: It was terrifying. The first dates I ever went on, they asked me, because that was so much easier for me.

Andrew: Right.

Eric: And then the second time, when I went to prom, I asked the whole school on the morning announcements, because it was not emotionally vulnerable. [laughs]

Andrew: Oh my gosh.

Eric: I was just like, “Any takers?”

Micah: Wow. Clever.

Micah: Well, that’s putting yourself out there.

Laura: That is putting yourself out there.

Eric: My chemistry teacher told me that a girl in class laughed. I ended up taking her to the prom.

Micah: Nice.

Laura: Oh, that’s a cool story. [laughs]

Eric: But anyway, enough about me. Let’s move on to Hagrid. So Hagrid is somebody that, unlike the typical male character in Harry Potter, he is very emotional in general.

Andrew: Yes.

Eric: He does have larger moods, mood swings, moments where he is clearly being vulnerable, and moments where the world is real tough for him. But I wanted to point out one moment in particular in Goblet of Fire, where Rita Skeeter releases her article revealing his half-breed status of being a half-giant. And apart from all the reasons why Rita Skeeter is the absolute worst, which I’m sure we’ve talked about before and can again, Hagrid goes into this huge funk and depression. He basically stays in his hut. He refuses to teach classes; they have to bring in Grubbly-Plank to teach Care of Magical Creatures. The trio actually can’t get a hold of him – even the trio, he’s not letting them in – and he becomes withdrawn and he’s very, very upset. It’s not until… I mean, weeks go by of this, and eventually the trio bang on the door; they’re like, “We are not taking no for an answer. You have to let us in.” And Hagrid, of course, is upset about the article that Rita Skeeter wrote; he’s just convinced that nobody is going to like him anymore now that they know that he’s half-giant, and that they won’t want their kids taught by him and all this stuff. And it’s really in voicing his concern in the face of his friends… he might already know what they’re going to say, but you’ve still got to go through the motion of like, “Here’s what I’m afraid of,” and have somebody be able to talk you off that ledge, and that’s what the trio does. And Dumbledore is there too. They basically have to be like, “Oh, what’s your issue? Okay, it’s this half giant-thing.” Even Harry is like, “Look at what I’ve got for cousins, and they’re awful people, but it doesn’t matter because they’re family and you’re my friend,” and it’s this huge moment. So I think it’s… the moment that we celebrate is Hagrid just being able, after all this time, to voice his specific concern so that it can get addressed.

Laura: It was a violation of his privacy, certainly. In the end, it did give him the freedom to be authentically himself. I do think it’s interesting that you noted that Hagrid just seems to have bigger emotions than the typical male representation within the Harry Potter books, and I wonder if it’s at the very least implied that that’s because he’s half-giant.

Andrew: I was thinking this, too, just of the juxtaposition of how could such a large, burly half-giant be so emotionally vulnerable, be the one who cries openly in front of students? I think Rowling was going for something like that there maybe. And also, you have to think about the fact that Hagrid was one of the trio’s close friends.

Laura: And also his love of animals; we can’t forget that. He’s very tender with animals.

Eric: Well, and he’s a proud mother to Norbert, or Norberta, which is an adorable scene.

Laura: Yep. “He knows his mummy.”

Eric: “He knows his mummy.” Yeah, I just find it… when talking about these men that are emotionally unavailable, and in the hypothetical, I came across some men that don’t make this list, but who ultimately are very emotional. Mr. Weasley I think is one, and Neville is another. Neville is very often outwardly upset and we know why, and the trio consoles him. But they’re in tune with their emotions. When they are vulnerable, when they talk about why they’re upset, it’s not a big deal, because they’re so used to it. They’re in touch with their emotions. So it doesn’t make this list because this is not an odd decision or a hard decision for them to do, ultimately. So moving on, we’ve got number five next.

Micah: Yeah, so Sirius Black, he asks Harry to live with him during Prisoner of Azkaban. And Sirius has no way of knowing that Harry already knows a little bit about his godfather, so he is taking a real risk when he reveals that he would like Harry to consider maybe living with him. So setting aside later Book 5, Molly Weasley’s BS commentary about Sirius and Harry’s true relationship, Sirius here really is the kind of guy who can give Harry the home and the summer vacations he’s always deserved. And it’s a near-perfect moment, only made more powerful by Harry’s extreme enthusiasm for the idea, and maybe even more so by the tragic outcome of it falling short. And I’m thinking back to the Prisoner of Azkaban movie when the two of them are talking about it; they’re looking up at Hogwarts, and it’s a very tender moment because that’s really home for both of them. But they’re having a conversation about Harry coming to live with him, and I think that would have just been the ideal scenario, Petunia’s love protection notwithstanding. I think it’s what Harry would have really wanted, and to your point, Eric, really, really benefited from.

Eric: It touches me deeply, this moment, and Sirius is taking a real risk. And Harry is like, “Are you insane?” and I think for a moment, Sirius is like, “Oh, he hates the idea.” He’s genuinely hurt by this. And then Harry is like, “When can I move in?” Just the range of emotions on display there from both of them is a really proud moment, a really important, pivotal moment.

Andrew: And I also just admire one man helping another man on something that doesn’t involve a power drill.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: What is this, tool time?

Andrew: [laughs] This is just a deeply important matter. I know Harry is not grown here, but just think about how often do you see two grown adults being like, “I’m going to help you out with that major life issue”? I would guess not too often; I’m sure it happens. But I’m just looking at this from the perspective of two mature people being like, okay, one of them really has to help the other out in a life changing way.

Eric and Micah: Yeah.

Eric: I mean, Harry is abused at Privet Drive. He is absolutely…

Micah: But Dumbledore is cool with that. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, Dumbledore is cool with it because of the love.

Micah: That’s a whole ‘nother conversation. But I also think, Andrew, to your point, it is important to remember that Sirius is doing this out of love for James.

Andrew: [fake cries] Yeah.

Micah: It’s his godchild, but it’s also his best friend’s son.

Eric: He’s doing him a solid.

Laura and Micah: Yeah.

Micah: And then one of the benefits is that this is taking place at the end of Prisoner of Azkaban, immediately reversing Sirius as a villain and making him a very close confidant and really a family for Harry. It sets up a year of on-the-run correspondence between the two of them, which is really different than the relationship that Harry and Lupin have, even though that’s special in its own right. It’s kind of like he has two dads, and they’re two very opposite ends of the coin.

Eric: One of them writes him; the other one doesn’t. Lupin never writes Harry. I don’t know why.

Andrew: He’s busy trying to have a kid.

Eric: That’s later.

Laura: Or trying to run away from having a kid for a while.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Yeah, not his finest moment. Something else I want to point out, too, is that Harry is kind of saving Sirius in this moment too. I mean, Sirius, he was in prison for 13 years, and even though he was found to be innocent, I think we can just speak to the real world stigma that comes for people who’ve been in prison. It’s incredibly unfair. And someone like Sirius, even if his name had been cleared all over the wizarding world, I think it’s fair to say that there would have been an enormous stigma on him for having been in Azkaban that long. There would probably be some lingering doubt amongst some members of the wizarding world thinking, “Nah, I think he did it. I don’t think he’s actually innocent.” Harry absolves him of that in this moment by being so enthusiastic about coming to live with a person he’s literally known for like, half a day, maybe less.

Micah: Well, and Harry does it… I mean, looking at the two examples that we just read, he does it in back-to-back books, right? He does it for Hagrid, and then he does it for Sirius, to your point, Laura.

Laura: The next one, number four – this one’s a big one. So this is during the King’s Cross chapter at the end of Deathly Hallows when Dumbledore finally apologizes to Harry. Took you long enough, bro. He tells Harry that he could never be the type of man that Harry is and apologizes for being so consumed by power, tells Harry that it’s exactly the reason why he was never a Minister of Magic, because he was so power-hungry himself, and he asks Harry for forgiveness, and Harry gives it to him. That’s a huge moment of vulnerability for both of those characters. Harry in that moment could have cursed Dumbledore’s name for putting him through all of this, for effectively sending him on a suicide mission, and instead, he forgives him for everything.

Eric: Huge. And if he had decided to cuss out Dumbledore, it wouldn’t matter. Dumbledore is dead; he wouldn’t have even heard him. But no, he is the bigger person here. But it’s weird how… I mean, Dumbledore is described as being like a child; he’s withdrawn, he’s kind of tail between legs about this whole thing. He reveals about his lust for power and how it ruined important relationships with his family and friends in his life. Dumbledore is really being vulnerable. And although Harry’s approval or absolution is not something he had a chance, let’s say, to seek in life, he does get it here. And I have to believe that that contains… that is a benefit, a net positive, for Dumbledore, even though it’s afterlife Dumbledore.

Laura: And I think he does… oh, go ahead.

Andrew: He did do it while he was dead, though, so it makes it harder to give him credit.

Eric: And it might have been in Harry’s head that he apologized. [laughs]

Andrew: I know we’re going for the angle of we’ve got to give these guys a pat on the back for the vulnerability, but getting back to my point earlier, what took so long? I have somebody in my life who took way too long to get emotionally vulnerable and to admit that he wasn’t a perfect person, and by the time he reached that point, he was at rock bottom. This isn’t a relationship; this is another matter. He was at rock bottom. If you came clean earlier, if you opened up earlier, if you were willing to not always put on that tough guy, always right attitude type of thing, you could have been emotionally vulnerable. [emotionally] This is turning into a therapy session. Forget about it.

[Micah laughs]

Andrew: No, my point is having some certain lived experiences in my life, I get frustrated to see these guys in Harry Potter take so long to finally get to a certain point. And in the case of Dumbledore, it is kind of too late to come clean like this.

Laura: You know what, though, Andrew? I think this might make you feel better. I actually feel like this number four here on the list says way more about Harry, who is very much alive and conscious… well, he’s unconscious in this moment.

Eric: I don’t know about that moment, yeah.

Laura: You know what I mean.

Eric: Yeah, maybe not the best… yeah.

Laura: I think it says way more about Harry’s vulnerability and Harry’s ability to level with himself about what has happened to him and make the conscious choice to forgive for what has happened. Something that I know we’ve all heard in therapy, right? Forgiveness is not for the person being forgiven; it’s for you, because it hurts you way more in the long term to hold a grudge than it hurts the other person that you’re holding a grudge against, right? So I think this is actually a huge moment of emotional vulnerability for Harry with himself. Does that help, Andrew?

Andrew: Yeah, it does help. It does help. And I give Dumbledore credit for opening up, I really do. I just… people keep it inside themselves.

Laura: Oh, I agree.

Andrew: People are raised to be that tough guy, that perfect person, you can’t show vulnerability, you have to be tough for the family, and that poisons them for the rest of their lives.

Eric: Yeah, I mean, this is in the grave, we’re meeting Dumbledore here. He literally took it to his death. And you could also argue that it was like, “Oh, the chess pieces, Harry had to absolutely get to exactly this moment,” before you could find out, what? That Dumbledore is emotional? That Dumbledore is vulnerable? That Dumbledore made some mistakes in his life? That’s what Book 7 ruminates on so successfully, that Dumbledore was a flawed person. And the sooner he admitted that to himself and to the world, I think, it would have been better for him emotionally.

Andrew: All right, so moment number three: Dudley telling Harry, “I don’t think you’re a waste of space.” This costs Dudley nothing but it threw a layer of compassion into the world, and it also really redeemed Dudley to an extent. It was a good closing point for these two, after many years of bullying and so much hatred coming from this family. And the benefit here was that though they didn’t share a happy childhood together, this act built a bridge, which later grew into a rewarding and cathartic future for both of them. And I really admire Dudley here because unlike Dumbledore – wait until death or Harry’s head…

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: … Dudley is developing a lot earlier. He’s maturing emotionally. He said, “You know what, Mom and Dad? How you treated Harry, that’s wrong, and I’m going to try…” Things maybe weren’t perfect, but they were better.

Eric: There’s definitely some headcanon that Dudley eventually has children and one or more of them is magical, and so he has to consult Harry about what to do and learn to be a more empathetic person.

Micah: I know we’re talking about the Dudley/Harry relationship, but I always really loved that scene from Deathly Hallows – Part 2 with Petunia. And I’m almost sad that that wasn’t in the books, the way that that was written with Fiona Shaw and her talking about losing a sister. I just think that… I don’t know. A missed opportunity, because didn’t they cut the whole Dudley scene from the last film?

Andrew: They did. They filmed it, though.

Micah: Maybe a deleted scene.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s a deleted scene.

Eric: I think it takes place on the driveway.

Andrew: Yeah, I can’t remember if he uses these exact words, but there’s definitely a deleted scene that they shot.

Laura: I think they shake hands or something like that.

Micah: “Bro.”

Eric: That’s a man way of showing emotion.

Andrew: God forbid we talk.

Laura: “Sorry, bro.”

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Eric: I will say, I’m going to revise my initial statement that it cost Dudley nothing, because he is kind of standing up to his parents directly. And it’s so unexpected, because it’s an offhanded comment that Harry makes to Hestia Jones that’s there picking them up and they’re going to cart the Dursleys off to safety. But Dudley is like, “You know, when it comes down to it, I don’t think you’re a waste of space, actually. You’re wrong.” And that’s all he says, but Harry doesn’t even know what to do with it. He’s like, “Thank God he exhausted all of his efforts bringing up his emotion there because I don’t know how I’m even going to handle this.” But it’s important, and it was really important for Dudley to let Harry know that. I think it really helped Harry in the end.

Andrew: Yeah. Oh, I agree. I would’ve loved to hear that from him.

Eric: Getting down to number two of seven, we’ve got Draco Malfoy, and particularly the moment when he tries and fails to kill Dumbledore but keeps up the conversation with Dumbledore. So we know how this plays out. Both in the book and in the movie, Dumbledore is very, very, very sympathetic to Draco’s struggles, but particularly it takes somebody hitting… this actually goes right to Andrew’s point about hitting rock bottom. Malfoy is at rock bottom right now.

Andrew: Yeah. His back’s against the wall. He is out of time. It’s now or never.

Eric: So I know you said we didn’t want to celebrate this… [laughs] men hitting rock bottom and being emotional.

Andrew: Well, I’ll try to be positive in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, because they do do it. [laughs] Even if a gun’s to their head.

Eric: Malfoy just says out loud, “I have no options. I don’t have any options.” And Dumbledore is really interested in letting him know, “We can protect your family,” he offers. He’s really trying to do it. And Malfoy, who is one of the best examples of being a product of your upbringing, has been raised to hate Dumbledore just on principle, has been raised for the pure-blood cause and the Death Eater cause, and he’s slowly over the course of a year been woken up to realize that that is so taxing on his health personally, because Voldemort is going to kill him, and it’s a huge revelation. But so Draco getting to that point – it took long enough – inevitably does set him… and I think Dumbledore being nice to him sets him up to make the transition back towards the light and towards eventually redemption, whether he saves Harry’s life in Deathly Hallows or something later down the line.

Laura: Yep. And without this moment, I think we could argue that the very emotionally vulnerable friendship that Harry and Draco’s sons have in the Cursed Child wouldn’t have been possible, and then the smash hit fanfiction “Never Sever Us” would have never come to be, so…

Andrew: [laughs] That’s a good point.

Micah: Available Valentine’s Day, right, Andrew?

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: I’ll do a reading of it. I should do a reading and I should record.

Eric and Micah: You should.

Laura: You really should. I love this.

Andrew: I think I did record it. Really?

Micah: I’ll read some of it.

Andrew: Oh my God, you would? Okay.

Micah: Yeah, I’ll read it.

Andrew: Sign me up. Okay, I need to go find that.

Micah: We’ve said this before. I’ll read a chapter or a page or… how long is it?

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Take the most explicit page.

Andrew: It’s not very long.

Micah: Okay, a couple sentences. All right, are we ready for number one?

Eric: Yeah, I want to see what this is. We’ve had six very good moments of men choosing to be vulnerable.

Micah: Yes, and we will wrap it up with Ron returning in Deathly Hallows, agreeing to be the one to destroy the locket Horcrux, and he does. There’s a lot of tough stuff that comes out of that locket that he is faced with, and he follows it up by apologizing for leaving them. So not only is he faced with his worst fears – there’s things about him being the least loved of the Weasley children, he sees Harry and Hermione getting it on, and… [laughs] I’m keeping it PG. And how tough it must be for somebody to literally see his worst fears in front of him, manifesting not only in front of himself, but in front of Harry, his best friend, but then finding it within himself to be able to destroy that Horcrux.

Eric: I think it’s just a real full circle moment for Ron, because whether he is choosing to be or not, originally he is emotionally vulnerable. We are all vulnerable people; we are not made of stone. And the Horcrux, wearing the locket over the last several months before he left them is the perfect example of it wearing him down, and that’s why Harry being a good friend is like, “No, you should be the one to actually destroy this, because this one is personal. This one has gotten in your head.” And Ron’s ability to apologize and to realize his mistake, and he tells them, “I wanted to come back as soon as I had left, and I couldn’t.” These moments… nothing short of that would bring Ron back to them and actually have them restore the friendship. If he half-assed it, if he said, “Oh, I’m kind of sorry; I missed the tent a little bit, it’s cool,” they never would have brought him back into their circle of trust, and he absolutely would not have been able to proceed with them through the rest of the story. It was very important that Ron be as vulnerable and as truthful as possible to them when returning, tail between his legs, because that is how you regain trust. I expect that many people will experience what it is like to inadvertently harm someone or lose their trust, and the process of gaining it back is not easy, but I think the map on how to do that is exactly what Ron did: Be as honest as possible, be as self-reflective as possible, and give it time. Be patient.

Laura: And through doing that, he got the Sword of Gryffindor.

Eric: Pretty nice prize, right?

Laura: Right.

Micah: He also learned Voldemort’s name was taboo, right? Or was that just a movie-ism?

Laura: No, I think that’s right.

Eric: That’s definitely in the book.

Laura: I think that’s a book-ism too.

Micah: Yeah, that’s pretty important.

Andrew: Yeah. And I mean, the apology alone is really big, especially in a tough time like this, and to friends you’ve known for so long. So yeah, I think this was a good call-out, and especially putting it in the top spot.

Eric: I do want to thank my girlfriend, Meg, for helping me come up with these. She remembers a lot more about Deathly Hallows than I did and was a key component in a lot of these, so thanks to Meg. Thanks to ChloĆ© for helping us with the Galentine’s thing.

Andrew: Yeah, thank you to both.

Laura: I know, look at these partnerships this week.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: I love it.

Eric: It’s real strong on the partnerships, yeah.

Andrew: And me and Micah just sat back. We’re like, “Eh, okay. We’ll show up. Sure.” [laughs]

Laura: Be vulnerable, guys.

Andrew: Happy Valentine’s Day and Happy Galentine’s Day. And if you have any feedback about today’s discussion, you can contact us by writing or sending a voice message to MuggleCast@gmail.com, or you can call us, 1-920-3-MUGGLE. That’s 1-920-368-4453. If you are sending us a voice message, just try to record in a quiet, safe place, and keep your message about a minute long. And we also have the contact form on MuggleCast.com, if you want to write to us that way. And coming up on next week’s episode, we are doing a mailbag, and we will also unveil the results of our major Hogwarts House poll amongst the listeners. Now it’s time for Quizzitch!


Quizzitch


[Quizzitch music plays]

Eric: Last week’s question: In the Divergent series, Beatrice – also known as Tris – Prior finds that she is Divergent, and in fact has equal aptitude for three of the world’s five factions. Which faction does she choose to join? And for bonus points, what were the three that she was eligible for? So pretty bonus question about a non-Harry Potter thing, but you know what? I think that people did not disappoint in reaching the correct answer, even the extended one, I’m glad to see. The correct answer was that Tris does choose to join Dauntless, but being from Abnegation, she also is Divergent for that, and additionally Erudite.

Andrew: [laughs] Divergent for that?

Eric: Divergent for that. I’m Divergent for that. I ship it. I’m a fan of it. Anyway, however you say it. I’ve not read the books, needless to say, but I hear good things. Anyway, correct answers go to Wild Witch of Yorkshire; Emily Dwyer; Chanel Hardinger; Micah rules for real; Irene; Roxy; PhoenixHeart62442; Miss Taco; Hannah; and we’ll choose one more… “I have no creative name.” Sorry to hear that.

Andrew: So the author, who used to be a MuggleCast listener, didn’t submit, so I guess she no longer listens. Darn.

Eric: Yeah, I’m not seeing that, unless it was under an alias.

Andrew: Maybe, maybe.

Eric: Somebody submitted as Remus John Lupin. I highly doubt that… maybe that’s…

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Maybe.

Eric: Anyway, next week’s question: In Deathly Hallows, where is the trio hiding out when Ron leaves?

Andrew: I was expecting a Twilight question.

Eric: Maybe next week.

Andrew: [laughs] Please.

Eric: Submit your answer to us on the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or click on “Quizzitch” at the top of the menu when you’re on our website already. Thanks to everybody for submitting.

Micah: And just want to remind listeners that Eric and I joined the cast of SpeakBeasty. Their most recent episode came out this past Sunday, that’s February the 6th, and we just had a really great time digging deep into the pairings that show up in the Fantastic Beasts trailer. And I mentioned this on last week’s episode, but I definitely learned a lot that I didn’t catch the first time. Eric, not sure how you felt, but I thought it was a really great time.

Eric: Yeah, I thought it was fantastic. We had a great time, and it’s definitely worth a listen for that reason and more. Lot of laughs in this next one.

Andrew: All right, and a couple closing reminders about MuggleCast: Make sure you’re following the show for free in your favorite podcast app, so you never miss an episode. And don’t forget to follow us on social media; our username is @MuggleCast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tickety Tok, so follow today and you’ll enjoy lots of great content.

Micah: And YouTube. And LinkedIn.

Andrew: And YouTube, and… we don’t really talk about LinkedIn.

[Micah laughs]

Laura: Can’t forget about LinkedIn.

Andrew: I was thinking about that the other day; I was like, “Remember when Micah wanted us to get a LinkedIn?”

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Micah: This was a recommendation that came out of our trip to Podcast Movement.

Andrew: It was. It’s a good recommendation, I think, for certain podcasts, but maybe not this one. [laughs]

Micah: No. We gain a few followers every now and then.

Andrew: Thanks, everybody, for listening. We’ll see you next week. I’m Andrew.

Eric: I’m Eric.

Micah: I’m Micah.

Laura: And I’m Laura.

Andrew: Bye, everyone.

Laura and Micah: Bye.

Eric: Tell your friends you love them.

Andrew: Aww.

Laura: That’s right.

Transcript #548

 

MuggleCast 548 Transcript

 

Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #548, Will There Ever Be Another Harry Potter-Level Book Series?


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 try to answer the question: Can there ever be another Harry Potter? And what will it take for something to reach the next Harry Potter level? And why has Harry Potter been so hot for so long? This is going to be a wide-ranging discussion, inspired by a recent conversation that the four of us had on Patreon a couple of weeks ago. Before we get to that, though, a couple of housekeeping items. First of all, don’t forget to follow us on our brand new TikTok. We spoke about it last week, and also last week, we said follow us at @MuggleCastPod; that was our username. Well, today, the day that we’re recording, Eric got in possession of the actual MuggleCast TikTok. One of our listeners, Eric, right? She actually had it.

Eric: Yeah, Kimira. Actually, she did us a real solid, because when setting up MuggleNet’s TikTok, MuggleNet ran into the issue where some guy named Matt has the account, doesn’t use it, it’s not… they can’t get it back. So MuggleNet on TikTok is @MuggleNetDotCom, and has been ever since they’ve had it. Well, Kimira was thinking of us, and she’s like, “I’d better reserve @MuggleCast. I know they don’t use it; they don’t have any interest to do TikToks. That’s what they told me, anyway.”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: So she held on to it, and then she just heard that we were looking for it and looking to use it, got in touch with me, and said, “I need to remember what the password is, but I’ll switch it over,” and I said, “Wait, wait, let me have access to it exclusively for a day so I can make these fun videos about a guy getting kicked off the MuggleCast channel,” and then I did that. But yes, by the time this episode airs, MuggleCast will be on TikTok at @MuggleCast.

Andrew: Yeah. And important note, if you already followed us at @MuggleCastPod, you won’t need to re-follow us because we’re just going to change the @MuggleCastPod user name over to @MuggleCast. But if you haven’t followed us on TikTok yet, you can follow us now at @MuggleCast.

Eric: It’s nice to have it back. It feels like a birthright, you know?

Andrew: In the future, guys, anytime we see a new social media network pop up, we’ve just got to grab @MuggleCast whether or not we’re going to use it.

Eric: Are we on Hinge?

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: I was going to say, do we need an OnlyFans?

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Andrew: We’ll grab it just for the hell of it. Why not? [laughs]

Laura: It can’t hurt, right?

Andrew: Yeah, yeah.

Eric: Thanks again to Kim for looking out, and all the work she does for MuggleNet’s TikTok and social.

Andrew: Absolutely.

Laura: Yeah, thank you.

Andrew: I am going to sign up for a MuggleCast OnlyFans. [laughs] I’m not kidding.

Eric: You should do it. I think we would really have fun deciding what gets posted on there.

Andrew: This sounds like a good dirty bonus MuggleCast installment for our Patreon.

Laura: What we would put on. [laughs]

Andrew: Brainstorming for the MuggleCast OnlyFans.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Our wands. Okay, let’s move on.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: The new MuggleCast socks, but just the socks on our feet.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Yeah, anyway.

Andrew: So Micah and Eric, you two appeared on another Harry Potter podcast actually, recently, right?

Micah: Yes, we did. As you can… well, hopefully some people can see from my background, it was the Fantastic Beasts podcast SpeakBeasty. It was a lot of fun. And Andrew, as I was telling you earlier, I actually learned a lot more about the trailer and what was happening than I think even from our discussion episode, so it helps to have those Fantastic Beasts experts, for sure. And it was a great conversation.

Eric: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I’d recommend everybody check out that episode of SpeakBeasty. I think it’s 144. And it’s coming out… at the time you hear this episode, it’ll be out next Sunday.

Micah: It was really cool because we looked at it from the perspective of who paired up with who in the trailer, and there were a number of pairings, and we went through and talked about each of them. Also some conversation about some new characters that popped up in the trailer and the gathering of the International Confederation of Wizards, which was not something that, like I said, I took away from that trailer the first time around. And there’s those little things. What were those on the ground that I missed?

Eric: Yes! The Diricawls. Those are the little birds that teleport in and out of existence that we saw in the first Fantastic Beasts film, and they’re back, baby. I didn’t see them in the trailer the first time either, but I’m so excited because I am the admin of the Facebook group and I have been for years: the Number One Diricawl Fan Club.

Micah: I didn’t know this. Did you guys know this?

Eric: It’s the Number One Diricawl Fan Club! And I’m so excited to see them in the trailer.

Micah: You would not even notice them. They are literally on the street when – is it Theseus and Eulalie Hicks? – are in Bhutan…

Eric: In the middle of battle.

Andrew: Interesting.

Micah: There’s these little birds on the street. So I came up with this theory – we’ll see if it holds true – that I think when all of these different pairings go out on their mission through that Tibetan wheel that we see that’s used as a Portkey, I think they’re each given a set of beasts to help them with their journey.

Andrew: Interesting, okay. I like that.

Laura: Nice theorizing.

Micah: It’ll probably be totally wrong, but…

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: All right, well, everybody will have to check out that episode of SpeakBeasty.


Main Discussion: Will there ever be another Harry Potter?


Andrew: And now it’s time to jump into our main discussion today: Can there ever be another Harry Potter? So ever since Harry Potter exploded in popularity, there’s been a lot of talk about whether or not there could be another book series that is as popular as Harry Potter and that would make kids or young adults enjoy reading again, like Harry Potter was credited as doing, and something that would create a dedicated fandom like Harry Potter did. And do you three remember we would always see these headlines about “Is X, Y, or Z the next Harry Potter?”

Laura: Hell yeah.

Andrew: And even publishers would be like, “Harry Potter meets Twilight in this thrilling adventure.” There was all these comparisons. It got exhausting, didn’t it?

Eric: Definitely.

Andrew: In part because nothing lived up to Harry Potter. So I thought to start this discussion, let’s establish why Harry Potter became so huge and has had a lasting legacy. So first of all, a powerful and detailed story, right, Eric?

Eric: Yeah, it’s got the goods, which definitely helps when… I think everything you’d want in a story, from a level of detail that fits your comfort zone, the fact that you can read just to read and figure out what happens, enjoy the dialogue, or read to find what the deep secrets are going to be. No matter what your entry level range is, there’s something for everybody in Harry Potter, and I think that was incredibly important in getting just such a wide range of ages, too, reading these books.

Laura: Yeah, I also think from the very jump of the story, there’s such a strong hook to pull you in. I mean, that opening sentence of “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of Number Four Privet Drive considered themselves to be perfectly normal, thank you very much.” I remember reading that as a child for the first time and being automatically hooked, because I was like, “These people sound like jerks.”

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: “I want to know what it is about themselves that they think makes them such perfect human specimens.” And then from there, you get into the strong characterization that exists in these books. I think particularly in the first three books, it’s very clear that those stories were mapped out. There’s a reference to Sirius Black in Chapter 1 of the first book; it’s just so clear that there were so many details and so many bread crumbs left to pull those stories together. And that goes into a strong sense of place, too; I mean, there’s a reason why everyone wants to go to Hogwarts. There’s a reason why we all dreamed of getting our Hogwarts acceptance letter, because we can see the place. I mean, some of the detail that is provided of all of these locations that Harry is going to in London, when he first goes to Diagon Alley, it’s this majestic, magical world that is somehow still grounded in a reality that we can recognize, and that makes it relatable, but also something that you want to aspire to. So for me, those were the factors that pulled me into the books early on, and they were the factors that kept me coming back, honestly.

Micah: It’s also – and I think we’re going to talk a little bit about this when we’re talking about it with relation to Star Wars – but it’s multigenerational, and I think the fact that you were able to really transcend so many different people from so many different backgrounds. No matter your age, it seemed like there was no limit to who could enjoy the Harry Potter series. And I think very rarely… we think of it from the standpoint of having grown up with the books, but there are plenty of grownups who read the books as well, and I don’t think that you often see that with a book series that have that mass popularity. The fact that pretty much anybody that you go and speak to, there’s a pretty good chance that they’ve read the Harry Potter series. Maybe they don’t go all the way through, but they’ve read at least a few of the books.

Andrew: Yeah, because it’s so accessible for everybody, I think people our age or older can really dive into the various mysteries that we see across the series and just think about the larger themes and really take deep dives into the characters, but if you’re a younger reader, you can just look at the overarching plot and not really get too deeply involved. You’re more entertained by the magic, and like Laura was saying, this vivid school and the creatures, and then of course, the dialogue is mostly easy for readers of all ages to understand. So yeah, the books are just widely accessible in different ways. No matter what age you are, you’re getting something different out of it.

Eric and Laura: Yeah.

Eric: I mean, I remember going back through Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince recently when we finished all of the Chapter by Chapters, and now that we’re adults, we’re looking at it from a completely different perspective and going, “Oh my, Harry is a victim of child abuse.”

Andrew: Yeah, exactly.

Eric: As a kid, we’re like, “Oh, those darned aunt and uncle,” but as an adult, you get so much more out of it. Adults were reading these books then and probably thought the same thing, like, “This is not a way to treat a child.”

Laura: Right.

Eric: And so it’s really just in terms of getting everything out of it, it’s one series that you can keep coming back to. It’s got staying power, and it’s got revisit power, and those are also unique qualities, I think, when we’re talking about what would be the next.

Laura: Right. It’s also a coming of age story, right? Everybody loves a good coming of age story because we can all relate to it, whether you’re going through that while you’re reading the books, or whether you’re an adult and you remember what it was like to be in those adolescent years.

Eric: And the gradual loss of innocence as Harry loses his. And to that point, too, we touched on the mystery, but it really helped that each book had its own mini mystery or series of mysteries, and then there were the overarching mysteries. Just layered writing to keep coming back to.

Andrew: Right.

Eric: But it really matters. And as kids, yeah, we’re just interested in seeing who put Harry’s name in the cup, or how did Sirius Black really escape Azkaban? These are interesting questions. But the overall mystery of how Harry was even able to survive is that series long that keeps you wanting to read more and more to get that mystery out of it as well.

Andrew: Yeah. And then the next thing I would credit is the foreshadowing and the ring theory that we bring up so much and Easter eggs. And I think you’ll see this in some series, but there’s so much of it going on across the Harry Potter series, and that’s one reason why I think the fandom was able to explode like it did. Just looking at this podcast as an example, we’re obviously able to catch things while analyzing, and we find them and then we report on them here on the podcast. There’s just so much for you to keep an eye out for that is just a fascinating read in that way, and then when you do catch these things, you want to tell other people about it because you’re so impressed.

Eric: Yeah, like rereading the first Harry Potter book and seeing Sirius Black’s name after you’ve already read the third book and go, “Whoa!” That still throws me when I see that happen.

Laura: I was actually going to say about that, right around the time that the Prisoner of Azkaban movie was coming out, my dad picked up the first book to read it. And after he read the first chapter – he’d seen the trailers for Prisoner of Azkaban – and he came to me and was like, “Wait a second. What is the connection to Sirius Black?” And he was excited by it because he picked up on that hook, and I was like, “You’re just going to have to read to find out, Dad.”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Oh my gosh.

Micah: Nice. See, and what you’re calling attention to is something that Danielle said in the Discord, is that it also allowed for parents who are reading the books to connect with their children.

Laura: 100%.

Micah: And that’s not, again, something that you always see in other series. Now, I’ll go extreme and say A Song of Ice and Fire is maybe dad and son…

[Eric laughs]

Micah: Some type of bond over that. But dad and daughter… I mean, there’s a lot of weird things going on in that series.

Eric: I can’t actually imagine parents reading their kids that. Maybe they did, but I can’t imagine it.

Andrew: But actually, along that line, Pixar movies. They’re appealing to every generation because there are jokes and themes for adults, but all that stuff is also entertaining for the kids. I mean, I think about early Pixar movies. There’s stuff when we were watching these when we were kids; the jokes for adults went right over your head. A lot of cartoons will do this too; I think Spongebob might. That’s one reason Pixar has been so successful; it’s because adults want to see these Pixar movies, too, because they do have really deep messages going on underneath the surface.

Eric: It is kind of about those little rewards, like Easter eggs, little pieces of candy that you find when you’re reading. If you’re paying enough attention, you get rewarded, and that’s a huge… I know that when we’re reading something for entertainment, we like to feel smart. We like to be rewarded for paying attention, because it’s taxing, so it’s nice.

Andrew: Just like Pixar movies. Easter eggs everywhere. The Pizza Planet truck in every Pixar movie.

Micah: Everybody has a story, though, too. That’s the thing around this series is that no one person’s story is the same in terms of how they picked up the first book or who they connected with as a result of it. And I’m just seeing all the comments flying in the Discord about how our listeners got into Harry Potter, and I just think that that is one thing in and of itself that makes this such a unique series.

Eric: It’s interesting because whenever I’m watching old videos on the Harry Potter fandom and how it came to be, like news article reporting editorialists, it really talks about reading going out of fashion in the late ’90s. People really thought video games were going to kill books, and I think they nearly did, and movies too. But then something like Harry Potter comes along, and even though they were adapting them to movies, it was taking longer. And there were these five or six books at least that you could just pour through and get through without having a movie companion for it, and I think that really brought reading back. For me, I was not a reader until Harry Potter, and I still mostly have just read Harry Potter.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: But I’ve read other things. But really, if I’m being honest here… I’ve just got to be honest.

Andrew: I’m with you. I’m the same. I try to read, but… yeah.

Eric: But I enjoy the hell out of reading when I’m reading something that I enjoy, which… it’s amazing.

Andrew: Right, yeah. You don’t stop thinking about it. You want to return as soon as you can.

Eric: Right. I looked up the stats, and over 825 million books, print books, sold last year. So books are still going. That’s great. I was worried.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: But I think that if we’re talking about something like Harry Potter and what’s going to be the next one, we have to look at print as an art form and whether or not… and do audiobooks count? But what’s really going to get people to go to a store to buy something, and then sit with it and just look at it for hours.

Micah: Andrew, I know you’re going to agree with me on this one: There is something very distinct about the smell of the Harry Potter books.

Andrew and Laura: Yes.

Laura: So true.

Andrew: Well, really any book. Yeah, just holding a physical book, they all have different smells. But yeah, the Harry Potter books have a distinct smell. Probably just reminds us of our younger selves.

Laura: Yeah, I also have to say – and this is coming from a very American perspective, I understand – but Mary GrandPrĆ©’s cover art. That was also a big part of what drew me into these books. I remember – so I’m telling on myself right now – I got the first three books for my 11th birthday, and I knew that I was getting them before my birthday because as a child, I was a terrible snooper, so around the holidays and stuff, I would always snoop to see what I was getting for presents and things like that. And I saw the three books in a bag in my parents’ closet, and when I pulled them out to look at them, I was instantly excited just based on the cover art.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s gorgeous art.

Micah: I was just going to…

Andrew: So out of all… go ahead.

Micah: Oh, sorry. No, I was just going to use this as an opportunity – Laura mentioned Mary GrandPrĆ© – to plug our Episode 172 when we spoke with Mary GrandPrĆ©. Now, that was all the way back in 2009, so just a couple of years ago. [laughs] But it was a really, really great interview. We talked to her about what her favorite book was in the series, she broke down that curtain comparison from Sorcerer’s Stone to Deathly Hallows, how much communication she had with the author, and even some of the international illustrators. So it’s a really good episode; folks should go and check it out.

Andrew: Cool. So from all of this came many, many readers, and it was a feverish – it is a feverish – fanbase. And I’m going to be bringing this up a lot during the discussion today because I think this is what sets Harry Potter apart from other very popular book and film franchises. Yes, there have been some very successful book series. Some of them you might be able to compare to Harry Potter, but only Harry Potter and only Star Wars and some others have had a feverish fanbase, and then you combine that with the fact that Harry Potter is sticking around. It isn’t going anywhere. It’s here for the rest of our lives, I’m willing to bet. And this feverish fanbase would gleefully analyze every page because of the things that we were discussing, and of course, they went online to share theories. And that leads me to a point, Micah, you added.

Micah: So I think that the Internet played a huge role in the rise of the success of the Harry Potter series, particularly because you had the instant ability… “instant” may not be the… dial-up came first.

Eric: I mean, that took about 45 seconds.

[Andrew imitates a dial-up connection noise]

Micah: Yes, and nobody calling your house to knock you off. But yeah, the instant ability for fans to connect, theorize in terms of what was going to happen in the next book, and discuss the Potter series overall… and we can’t not mention fan sites. It would be impossible to have this conversation without mentioning MuggleNet, Leaky, Veritaserum, all of the big ones. And it gave people a home. I mean, those sites were so comprehensive; the things that people came up with were just unbelievable. And that’s how I got into, really, the analysis side of the Potter series, was the editorial section on MuggleNet. I know we’ve talked about that on some of the other episodes that we’ve done, but yeah, it was just perfect timing because the Internet was taking off in a way that really just leant itself to allow this type of conversation to happen.

Andrew: Yeah, definitely.

Laura: Agreed.

Andrew: Hold on; I’m going back to 1996. I’m going to go get online.

[Dial-up Internet sound plays]

Laura: Oh my God.

Micah: You should have put a trigger warning before this, Andrew.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: I know. I feel attacked.

Eric: Oh, man.

Andrew: Mom, don’t make a call! I’m getting online! I’ve got to go check out the latest theories about Order of the Phoenix!

Eric: We need a segment that utilizes the dial-up modem sound.

Andrew: [laughs] Hold on, still going. I’m still connecting to the web.

Eric: I miss that. I miss that so much. Welcome! You’ve got mail!

Andrew and Laura: Yeah.

Andrew: I wish that had that at the end of it. This was an AOL sign-on. Oh, well.

Laura: Yeah, and really to drive it home, when we think about the fan sites and when we think about the fan community, I think a lot of us think about the heyday of fan sites for Harry Potter, particularly between 2005 to 2010, but there was an era before that. I remember we had just moved to Georgia in the summer. I had no friends because I had finished out school in Texas; I wasn’t going to meet anyone my age until I went back to school in the fall. And that was the summer Goblet of Fire came out, and I was so hungry for more Harry Potter. I read Goblet of Fire in three days. My mom was like, “Yeah, that book is 700 pages long; it’ll keep her busy this summer.” And it was like, “Nope.” Completely just inhaled that book, basically. And I went online and started looking for people to talk about Harry Potter with and I found chatrooms through AIM. Remember, you could search for various different interests for AIM chatrooms? And you would be in a chat with perhaps hundreds of strangers, but they were all talking about Harry Potter, mostly. And there were a lot of smaller fan sites that were getting started at that time. I know, Andrew, you had one around that time, as well.

Andrew: HarryPottersHouse.com!

Laura: Yep. And it was, for me, the beginning of that feverish desire to keep consuming Harry Potter content because I wanted more, and we had no idea when the next book was coming out.

Andrew: Yeah. And I was also just thinking, all the fan sites and the podcasts even still today are so genuine.

Laura: Yes.

Andrew: It’s just true fans wanting to talk with fellow fans. These days, let’s say a new Fantastic Beasts movie comes out or Star Wars or whatever else. BuzzFeed’ll cover it, too, and Entertainment Weekly, but they’re being paid to write this content and they might not be true fans. With the fan sites, with the podcasts, we’re doing it because we’re true fans who just want to talk about it with fellow fans and meet people too. It’s all so genuine; it’s wonderful.

Eric: Yeah, that’s a good point.

Andrew: I’m now loading up my website on the Wayback Machine.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: HarryPottersHouse.com. I really need to print this out and frame it.

Laura and Micah: You should!

Andrew: I’m really proud of it. [laughs]

Micah: You should sign it.

Andrew: [laughs] Sign it?! For myself?

Micah: Yeah, why not?

Laura: Put that on the OnlyFans.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Yeah, just you holding the… never mind.

[Laura laughs]

Micah: One thing I thought was worth mentioning, too, with these fan sites is that you think about the number of – not even the fan sites, but the series – the number of authors, artists, coders, programmers, podcasters… you could probably sit here and list so many different creators that came out of their experience with the Harry Potter series.

Andrew: Exactly.

Eric: Because it was so ubiquitous and it was everywhere at all times, you really found ways in which to channel your creative energy. If you were a creator, you could create things for the fandom of Harry Potter. If you were a singer/songwriter, you could do wizard rock. If you were an artist, you could do fan art. You found a community that had to do with Harry Potter, but that also was in your lane, and that’s why we got so much awesome creative stuff, is creative people were reading it and they were being inspired by it, which again, goes back to the story being so inviting and multifaceted.

Andrew: And isn’t it wonderful how so many of these talented people, that was their start in the creative world, and so many of them have achieved their own level of greatness? That is mind-blowing and makes me so happy. Sometimes I see some of our listeners, for example; maybe it’s not a creative career, but now they’re in something – it’s not always a creative career, I’m trying to say – now they’re in some huge business or they made a name for themselves, and I think a lot of those people would credit Harry Potter for starting them off.

Micah: Darren Criss.

Andrew: Darren Criss!

Laura: Right, that’s who I was thinking of. I think also, a big part of this – and we’ll probably have to find the study and link to it in our show notes – but remember the study that came out several years ago showing that there was a high correlation between people who grew up reading Harry Potter and people who are highly empathetic? And empathy, it’s one of those things that gets called a soft skill, but you can’t teach empathy. It’s kind of like a secret sauce, right? And not everyone has it, but it seems to be highly prevalent amongst people who read Harry Potter, and I think that it provides people a lot of success in ways that maybe empathy does not get credited for, right? It’s not a hard skill, like you’re a chemist or like you learn to code, but the point is, you can learn to do those things. Empathy is a different beast.

Micah: Especially if you look at the fan community, the diversity of it.

Andrew: Speaking of launching creative careers, Cassandra Clare, who wrote The Mortal Instruments, she got her start by writing Harry Potter fanfiction. Veronica Roth, the author of Divergent, was a MuggleCast listener!

Laura: Wow.

Andrew: A MuggleCast listener! Huge Harry Potter fan, clearly, or maybe just a fan of us. [laughs] No, clearly a very big Harry Potter fan.

Micah: You interviewed Stephenie Meyer; you got her her start here on MuggleCast.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Evanna would be another example as well.

Andrew: Oh, yeah. So in a moment, we’re going to look at Twilight, The Hunger Games, Divergent, and some others, because with all due respect to Veronica Roth and Stephenie Meyer and Suzanne Collins, those series had feverish fandoms, but then they burned out pretty quick once the movies were released. Or in the case of Divergent, they didn’t even get to finish the film series because things went downhill really quick, but we’ll get to that in a moment. Okay, so one reason I wanted to have this discussion is because after Harry Potter and towards the end of Harry Potter, there were a couple of “Next Harry Potters.” The first one was Twilight, and Laura and I actually got pretty involved in the Twilight fandom. We started a fan site called Twilight Source. We started a Twilight podcast called Imprint. And I do have to say, it was so refreshing to do a fan site and podcast that wasn’t about Harry Potter. [laughs]

Laura: It really was.

Andrew: It was like, “Oh, something new, thank goodness.” But Laura, Twilight, for anybody who doesn’t know, it’s a vampire romance series. And actually, it’s had a resurgence recently, maybe because of TikTok.

Micah: Netflix, right? Wasn’t it on Netflix?

Andrew and Laura: Yeah.

Andrew: And it did very well on Netflix; I think it recently left and went to Peacock. But Laura, Twilight burned out pretty quick.

Laura: Yeah, it did, and I would attribute that to the stories not being as deep as Harry Potter. I think there was a lot of crossover at the time between Harry Potter fans and Twilight fans. I think Harry Potter fans were hungry for more Harry Potters; they were hoping for another franchise that would scratch that same itch, and Twilight was just a different franchise. That’s not to say that there was anything bad or wrong about it, but whereas Harry Potter was this multi-layered story that had romantic themes in it, Twilight was a romance first and foremost. So if you’re looking for the level of literary analysis that you could get out of Harry Potter, you’re not going to get that with Twilight, and that’s okay. When I think of Twilight, Twilight is like a beach book.

Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.

Laura: And I love beach books; there’s nothing wrong with them. I hate it when people use that term sort of dismissively. Everybody needs a good beach book. That’s what I think of Janet Evanovich’s books, for example. They’re easy.

Andrew: Yes.

Laura: They’re easy, and they’re fun. So is Twilight. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’re just not going to get as nitty gritty with it as you were with Harry Potter; it’s a different kind of phenomenon.

Andrew: Yeah. There was that speculation as we headed towards the final book, and that final book was a wild ride. That was part of the problem, I think, with Twilight. [laughs] But just looking at the list of reasons why Harry Potter was a success, the detailed story wasn’t really there. Mysteries galore, eh. Foreshadowing and stuff, maybe a little bit. It was all lesser. And like, Laura, you were saying, yes, it was an easier and fun read, and I found that refreshing as well. Just… you were able to burn through those books pretty quick.

Laura: Yep.

Andrew: On the other hand, it did have that feverish fan base, and that may largely have been because of the movies. Go ahead, Micah.

Micah: Yeah, well, that was going to be my question, is when we’re talking about why didn’t it have the success, are we talking about from a book standpoint? From a movie standpoint? Both?

Andrew: Both. Both. Though, like I said, there has been a bit of a resurgence. I think with the books, too, but you don’t see that organized online fandom effort like you did back when Harry Potter was in its heyday.

Micah: Right. Yeah, I think… and you could probably apply this to most of the series that we’re going to talk about, and it’s that I think the Harry Potter series probably set expectation levels too high. We talk about Harry Potter as a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon, and I think that’s what it’s going to be. It’s very rare you get something like that that comes along, and I think to hold Twilight or The Hunger Games or the Divergent series to that, it’s not fair. It wasn’t going to take off in the same way.

Laura: I agree. But I actually remember… to that point, I remember being in a hotel with y’all; we were at some convention, and Andrew, I don’t remember who it was, but somebody had gotten an advanced copy of, I think, the second Hunger Games book. I don’t remember what it was called.

Andrew and Eric: Catching Fire.

Laura: Yeah, Catching Fire. And they brought it to you, and I remember them gushing about it to you in the hallway and being like, “This is the next Harry Potter.” And we were kind of like, “Is it?” Not in a mean way, but it’s just a different kind of story.

Eric: For me, just getting back to Twilight real quick, I appreciated it being different. I didn’t necessarily want another Harry Potter because Harry Potter was my everything. [laughs] So I was looking for something else. I did want it to be different, and at least there, it’s different enough, right? Twilight is dealing with vampires and werewolves, and those are two things that Harry Potter doesn’t really necessarily spend a lot of time on, vampires in particular, I’m thinking, too. It had a female protagonist, which was interesting to me and unique. And it was a romance, like Laura said, so I think it had a lot going for it that inspired me and made me happy that it wasn’t Harry Potter. So it’s interesting to contrast it and be like, “Well, it couldn’t measure up” or “couldn’t make the mark, and that’s why it’s not wildly successful to this day the way Harry Potter is.” But at the same time, I think what these books served to do was – and to that point, the publishers, too, saying, “This is the next Harry Potter” – it got us to read them. It kind of worked.

Andrew: And you know what, this might be a more controversial opinion about Twilight, but I felt from the onset of Twilight‘s popularity that the people who were obsessed with Twilight were jealous that they had missed the boat on Harry Potter. I think they may have gotten into Harry Potter late or completely missed it, and then they were like, “Well, here’s Twilight. This looks like a hot new fandom. Let me jump into this and get that experience that Harry Potter fans had.” Maybe? Maybe not?

Laura: Maybe for some people.

Eric: I know I felt jealous I never got into the Eragon fandom, and so I angrily joined the Harry Potter fandom as a direct result of that.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Which flopped after – what was it? – one movie.

Eric: Yeah, but Jeremy Irons was really good.

Micah: Eragon was a great series, though, but I feel like the author there… was it Christopher…?

Andrew: Christopher Paolini.

Micah: Yeah, he tried to extend it out a little bit. He ended up, I think, doing one more book than what was originally intended, which is fine if you have the material. I remember reading the series. But the other series that came to mind – and I feel like in some ways I’m shamelessly plugging old MuggleCast episodes – but Andrew, I think you did this interview with Freddie Highmore for the Spiderwick Chronicles.

Andrew: Ooh.

Laura: I remember.

Micah: The now famous Freddie Highmore. Became a pretty good actor.

Andrew: Yeah, the funny thing about The Spiderwick Chronicles was the movie studio behind that asked MuggleNet to create a Spiderwick Chronicles fan site, and they were hoping to create a Harry Potter-level fandom out of The Spiderwick Chronicles with the help of MuggleNet.

Micah: Wow.

Andrew: And I guess they paid us.

Eric: That’s so cool.

Andrew: Yeah, but that’s like when somebody hires somebody who claims to be an expert at making things go viral. You can’t just put in the right hashtags to make something go viral. It has to happen organically.

Eric: Don’t I know that.

Andrew: Yeah, right? Same thing with The Spiderwick Chronicles. Just because MuggleNet is creating a fan site for it doesn’t mean it’s going to become the next Harry Potter.

Eric: No, but I think everyone’s touching on the ingredients, right? I think the owners of the Spiderwick IP knew at that time that for that moment in time, fan sites were a big deal for fan growth and conversation. And so if a series didn’t have a natural hub, to create one was a good inkling. It was a good kind of path to go down, but there’re so many ingredients to what made Harry Potter a success that it is hard to quantify or figure out what is going to then make your thing a success.

Andrew: Right, right.

Micah: Well, if listeners want to listen to Andrew talking to about a 10-year-old Freddie Highmore, Episodes 129 and 131.

Andrew: Oh my gosh.

Eric: I love that.

Andrew: He was 10?

Micah: I don’t know. He was pretty young, right?

Laura: I actually remember going to see The Spiderwick Chronicles with you, Andrew.

Andrew: Oh, didn’t we get invited to a screening, maybe? Again the studio? No?

Laura: No, we were visiting friends, and we went to just a regular movie theater.

Andrew: Oh, okay.

Eric: So where was y’all’s Spiderwick podcast then?

Andrew: [laughs] They didn’t pay us enough to do that.

Laura: No.

[Andrew laughs]

Andrew: I feel like they invited us to the premiere or something because they wanted MuggleNet to give it attention; they wanted to get the Harry Potter audience.

Laura: Yeah, we went to some random theater in southern Maryland, which I doubt was the premiere.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: No? No? Okay, so The Hunger Games; we’ve touched on it a little bit. The reason I don’t think this one lasted was because it’s just depressing. It really is sad. Like yeah, there’s a good love story there. I got really into The Hunger Games; I got swept up in it. The movies were awesome. Marketing-wise, they did an incredible job, Lionsgate and Summit did. But man, after you read those books once and watch the movies once, it’s like, “Do I really want to go through this again?”

Eric: I agree. I think Hunger Games is what came the closest for me to rivaling some thoughts and feelings about Harry Potter, because I really like that world; I think something about the way it’s written is real solid. But yeah, I just wasn’t ready for the proto-fascist government demanding lives be sacrificed to the citizenry. It came out, I think, five or six years too soon to really be completely reminiscent of modern times, and for that, I think maybe that’s why it didn’t take off. Looking at it now, I’m like, “Holy crap, how was that allowed to be published?” But there are some very dark, adult themes, but it’s relevant because child soldiers, that’s been a thing for decades, and the gradual awareness of the horrors of the world. This book just doesn’t hold any punches the way Harry Potter, I think, does. Harry Potter will have a fascist dictator trying to take over Hogwarts, but everybody hates her. The teachers even will trick her and pull pranks, but it doesn’t fully explore things the way that the Hunger Games series is forced to by literally having to kill 20… what is it, 23 of its 24 tributes every year.

Andrew: Right.

Laura: Do you think that part of it…? I mean, being a dystopian is not helpful, but do you think part of it is that there was really not much room for the universe of The Hunger Games to continue expanding? I mean, it’s a dystopian version of the United States; it’s broken down into districts. They have this Battle Royale with children every year, so you see the main… the core of the books is this literal shrinking circle, but then you also see the world that this takes place in is very limited. So whereas with Harry Potter there are these boundless possibilities for what you might see from book to book and different scenery you might learn from… we get to go to St. Mungo’s one time; we get to see what the wizarding world looks like outside of Hogwarts, and that allows for more creative analysis to happen. It allows for more imagination, whereas I feel like with The Hunger Games, it’s very limited, the scope.

Andrew: Yeah, once they’re all dead, you can’t speculate about what happened to them after the events of the book.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Laura: Right.

Eric: That’s very important. And I think of it in terms of people said open canon or closed canon, just like Rowling had at least with Harry Potter. We go to St. Mungo’s, but it’s only for a little bit of time; we never go back. There’s still a lot of free thinking and speculation that can be going on there about that. Or the Department of Mysteries; we see these things once, but it’s not like the books and with the world being destroyed, so those things are still out there, in a way. Whereas The Hunger Games and the government toppled, we have hope, but we have no firm ideas about any systems that are going to be put in place after.

Micah: I just think it’s not a welcoming world, kind of going off what Laura was saying. You want to go to the wizarding world. You don’t want to go into the Hunger Games world.

Laura: Yeah. [laughs]

Micah: Panem, right? That’s what it’s called?

Andrew: Yeah, Panem. Well, there’s been talk of Hunger Games theme parks, and there have been some attractions overseas.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: But people – right – on the Internet are just like, “Who the hell wants to go to Panem? Who wants to go to District 12?” Like, okay, I want some bread from Peeta, but that’s it.

Micah: Unfortunately, it does exist in some countries. I don’t know that people actually want to go there, though.

Andrew: Yeah. Well, exactly.

Eric: If I could buy bread from Josh Hutcherson, I would probably pay about $25 for a loaf of bread.

Andrew: [laughs] I’ll also add that there was a spinoff Hunger Games book called The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, but it followed…

Eric: Snow.

Andrew: Yeah, when he was younger, around the 10th annual Hunger Games. And this book came out in 2020; maybe not the best year for the book to be published in terms of getting attention. [laughs] It was published in May 2020, two months after the pandemic started. But I’m looking at this on Amazon. It’s got 43,000 reviews, four and a half star average, so clearly, people liked it. But nobody was talking about this book when it came out. Imagine a Harry Potter prequel coming out; people would be talking about it.

Eric: Here’s the problem: Even if they were talking about this book, I don’t know that I would have seen it. The Internet is a much bigger place than it was back in 2003. I’m not on Reddit, either, and never have been. I feel like the discourse for these types of books is now going to be so many other different places, whereas in 2002, 2003, through 2007, everyone’s attention was on the fan sites or everyone’s attention was on chatrooms or the very few social media networks that we had back then. But now the Internet is just broken up into so many pieces. There’s a Tumblr thing of Harry. it’s just like, every different thing has its own hub.

Micah: I agree with you.

Eric: There’s just nowhere you’d go for people to talk about this.

Micah: It’s almost fragmented; I think that’s what you’re getting at, right? It’s like if something becomes a phenomenon in this day and age, where are you going, right? Websites are kind of a thing of the past. Then you have social media, but what platform do you go to?

Eric: So many.

Andrew: Right. It’s a good point.

Micah: And how are fans going to communicate in one place? I think that was another benefit. We were talking about the rise of the Internet earlier, but social media wasn’t really a thing, and if it was, it wasn’t that big back then.

Andrew: Yeah. So finally, Divergent. We’ve mentioned it a couple times. Also dystopian. It did pretty well, though. The problem is the fourth book; there’s a major twist. And I don’t know if I should spoil it or not, even though it’s been out for quite a few years, but it is a major, major twist, and a lot of readers were very upset with it. And when this kind of twist happens, you don’t really want to think about the series anymore, because somebody really important is gone. And again, you don’t want to spend too much time thinking about this dystopian world, especially if you might feel like you’re currently living in a dystopian world!

Laura: Right.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: It’s not escapism. That’s a word I don’t think… I’m surprised to find we didn’t utter that yet on this show, unless somebody did; I apologize. But escapism, that’s huge.

Micah: It’s further down.

Andrew: Oh, okay. [laughs]

Eric: There you go. Sorry to usurp.

Micah: No, no, no, that’s totally fine. I can now reference it.

Laura: I honestly feel like the closest thing we have to the Harry Potter phenomenon currently is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s not the same kind of hype and it’s not the same kind of fanbase, but it’s wide-reaching, it’s global, there is a feverish fanbase, and it’s something that does touch a lot of people, even if you are more of a casual fan. I’m definitely more of a casual fan myself, but you’d better bet I’ve seen all those movies, I’m watching all the shows on Disney+, and it’s gotten me into reading some of the comics because I’m interested to know more about the source material that they’re drawing from.

Andrew: And there’s a lot to speculate over.

Laura: Yeah, there’s a ton to speculate over. Exactly. And also, there’s a multiverse, right? So there’s tons of different possibilities outside of the standard Marvel 616 universe, which is what you’ll hear a lot of folks talk about. But I think that’s the closest thing we’ve got right now. Is there anything that you can think of that goes there?

Andrew: Well, I would say Star Wars, and maybe we could move there now, but yeah, other than that, no, not really. I would love another book series, and we’re going to get into this, too, in a moment, but I would love another Harry Potter-level book series.

Laura: Same.

Andrew: Just something entirely new. It’d be very refreshing.

Eric: Specifically books? Something that hasn’t been adapted to screen?

Andrew: At least starting as books, yeah. Same kind of rise as Harry Potter. Same trajectory.

Micah: Totally. And I feel like both of them – we’ll get into it when we talk about it – but I feel like they both normalized nerds.

Andrew: Hmm. It’s interesting you say that. I would say it’s cool to be a nerd now, whereas it wasn’t 10, 15, 20 years ago.

Micah: But I think Star Wars did that at that particular time when the first set of movies were coming out. People felt like it was okay to be a nerd. And Eric, obviously you’re kind of the… I look to you as the Star Wars expert, but I do feel like…

Andrew: But Eric wasn’t… none of us were alive when those first movies came out.

Eric: We’ve got to bring back Mikey B. on the show too.

Andrew: He wasn’t alive either.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: No, but he’s a bigger Star Wars nerd than me, and Resistance Radio podcast. Well, thank you. No, what I wanted to speak to about that, though, is the crossover appeal, that Star Wars borrowed from so many other films’ styles, old Japanese ninja films, too. There’s just a ton of references that go way over my head, but it is stuff that was… the visual language that George Lucas used was evolved and appropriated from earlier cinema, from earlier storytelling, and Harry Potter is no different. Harry Potter, really, in its story, built off of lore for the various… everything from… creatures is the obvious thing, but also potions, what these magical properties of things like mandrake root had been said to represent for centuries. And so it was very smartly built up of, I want to say, recycled bits that had been used previously or established. It’s a question whether it’s being reused, or made new as a result of the combination, and I think that that’s what good storytelling does. I don’t think we’re going to see something wholly new, but I think we’re going to see the right combination of things at some point that really scratches that itch for us.

Andrew: Laura, you had a really good point about why Harry Potter has lasted after all this time, and maybe we can use this to talk about Star Wars a little more.

Laura: Yeah, I think a big part of it is because there is such a strong sense of identity that’s tied to these stories. Even casual Harry Potter fans know what Hogwarts House they’re in. We talk about this all the time. We even talk… I mean, we talked in an Instagram Live the other day about how I’m a Ravenclaw, but I have Slytherin tendencies. It just says a whole lot about who you are as a person to be able to say, “I’m a Ravenclaw,” and have so much about your personality captured in just that statement. There’s also the subject matter that you’re interested in. But even more important are the Patronuses. We have to remember there was a time where you could go take a Patronus quiz – I don’t know if it’s still up or not – and you could find out what your Patronus was. Mine’s an Irish Wolfhound; I feel like that says a lot about me. But people do like to talk about their fandom IDs, and that’s just something that transcends time, generations…

Andrew: Copyright MuggleCast.

Laura: Yep. [laughs]

Eric: It’s a shorthand. It’s a code. It’s jargon, but it’s ours. And that comes from these, again, worldly concepts such as spirit animal – although that’s problematic – these worldly concepts such as… even the House Sorting goes back to the four fates and the four types of personalities that the Greeks speculated there were. There’s centuries of research on this type of stuff that gets broken down into something that’s as popular as Harry Potter, and that’s how we get these combos that we have. That’s how you get somebody saying, “Hey, I’m a Hufflepuff.” It’s really exciting.

Laura: Yeah. Actually, Meg is… she hit the nail right on the head in our Discord. She said, “It’s the literary version of your zodiac sign.” 100%.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: But it’s cooler. I mean, I know a lot of people are big into horoscopes and zodiacs, but I feel like many, many, many more people are into their Hogwarts Houses.

Andrew: It’s more modern. [laughs] At least. And often, more modern can be more cool. It’s in style. But zodiac signs are as well. So Star Wars, speaking of identity, I think people have a very, very big sense of identity within the Star Wars fandom as well, and these worlds, these planets… and actually, Eric, I’m glad you included a link to these to this group. There’s the 501st Legion, and it’s also a charity. These are people who dress up as Stormtroopers, right? Can you tell us about the 501st Legion?

Eric: Yeah, it’s Stormtroopers and actually an assortment of other characters if you’re costumed from Star Wars, and it’s become kind of… I mean, it’s a league, and it’s a cool way to get in with a group that’s doing good. There’s the social activism aspect of it; there’s also visiting kids in hospitals. Or actually, when Weird Al Yankovic – soon to be played by Daniel Radcliffe – goes on tour, he gets members of the 501st to back him up on stage when he sings about Yoda. It’s awesome stuff. But also, they give you tips and tricks, and everybody who’s a member of the 501st, the costume is screen accurate. So you’re dealing with artisans; you’re dealing with really creative types, people who are super passionate about something that they saw in a movie – or a TV series now – that they can then recreate, which as a cosplayer, I greatly and deeply respect the level of organization and the level of creativity that goes into this. To then also expand it out and make the community a better place, it’s everything you would want out of, I think, being a nerd today, being a fan today.

Andrew: Yeah. And I think now, even though Stormtroopers, for example, are villains and get killed very easily in Star Wars all the time…

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: … I think these people who dress up as Stormtroopers feel like this is their deep connection to the world. They really feel like they’re becoming a part of the world when they put on these costumes. And of course, it goes back to the fandom aspect, too; all these other people are also very into Star Wars to the point that they have the full Stormtrooper suit, and you make friends that way. It’s really cool.

Eric: Yeah, there’s a really cool thing about being allowed to be anonymous, when you’re behind the mask. I mean, even when I was wearing my Gryffindor robes, I wasn’t trying to dress as Harry; I was just myself as what I thought was a Gryffindor. And it’s being able to be yourself. The costume expresses you; it doesn’t control you. I don’t know. It’s really interesting.

Micah: I was going to bring up one thing, Eric, that you mentioned earlier that both of these series have in common, and that’s the escapism aspect of it. So escapism being this tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by entertainment or engaging in fantasy, and these are two huge fantasy worlds. And I think the ability – we hear it from listeners all the time – to escape into the wizarding world is something that means a lot to them.

Andrew: And I really like this other point that you have here, Micah, about the fact that the creators are still living, both with Star Wars and Harry Potter.

Micah: I know we try and steer clear a little bit of talking about the author, but I think the fact that she is still around, as is George Lucas, is big, and the fact that you still have them to be able to give you information about these characters, about this world that they themselves created, is something that you don’t have a chance to do with a Tolkien or some of the other big time authors that have created series decades and decades and decades ago. And I think the fact that we were living through the rise of the Harry Potter series with the author is also something that’s very, very unique.

Eric: That was definitely, I think, one of those key ingredients again, is the relationship that the fans had with the creator.

Laura: Yeah, I mean, she was actively involved during all those years, so that’s huge.

Andrew: Now, George Lucas did sell Star Wars to Disney and Lucasfilm, so he’s not really actively creatively involved anymore. But I will add, to Micah’s point, that Disney very much wants to create a lot more Star Wars, and I think that adds to the hype, the active fandom around Star Wars, because it feels like you’re always on the cusp of something else. I mean, there’s two live action Star Wars TV shows that have come out on Disney+, and there are more to come. And then with Harry Potter, this is a franchise that we feel like a scripted TV show will be coming at some point; it’s just a matter of Warner Bros. trying to figure out a good story. And then we will – I think we’re all in agreement – at some point see the world open up to other creators like Disney has done with Star Wars.

Eric and Micah: Yeah.

Eric: And there’s also this idea of this guiding hand, right? So Kevin Feige does it with MCU; Jon Favreau and I think it’s Dave Filoni do it with Star Wars. For the most part, there’s a handful of creative execs that are being that guiding force that are making sure that consistency and quality of product are still being met, and that the storytelling demands are generally being followed, and that allows a lot of creators to work in the same space, and a lot of variables. As long as there’s a team of people, I think we’re learning how to do that multi-creator storytelling pretty well at this point. I’d be interested to see if the next Harry Potter is something like that, where it isn’t one person at all that’s doing it.

Micah: Definitely. And I think the other thing that is important about both of these series – and we light touched on it earlier – is that they do transcend generations. Harry Potter is a story that really anybody can read and connect with. The same can be said for Star Wars. I think, in particular, I’m going back to when they rereleased Episodes IV, V, and VI in theaters in the ’90s, and this was prior to Episodes I, II, and III coming out, and it gave a whole new generation the opportunity to go see the films. And then of course, now we have Episodes VII, VIII, IX, and think what you will of any of the other episodes that aren’t the original IV, V, and VI, but it gives that next generation the chance to become immersed into the world.

Andrew: All right, so we’re going to discuss if we think we’ll see another Harry Potter-level success in our lifetimes. And then we asked our patrons, “What books or series do you believe live up to the Harry Potter hype?” Because maybe there’s something out there right now that people are missing out on. Okay, so big question – place your bets now – will we see another Harry Potter-level of success in our lifetimes? I’m talking the fandom, the fan sites, the podcasts, the media hype, the detailed story, the excitement, the passion, all of it. Will we see it in our lifetimes?

Eric: And it has to be a book first, right?

[Andrew sighs]

Eric: This is a big decision to make. Plenty of new TV series are huge and popular.

Andrew: Well, that’s… yeah, but not even them have reached Harry Potter status. And I think when you think about Harry Potter status, you’re thinking about how it broke through. It had this huge success in both books and film format, so okay, if there’s going to be another Harry Potter, it’s got to hit two of those verticals. Books, TV, or movies, or all three.

Eric: Okay.

Andrew: What’s something that’s going to hit multiple verticals with wild success?

Eric: I like that explanation. I like that a lot.

Laura: I hope so.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: You mean in our lifetime? That was the question?

Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Micah: But what do we think the impact would be on us? That’s my question. I hope that for the generations that have come after us that there’s something similar to it, but I think that part of the magic was the fact that it was truly this perfect storm of people and things coming together at just the right time. I don’t know that I’d want another Harry Potter. I think we have ours, and it was this really awesome… it still is this awesome experience, and it continues to evolve, right? The fact that we’re still doing this podcast in 2022, and that people are listening to us says that… to me, what’s in it for us if there’s something new? Are we hoping for another podcast series?

Andrew: [laughs] Pleasure, entertainment, happiness, joy… maybe another podcast for us. I mean, but Micah, you still read books.

Micah: Of course.

Andrew: And you love television and movies and stuff, so something like that but bigger. Why wouldn’t you want that?

Micah: Yeah, but I guess I just wouldn’t call it another Harry Potter. I could say Game of Thrones, but I still don’t think…

Eric: Well, no, to answer your question, I don’t think those are coming out in our lifetime.

Micah: The books? The last two books, yeah.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Laura: I don’t think they’re coming out ever.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Yeah, I hear what Micah is saying. And I guess when I think about the next Harry Potter, it’s going to look different, right? We sit here and we talk about the fan sites and the podcasts. That’s not how people consume content anymore, the way they used to. Podcasts have definitely seen a golden era, but fan sites, those are a thing of the past. So who knows, in another 10, 20, 30 years when the next big phenomenon comes along, how people are going to consume it? But I think it will happen. And it may not be for us, and that’s okay. But I still hope that something comes along, because I think every generation deserves to have that kind of phenomenon, I think. I mean, Harry Potter impacted all of our lives in so many positive ways. I mean, we wouldn’t know each other if it weren’t for Harry Potter. The closest people I know in my life are because of Harry Potter; some of the best work that I’ve done is because of Harry Potter, and it’s my fervent hope that every generation would get something like that.

Eric: Well, that’s another aspect that I think is really important, is the opportunities that were afforded to us because of Harry Potter. And the idea that a future generation, who are kids, who are the age we were when we were consuming Harry Potter, would also get to be that thing’s podcasters or that thing’s shepherds and their biggest fans…

Micah: Totally.

Eric: … I love that idea. I think it’s really interesting. In my most optimistic future, I think that there would be a piece of media – maybe it’s a book by a single creator – that is every bit as inclusive as we demand stories to be now, and the creator, if it’s one person, has to be every bit as non-problematic as we demand of creators to be now. And I don’t know, because that seems like a real tall order, but if it happens, I would want it to be that, and I would want it to be one creator that ticks all the boxes and gets it right, just to show that it can be done, and I wonder if that would even be popular.

Laura: Oh my God.

Eric: Here’s the other thing, is everybody bought into Harry Potter. The movie rights were optioned very early; people could tell it was going to be a success. Now, I think the other component is you need the approval. You need the very obvious person bankrolling something that’s never been quite that way before to make it the success that it is, and right now, studios and everything are going back to what’s already been. They’re not trying new things, and that kills creativity or cuts off the ankles of anything that could be getting started that could be really good for people.

Micah: Well, I’ll give a hot take: I think wanting another Harry Potter is greedy.

Andrew and Eric: Oooh!

Andrew: It’s not greedy. It’s called optimism, Micah. I’m optimistic that another Harry Potter will…

Micah: I don’t think it’s optimism.

Andrew: Yes, it is. I want it. I want it. I need it. And not just for myself – for everybody, like Laura was saying. But Eric, I liked your point, too, that studios are… it’s reboot central these days; they’re less interested in taking a risk on something entirely new. That said, they do try to option some books and stuff because they hope, too, there’s another Harry Potter someday. I was just thinking Percy Jackson. Percy Jackson has been very successful. Author Rick Riordan hasn’t gotten himself in trouble; seems like a really good guy. Disney+ just announced a few days ago – and we celebrated this on the MuggleCast Twitter account – Disney+ is adapting Percy Jackson into a TV series. Maybe that will make Percy Jackson blow up and then people will go back to the books, and then it’s just going to be this beautiful cycle of success.

Eric: That’s hopeful.

Micah: I liked those movies, though. I’m sad that they stopped them.

Andrew: [laughs] Rick Riordan hated the movies. No joke. And he was very open about it.

Micah: What does he know?

Andrew: Whoa!

Micah: I’m just kidding.

Andrew: So much edginess out of Micah tonight.

Eric: I’m so shocked about the author not liking the movie, considering that Chris Columbus directed The Lightning Thief. I’m really sad to hear that our boy Chris let somebody down with the adaptation, because I think his Harry Potter is to this day the standard, the gold standard.

Andrew: And now Rick Riordan is deeply involved in the television adaptation, so hopefully he won’t hate his work on the TV series.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Andrew: So I thought we should ask our patrons. Eric mentioned that he doesn’t read a lot, at least maybe not fantasy series, and I’ve got to admit I’m the same way. I think we all don’t read as much as we might want to. It’s a New Year’s resolution from time to time. So I thought, let’s ask our brilliant listeners…

Micah: I read.

Andrew: Okay, and Micah. Ask him too.

Micah: Laura reads.

Andrew: Well, actually, you’re going to hate this question, then. I don’t want your answer to this question, Micah; it’s just going to be “Nothing.” We asked our patrons: What books or series do you believe live up to the Harry Potter hype?

Laura: The first one comes from Laura M. Love Laura M.; she’s great. She says, “I would definitely say Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger. It’s such an expansive world and also a middle grade series that easily crossed the line between middle grade and adult. We are waiting for the ninth book and will be getting one more. We also did get a behind-the-scenes book like we craved for Harry Potter back in the day. And the author is just a delight, and a romance triangle that could rival Ron and Hermione, and Hermione and Harry.”

Andrew: Nice. Okay.

Eric: I have room in my heart for another love triangle.

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Eric: This next suggestion comes from Tom: “In modern literature, there is no series which even comes close. The most obvious comparison is Lord of the Rings. Both of the ‘worlds’ in each series are fleshed out and feel ‘lived in,’ meaning things are complex and not shiny and simple. Each random person you encounter seems to have their own backstory and personality, which is deep enough to be explored on its own. The scope of both series is also massive, tackling good and evil as subjects and characters in and of themselves. Most stories use characters and situations to set up moral dilemmas, however these epic stories take on the essence of morality itself in their epic confrontations of good and evil. This is a boring answer, but probably the only right one.”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Okay, Tom. I will take your recommendation to read Lord of the Rings, and I will consider it.

Andrew: I will not say it’s the only right one, but I think it’s a very good one. I like your reasoning here.

Laura: Yeah. I felt like Harry Potter was what really prepared me to read Lord of the Rings. I didn’t read Lord of the Rings until, I don’t know, I think it was probably after Order of the Phoenix came out and I was looking for something to sink my teeth into. So yeah, I think if you haven’t read Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter is a great jumping off point to consume those books.

Micah: Yeah, I’d only read The Hobbit prior to Harry Potter

Laura: I love The Hobbit.

Micah: This next one is from Andrew…

Andrew: But not me.

Micah: … who says, “Darren Shan’s Cirque Du Freak books. However, the movie was not pleasing. I think David Heyman was planning on doing a movie at the same time as the Harry Potter films, but unfortunately, that fell through.”

Andrew: Okay. Stacy said, “I was late to the party, but the Shadow and Bone series and spinoffs are very good. I have almost an entire shelf devoted to books by Tamora Pierce that I’ve read and reread many times. And the Inheritance series by Christopher Paolini is always near the top of my list. I think they got tossed aside because the movie adaptation was so catastrophically terrible that it wouldn’t make ANYONE want to read the books. But all in the realm of fairly realistic seeming fantasy, with lots of characters who are very well developed.” Yeah, I remember us talking about the Inheritance series from time to time – and we brought it up earlier in today’s episode – but we were talking about it from time to time on MuggleCast, I think, because it was pretty hot. The books were, at least.

Eric: I’m a big fan of Ben Barnes. I loved him in Westworld, but first I loved him as Prince Caspian in the Narnia movies.

Andrew: I didn’t mention this, but Shadow and Bone is on Netflix, and I think it’s very popular, just like the books are.

Micah: It’s a good series.

Andrew: Yeah? Okay.

Micah: I’ve watched it.

Andrew: Micah watches everything on Netflix. Everything.

[Eric laughs]

Micah: I just keep it on loop.

Andrew: Everything.

Micah: But you know what? People really didn’t like the Eragon adaptation, but I will say, I thought Jeremy Irons was awesome in that film. He’s awesome in most things.

Eric: Absolutely.

Laura: Yeah, Jeremy Irons is great.

Micah: But outside of that, you can throw the rest of it away. But he’s always just so good.

Laura: Right. [laughs]

Andrew: Credit to Christopher Paolini; he was very engaged with the fans, I remember. And one of our friends – his name was Mike; he was sort of involved with MuggleNet, I believe – he started an Inheritance fan site, and Christopher Paolini was working very closely with that.

Micah: Shur’tugal, right?

Andrew: Shut’tugal, yeah! That’s it. I wonder if it’s still up.

Eric: I’d hate to overlook that, too; there are creators that we know that are friends that are trying to do podcasts and things for these other series. In particular, the Shadow and Bone series, our friend Julianna and Geoff do “Into the Fold.” It’s a Grishaverse podcast, and they are up and coming with their podcast, and it’s about the Shadow and Bone books. I’d be remiss if we didn’t support our friends that are making content in those worlds, in those literary worlds, even if we’re not.

Andrew: Good point.

Laura: This next one comes from Caitlin, who says, “For me, it’s the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas. It is gaining in popularity, for sure, and I’m glad it is, because it made me want to read it. It’s written for adults and is a fantasy series based off of Beauty and the Beast. The books are quite long, and like Harry Potter, I read them each within a few days. I also like that it was written by a woman. I like how the characters are developed throughout the series, and the plots are not overly complex. It’s mostly about the relationships between the characters, which is what Harry Potter was to me. I mostly liked finding a fantasy series aimed at adults that I enjoy; I never really liked Lord of the Rings, so this was perfect for me.” This is actually on my list because our friend Pamela over at Millennial podcast is reading this right now and she’s been gushing about it, so it is next on my list, and I’ll report back, y’all.

Andrew: Sweet.

Eric: This next one comes from Nathan, who says, “I’m going to take this two ways. First, Lord of the Rings and His Dark Materials, as they’re both complex and have allegories and are similar to the later half of the Harry Potter series. Lyra, like Harry, has a destiny unknown to her, and the specters are similar to Dementors. The His Dark Materials series on HBO Max is amazing and shows how Potter could do it (written by Cursed Child writer Jack Thorne; I just finished my annual reread and rewatch). Second, the Kingdom Keepers series by Ridley Pearson and the Charlie Bone series by Jenny Nimmo. Kingdom Keepers is set in Disney World and has a Toy Story theme (villains come alive after the park closes). Charlie Bone has special powers (he can heaar pictures) and attends boarding school. Both series have the whimsical feeling of Sorcerer’s Stone.” Wow.

Laura: Ooh.

Andrew: Nice.

Eric: Those are some good recommendations.

Laura: Yeah, definitely. I mean, of course, plus one million to Lord of the Rings. But His Dark Materials is another amazing series, and the show on HBO Max is really, really good, so if you haven’t checked that out, it’s awesome. It’s funny because His Dark Materials, the book series was coming out around the same time as the Harry Potter books, and it was definitely popular. There was a movie they made in like, 2003 that was pretty bad. It had Nicole Kidman in it and… shoot.

Eric: And Daniel Craig.

Laura: Daniel Craig. That’s right. I was like, “James Bond.” It was not a good movie, so getting a really good HBO Max series has been so great as a His Dark Materials fan.

Micah: One other one that just comes to mind quickly – I know we’re wrapping up – is Locke & Key on Netflix. I’m not sure if folks have seen that, but it’s very much the magical, whimsical series that some of the other people are referencing that’s just fun to enter that world. It’s basically different keys do different things when they’re inserted into the back of people’s necks.

Andrew: We also have to mention The Magicians; the television series was based on the book series. The TV series, I’ve heard very good things about; same things for the book. People have called this an adult Harry Potter. I’ve always wanted to read and/or watch this, but I just never got around to it. The Magicians has ended, unfortunately, but it ran for five seasons.

Eric: Lev Grossman, right?

Micah: It’s on Netflix.

Andrew: Okay. Micah loves Netflix!

[Micah laughs]

Eric: It’s possible there’s already the next Harry Potter; we just haven’t been sat down and forced to watch it.

Micah: Did you say you’ve read those books? Because I have read those books; they’re pretty good.

Andrew: I haven’t. Okay, good to know. Maybe I’ll…

Micah: I recommend reading the books first.

Andrew: Okay.

Eric: Micah is a reader.

Andrew: Yeah, and a big Netflix-er. All right, well, there’s our discussion. I feel like we just scratched the surface, but that was a good start, at least. 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 latter, just record a message using the Voice Memo app on your phone. You can also use the contact form on MuggleCast.com, or you can leave a voicemail on our phone. The number is 1-920-3-MUGGLE. That’s 1-920-368-4453. On next week’s episode, with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, we are going to discuss the power of love, baby, in the Harry Potter series, and also the vulnerability of male characters. That’s an important topic that’s really not touched on much anywhere in the world [laughs] as much as it should be.

Eric: Love it.


Quizzitch


Andrew: It’s time for Quizzitch!

[Quizzitch music plays]

Eric: Well, we asked and you delivered, listeners. I think we have to incentivize this stuff from now on. Last week’s question was: What are the names of Severus Snape’s parents? And it was for a prize. Over 103 people submitted.

Andrew: Wow. Good.

Eric: We’re not going to name them all.

Micah: That’s going to break the bank. Oh, we’re not giving away to everybody.

Eric: Yeah, we’re only giving away five copies of Irvin’s book, who was on last week’s episode. And the winners, randomly chosen from the assortment who got the correct answers… did I say…? Eileen Prince and Tobias Snape, by the way. The correct answers were submitted by these winners: MustBeAWeasley92; Mundy Sun; Levi-OH-sa; Pottah; and the Ravenclaw Knocker. We have your email; we’re going to be emailing you. Give us your address. We’ll send you a book.

Andrew: Excellent. I’m glad so many people were interested in receiving a copy of Irvin’s book: Dumbledore: The Life and Lies

Eric: Love it. And I was feeling very guilty that I did not ever read the Divergent series, given how much time we spent just talking about Hunger Games and all that, so next week’s Quizzitch question is a Divergent question: In the Divergent book series, Beatrice Prior finds that she is Divergent, and in fact has equal aptitude for three of the five factions. Which faction does she choose to join? And for bonus credit, but not a book, name the three options available to Tris. Submit your answer to us over on the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or go to MuggleCast.com and click on “Quizzitch” in the menu.

Andrew: I hope Veronica Roth answers the question.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Eric: I hope she still listens.

Andrew: Me too, me too. Couple reminders before we wrap up: Make sure you are following MuggleCast for free in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode, and leave us a review if they allow you to, especially those of you over in Apple Podcasts and Spotify; we would really appreciate a quick review. Also, don’t forget to follow us on social media. Our username is @MuggleCast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok! Lots of fun stuff happening across all channels, so do follow on whichever you use. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.

Eric: I’m Eric.

Micah: I’m Micah.

Laura: And I’m Laura.

Andrew: Bye, everyone.

Eric, Laura, and Micah: Bye.

Transcript #547

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, ChloĆ©, 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 ChloĆ© 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, ChloĆ© 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 fiancĆ©e? 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.

Transcript #536

 

MuggleCast 536 Transcript

 

Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #536, Evanna Lynch Discusses “The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting”


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: I’m Laura.

Andrew: And this week we’ve got a special episode; we are joined by friend of the show Evanna Lynch, who of course played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films. Evanna, welcome back to MuggleCast!

Evanna Lynch: Hello! Hello, hello! Thanks for having me back.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s great to have you on. You’re here today because you just released a memoir, The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting. Eric is modeling it now.

[Evanna laughs]

Andrew: Ooh, I don’t have a physical copy yet. I’m jealous.

Eric: What a gorgeous cover.

Andrew: It really is.

Evanna: I know. It is pretty. Aww, and Micah, thank you.

Eric: Oh, Micah’s got it too.

Andrew: Yeah, so that’s the focus of today’s episode.

Evanna: Woohoo.

Andrew: We’re going to talk about the book and we’ll talk a little bit about Harry Potter, too, because you do touch on that in the book as well. So Evanna… oh, and actually, we should note Evanna is also wearing a sweater with Gryffindor colors. Thank you for coming prepared today with some Gryffindor colors.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Andrew: You are a Gryffindor?

Evanna: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am so Gryffindor. Yeah.

Andrew: Okay, you said something about Ravenclaw before, so…

Evanna: No, I just said I wish I was Ravenclaw because blue suits me better color-wise. This is not a good look for me aesthetically.

Andrew: You look great.

Laura: Oh, I think it is. You look great.

Evanna: [laughs] Thank you.

Andrew: Meanwhile, the rest of us, we’re wearing gray.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Boring colors.

Evanna: Yeah, what House is that? [laughs]

Andrew: It’s nothing.

Evanna: You can tell who’s a newbie here when it’s like, “I’m going to turn up in House colors!”

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: This is my “I’m flying later today” shirt, so I needed something comfortable for the flight, yeah.

[Eric laughs]

Evanna: Ah.

Andrew: Can you give listeners an overview of your new book, The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting?

Evanna: Yeah, for sure. So yes, it is a memoir. It didn’t start out that way; I was like, “I really just want to write about the battle between mental health and creativity.” It wasn’t like, “I want to tell every detail of my life.” But then I just realized, I don’t want to write a self-help book, because I find stories more powerful. I want to know anecdotes. The books that really changed me were beautifully told stories, beautifully written stories. So anyway, yeah, it turned into a memoir, and yeah, it’s really about the struggle between your mental health and your creativity. And I feel like I’ve been talking about this for years, like over a decade. I did start talking about my mental health in public, and while on some level, that was a relief to be like, “This is who I am, I’ve got this past, I’m not going to be ashamed of it,” it then got garbled by the press; it got turned into this sweet story of “Oh wow, you had an eating disorder and then you got Harry Potter, and what a great time you’ve had.” And it bothered me because it made it seem like you can incentivize recovery, that you can just seduce somebody, basically, out of their struggles. And that wasn’t the case at all, and it also felt quite disrespectful towards people going through their own issues. So I wrote it to be like… I wanted to show the complexity and nuance of the situation, and I wanted to show that eating disorders are not about what they look like. For me, my eating disorder was there years – well, not years, but a while before it started to physically manifest, before people were able to see it. And it continued after physical recovery; I still had that very negative dark mindset. So I wanted to just do a book that talked about these issues and the depth and to not get distracted by the shocking physical symptoms, which too much of the time get sensationalized and seen as the defining aspect of these things, which ironically, only exacerbate eating disorders. Sorry, that was a long old spiel. But yeah, that’s the book. [laughs]

Eric: I think you’ve done an amazing job of it, if I can say that.

Evanna: Oh, thanks.

Eric: And I think you’re right about the power of stories to really convey, and to that point, your your memoirs are very, very detailed. I know that as part of recovery, you were encouraged to keep a journal and various people throughout the years. Did you refer back to these then to help you? And how do you remember with such detail? Or what was that process like, rediscovering or writing about your past?

Evanna: Yeah, so it was like a jigsaw puzzle. There were things – and this is what I started with when writing – that were so clear in my head, like they happened yesterday. Maybe the moments that were either the most traumatic, or they were just special to me, things that people said that really affected me or were funny. So those things were clear in my head. Sometimes I could remember direct quotes from 20 years ago, and then other things… so I wrote those things first, and then it was a matter of filling in the gaps. And sometimes I’d have a conversation with my parents and find I’d remembered it in all the wrong sequence. Obviously, I wrote a lot of letters when I was young, so letters helped. And then this journal, my therapist had asked me to keep a journal throughout while we were working together, and it was so weird how it came back to me. So this is like real world magical stuff. I knew I had this journal; I had written it. And I was like, “Oh, it’d be amazing if I could find that journal again,” but I actually was a bit too embarrassed to ask her about it, because it was that journal… I’m just ashamed of who I was back then. I was such an unpleasant person and such a sick person, so I didn’t want to ask her. So then I asked my psychic, I was like, “Can you have a mooch around and feel if that diary is gone and burned or if it’s somewhere out there?” And she came back and she was like, “I don’t feel there’s any funny business; I don’t think anyone stole it. I think it’s in Ireland somewhere.” And like, three days later, my therapist texts me, “This keeps falling off the shelf.” It was the diary.

Andrew, Laura, and Micah: What?

Eric: Wow.

Evanna: Yeah, she was like, “I don’t know what to do with it. Do you want it?” And I was like, “Shit, yeah.” That’s when I said to her, “I’m writing a book, so… perfect.” And then she sent it to me, so that really helped. That was magic, right?

Andrew: That’s incredible. Geez.

Laura: Wow.

[Evanna laughs]

Eric: Evanna, this was Natasha in the book?

Evanna: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Eric: Awesome.

Andrew: Wow. Okay, now I believe in psychics.

[Everyone laughs]

Evanna: But she wasn’t very specific about it. She was like, “I don’t know exactly where it is. I think it’s somewhere in Ireland. I don’t think anyone’s taken it.” But then she was like, “I’m sorry I can’t help further.” But whatever she did shifted some energy and drew the book back to me. [laughs]

Andrew: That is amazing.

Micah: Wow. It sounded like Peeves was lending a helping hand knocking it off the shelves there.

[Everyone laughs]

Evanna: Or a nicer ghost.

Micah: Now, you were very open on social media about how much time and effort it was taking to write this book. Was this one of your more difficult projects, you would say?

Evanna: Oh yeah, hands down. It was the least enjoyable because it’s just you with your desk. That’s the nice thing of having written a book, the first one. “Okay, now I’ve done it, I know that I can do it again.” Great. But the first one ’round, you’re like, “I don’t know if I can do this, I don’t know if anyone will want to read it, I don’t know if I’m good at writing or if I’m just delusional.” So it was pushing through those days and then losing faith and then going, “No, I’ve got something here.” That was just really hard. And yeah, it did start to feel a bit self-indulgent because it was just… I mean, every now and then there’s a big social media uprising over some big, worldly cause, and I was so busy and stressed and I was working to deadlines that people were like, “Are you going to care about animal rights, indigenous rights, blah, blah,” and I was like, “I’m just going to go and write about my 11-year-old self.” It was very embarrassing. “Oh, how is this going to help people?” But ultimately, I do believe in the personal helping the public. I think we have to reveal these sides, that you have to go deep. And that, to me, has always spoke to me the most, when somebody really shares something private and vulnerable. And it’s been weird, just seeing the reactions to the book online, the amount of people who are saying, “I feel like you’ve written my story.” And I’m like, “What? My story is way too weird and obscure.” So it does help people. But I found that very hard. And again, being a person with a platform being in the public eye, there’s always this sense of “Are you going to speak on this? Are you going to say this? Are you going to do this?” And for a year I had to be very selfish and just go, “No, this is what I’m doing. Who knows if it will work, if anyone will be bothered, but this is what I’m committing to.” But that’s art, isn’t it? That’s creativity. You just have to believe in your small, mad idea.

Andrew: And I’m sure it feels great to now hear from people who are reading the book and telling you that it has been helping them. Do you think writing it…? You’re saying that it was challenging and very difficult, but was it also therapeutic in a way to get all this out on paper and get all these thoughts organized?

Evanna: Yeah, the actual emotional side of… when I say it was hard writing it, it’s just the discipline of writing is hard. I didn’t really find revisiting those things hard because these stories have been inside me for years, and I think I’d have never been able to fully let them go and move on if I’d never sat down and done it. So it was just like, “Phew, thank goodness, I’m getting it out there in my own words.” So it is exposing, it is a bit. A big part of me is like, “This is so embarrassing. What am I doing, putting out basically my journals out there to the world?” But I’d rather it be out there in my own words, because it is already, rather than being misinterpreted, so I was really relieved. And I feel like I have been taught… I don’t really want to be a mental health eating disorder advocate; I want to be a storyteller. So every interview pretty much that I’ve done – not you guys – but anything else, if I do a mainstream interview, they always ask about the eating disorder. And I want to be like, “That’s the past. That’s done.” So this book is me saying, “Here’s everything I can say on the topic. That’s my offering.” And so hopefully, in future I don’t have to keep talking about it, because it is a bit… to have to keep going so deep and so personal, doing all this inner excavation every time you do your work, which, my work is a lot of promo and press… it’s not fun. [laughs] I do want to go back to communicating with the world through characters and stories, so that there’s a little bit of more privacy around it and my life.

Eric: Well, if that was the goal… I have to say, your book is so visceral. It doesn’t pull any punches. It absolutely… I think you achieve the really talking about your true inmost self. And it’s funny how much of the book is funny, while also being just completely soul-crushing, heart-wrenching. We feel for you, what you’re going through, and yet, there’s also this identity that we feel of things that we’ve felt about ourselves. You’re just able to, I think, really clearly convey a negative state of mind, but you don’t shy away from it. I think that’s going to be very helpful for a lot of people.

Evanna: That’s what I say in the start of the book, why we put that intro in there, because I suppose some people might be a bit shocked by how negative I can get. I think people thought, “Oh, you’re Luna Lovegood; you’re above all that negativity.” But no, I was the most negative person, and I felt a lot of shame before, of “Oh, I’ve come out as this person who’s recovered. I’m not allowed to hate myself anymore. I’m supposed to be all good in that department.” And yeah, I felt a lot of shame for not being more healed, not being more mature, or not having all this self-love thing figured out. But I just have found that nobody is perfect with their self-love, with their self-acceptance. It is a relationship that you have to work on, but you can manage it better if you talk about these mean things. Because it’s that clichĆ©, when you expose the darkness to light, people can see it. They can understand it more and they can have awareness, and with awareness, we don’t feel so alone, and we feel like these very dark, big things in our head become smaller, and then we can laugh at them. And that’s how I did know with the book that I’m cool, I’m fully recovered from this, because I did find a lot of humor. I did find a lot of the moments funny and absurd and it was not so serious anymore.

Eric: Speaking about talking and telling others about what you’re feeling inside, I suppose – although you don’t want to be a huge mental health advocate all the time, like you said – but therapy, you’d probably recommend it for everyone.

Evanna: Oh my God, definitely. Yeah. I’m quite wary of people who are like, “I’m against therapy.”

Andrew: Oh yeah, yeah.

[Andrew and Evanna laugh]

Evanna: Yeah. I mean, people do have different forms of therapy. I understand people who have sport, or if they’ve got a really close best friend who does… everything’s good. But yeah, it’s so… gosh. It’s like, it doesn’t change who you are, but it makes you just really conscious of your weaknesses, your triggers, and so that when these things kick off… they’ll always be there, but you learn how to sit with it, to breathe, to not react and not do hurt and do damage towards other people or yourself. So I just think therapy is the best. But yeah, it’s hard to find the right…

Andrew: Yeah, we’ve all done it here, too, and can definitely speak to the power of therapy.

Eric: Yeah, we agree!

Evanna: Ah, really? I love that.

Micah: Did I ever tell you, actually, mine used to fall asleep all the time? And I don’t know if it’s because…

Andrew: What?

Laura: No!

Andrew: Micah, it’s your voice. You’ve got a soothing voice.

Micah: My voice, I was going to say.

Laura: That’s not an excuse.

Andrew: Fall asleep face to face?

Micah: Yeah. The appointments were fairly later in the evening; they were about 8:00 or so.

Eric: Past the bedtime of the therapist.

Micah: Must’ve been past the bedtime.

Evanna: That’s so funny. What did you do? Did you just prod them awake? What did you do?

Andrew: “Hey, hey.”

Micah: Yeah, just snapped my fingers, see if it worked. [laughs]

Andrew: Oh my God.

Eric: Did you just look around and go “I guess I should go”? Or did you tuck the therapist in with a blanket from the couch?

Micah: [laughs] It was a comfortable chair he was in. Maybe that had something to with it.

Eric: It’s all about the chair.

[Evanna laughs]

Laura: I think I would be like, “Do I get a discount for this session since you weren’t present for part of it?”

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: Geez.

Evanna: Gosh.

Laura: Well, Evanna, you mentioned something interesting a few moments ago about speaking to readers who’ve communicated that they feel like they were reading their own story in this book. And I have to say that really resonates with me, as someone who was a young girl around the same time that you were, and you really capture facing a lot of the insecurities and the unknowns of growing up in a society that encourages young girls in particular to put themselves in boxes. So reflecting on that, I’m wondering, if you had the opportunity to speak to your younger self, what would you say to her?

Evanna: Ooh. I don’t know, because she was very stubborn. I don’t think she’d have taken advice. And she was very much… younger me was just in a lot of pain, and because my mindset was so negative, anything nice that people would say to her just, I wouldn’t believe it. I would have been like, “Well, that person obviously doesn’t know what they’re talking about.” I’d probably be like, “I will avenge you.” I’d probably just tell her that.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Evanna: I’d be like, “Don’t worry, I’ll get revenge one day, and I’ll sort things out.” [laughs] Because I think she felt a lot of just, “Ugh, the world is unfair. I can’t do what I want.” And I feel like I have avenged her, my younger self, especially with this book. So I work with a shaman, probably have talked on about that before, and she does all this stuff of talking to different parts of yourself. She puts you in meditation. And before I was doing the book, we were communicating with different parts of older me who’d written the book, younger me who was in it. And younger me was very just angry, and just hurt, resentful. And then after finishing the book, we did another session, and younger me was like, “I feel taken care of.” It was just such a lovely thing to come from, like, “Oh, wow, I’ve dealt with that part of myself, and I don’t have this wounded child anymore,” which I think I did probably prior to the book.

Laura: Right. So would you say that the book was an act of self-advocacy?

Evanna: Yeah, that’s how I write that. I always imagine I’m speaking to a part of myself, because that’s how it will be the most personal and the most truthful. So I was writing it with her in mind, and also writing… I wanted to make things right with that part of myself with saying, “Here are the things that were not okay, and I don’t wish them on anyone else. And I hope that there’ll be some sort of reform in future. I hope people will be more compassionate towards people with eating disorders, know how to help them better. And here are the things that really worked and that I’m grateful for and that went really well with my journey.” So yeah, just exposing that for other people going through the same thing, and to say to my younger self, “This is what should have happened.” Yeah.

Micah: Speaking of younger you – and I’ll apologize upfront because I think this question has probably been asked many times – but you do go into great detail about it in the book. What specifically drew you to Luna? Because I feel like there are moments in the book where you talk about literally almost stepping into her skin, almost like there’s a switch that flips and you become her, particularly when you’re talking about when you go to Leavesden and how you almost just take on that persona of Luna.

Evanna: Yeah. So there’s a line that my shamanic teacher always says, and it’s actually in the book. She says, “If you spot it, you’ve got it.” So it’s always that whatever captivates you about someone else, or actually, whatever triggers you, whatever makes you jealous or angry, there’s something in you you need to investigate. And I really feel like that was the case with Luna when I came across that character. I think I was in such a mean, dark state of mind, but that wasn’t who I truly was. This thing had overtaken my personality. And when I came across her, her oddness, her self-acceptance, her absolute curiosity about the world, I really felt like it sparked the recognition. I was like, “I like those things too,” or, “I feel that way. I feel odd and like I don’t fit in. But I’m not giving myself permission to be that way.” So it was like she was giving me hints of my past and future self of who I wanted to be, and it was lighting something up inside me, something that had been extinguished. And then when playing the part, again, it was that feeling that I just had to relax. I think I was quite anxious; I was insecure as a teenager, and I was so anxious being on the set, of course, because it felt like such a big deal. But Luna’s energy is just about just being, that whole “Human being, not a human doing.” You don’t have to impress anyone. If you just breathe and surrender, you’re doing enough. You are who you are. And just this idea of acceptance of every moment, of every person and not feeling, yeah, like you have to tie yourself in knots, contort yourself to take up space, because that’s how I felt. I felt I needed a reason to exist. I need to justify why I’m here and why people are looking at me and talking to me, and she didn’t have that. So yeah, and I didn’t feel confident enough to do that myself, but she gave me that confidence. And I really, really leaned on her. I leaned on her too much, on the set, but also when I would be doing media events when I would meet somebody new who I was nervous around. She just gives me that calmness and still does.

Andrew: So you actually found out about the Luna Lovegood open casting call through MuggleNet. I think we’ve mentioned this from time to…

Evanna: Yeah, did you write that notice?

[Evanna and Micah laugh]

Andrew: You know what, I was actually wondering that, and I actually peeked into the MuggleNet archives. I don’t know. I was writing news at the time, but there were a couple other people too, so I don’t know. I don’t know. But it’s such a fascinating story, going from fan to cast member, and you really capture that transition in the book, so that was really interesting to read. Something I actually didn’t know was that you had actually been in correspondence with J.K. Rowling in the years leading up to the audition.

Evanna: Yeah. I think people have been confused about that. People thought, “Oh, you must have known her through the films,” but no, not at all.

Andrew: Yeah, you knew her outside of that.

Evanna: Just by chance.

Andrew: And then she had no involvement in casting you, which is equally incredible. [laughs] That whole story blows my mind.

Evanna: Yeah, no, me too. It’s crazy. Yeah.

Andrew: I don’t even have a question here. I just wanted to note that.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: You talk about first writing a letter to Jo and including details that were far and above more, I guess, personal than you were telling even your family. You talk about your mother being surprised by the level of detail that you go into to a perfect stranger, and yet the woman who creates this book series. That’s a wonderful escape. Looking back, do you know what really made you send that letter to Jo? That first one.

Evanna: People do, though, they do that to me, too, online. They pour out their hearts. And it’s like, “You don’t even know me.” It is kind of a projection. But there’s a safety in somebody who’s far outside your situation, who is not going to be biased. And so I knew from her books, “Ahh, there’s something in her soul that I understand, and that has soothed me.” So that’s why I wanted to write, but also I didn’t believe she’d ever write back. Maybe a little bit; as a kid you actually do check your letterbox. But I also felt… I don’t know if I even believed if she was real. It was a bit like she was Albus Dumbledore. That “Ooh, maybe she’s real, maybe not.”

[Everyone laughs]

Evanna: So I just… yeah, and I suppose that’s the thing with eating disorders. You become very deceptive and very sneaky, and you lie to everyone. It’s like an addict. There’s nobody in your life you’re honest with, and that is extremely isolating and lonely. So I think I was just desperate for connection and desperate to talk to somebody who I felt wouldn’t get angry at me and who would understand, and that was J.K. Rowling to me. [laughs] Anyway, she wrote back, so that’s that.

Micah: Yeah. It was interesting, too, because you wrote about the mental gymnastics that you did when you were in the casting call about whether or not you should bring that up to David Yates, David Heyman, because you didn’t know how it would necessarily be received and if it could hurt your chances or help your chances in terms of getting the role, right?

Evanna: Absolutely, yeah. Well, because I just had… well, it’s mental health, that stigma against, and it was worse back then, back in 2006, the stigma against people with mental health issues. It’s like you’re deficient, or there’s something wrong with you. And that’s something I wrote a lot about in the memoir that’s been hard to express. Leaving behind your eating disorder, you have a lot of shame and grief, and it’s like you don’t really want to let it go, so I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. And I just really felt if they knew that I’m not this sweet, happy, carefree girl, and that I actually have a really mean side, they’re not going to ask me. And I actually felt for a long time that I’d really tricked them. I thought that I was this mean person, so I thought, “Oh, wow, I’ve hoodwinked everyone into believing I’m right for this role, but I’m not,” but looking back as an actor, I think that you actually have more perspective on characters who are quite different from you. And obviously, there are a lot of similarities, parallels, too, but it’s hard to have full perspective on yourself. And seeing a character who was so positive and had so much light, while I was very dark in my mind, I was able to understand it more objectively, and I wanted to be more like that, so that helped.

Micah: There was one other moment from the casting story that I wanted to bring up. And I identified with it; I’m not sure exactly why. But it was when you were talking about the book that David Yates signed for you and gave you after the entire casting call was over, and he had written there what a great job you had done. But then you talked about how you took his comments and immediately started to analyze them so deeply, and I do this all the time, and I feel like maybe this is why I identified with it. You just took this amazingly positive experience that you had and you put on this critical lens. And you even talk about, like, “Well, if I don’t get this, I’m definitely burning that book.”

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: It’s a good thing you got it.

Micah: And I just laughed out loud when I read that, but I just think a lot of people go through that, right? They have these amazing experiences, and then they sit there afterwards and they’re just hypercritical of everything that happened.

Evanna: Oh, it’s so true. And you can ruin it just with your mind, just with your thoughts. That’s why it’s so important to train yourself to think positive; you can just suck all the joy out of life with these dark thoughts. But you know what, I actually feel that most of filming Order of the Phoenix was that for me. And I’m very lucky I had that… you get the break in between the films; it’s summertime break. Went home, and I remember just feeling like… oh, I think this is in the book, actually. This sounds familiar, like I’ve told this story before. But just feeling like, “Oh, wow, I didn’t really enjoy that because I was always questioning, did I deserve to be there? Am I going to get fired? Are people going to find out that I’m actually not that good a person or that good an actor?” And it was just like, “Oh my God, you’re living the dream, the actual dream. It’s never going to happen again, so stop destroying it!” And people say that, don’t they? “Youth is wasted on the young.” There were so many wonderful joyful experiences that I didn’t fully enjoy because I was questioning my place in it, and I was just too much in my own head. And yeah, definitely did that with David Yates’s book, his sweet little gesture. Just couldn’t handle it.

[Andrew and Evanna laugh]

Andrew: No, I completely agree, feeling that way. With Movies 6 through 8, did you feel better? Were you still critical of yourself?

Evanna: No, I definitely made a big effort to be like, “Right, I’m here, I’m one of the cast,” to just own that a little bit more. I think, actually, that’s when I probably had to step away from the fan community a bit, because I was doing too much of “I’m just a fan girl, I’m just a fan girl.” And I think some people… the fan girl thing can go too far; it can become giving away your power, your creativity. And it definitely did for me; it was like this sense of hierarchy that “Oh, the actors are better than me.” And being obsessive, you’d be on forums and they’re all just talking about Daniel Radcliffe’s haircut and everything, and I was one of those people talking about his haircut. And like, that’s idolatry. That’s making him so much more important than me. Worry about your own hair, you know?

[Andrew laughs]

Evanna: So I had to just be like, “I need to get away from that community because it’s just making me feel small and making me feel not comfortable with these people who are supposed to be my equals,” and are. We are all equal.

Laura: I can see how that would definitely feed into the cycle of imposter syndrome, right? You’re like, “I’ve known both sides of this franchise,” right? “I’ve been a fan. I still am a fan, but now I’m also in it.”

Evanna: Yeah, exactly. That nerdiness we have, it can go a bit too far. I think it’s really good for studying literature and studying our work, but when we put it onto human people, to kids at that time, it’s just… yeah, I think it’s wasting, really. That nerdiness can be very powerful. I think it’s a bit of a waste. Yeah.

Andrew: I love one point you made in the book about that, actually, which was that you go onto these sets, and these people are working day in and day out to create the best thing they can. And yet there’s still these people online who are just attacking everything, not considering the fact there actually are real humans on set who do care so much and really are trying to do their best. There’s a wide gap there between reality and all this criticism.

Evanna: Yeah, exactly. And I think as fans, we have to appreciate that those movies take thousands of people. And they’re all individual artists, so it’s going to be all these visions, and it has to be managed very well by the director. But we’re not going to… they’re all humans; they’re not machines. We’re not going to agree with everything they do. Now, where I do, as a fan, totally understand what the need for criticism is when the makers don’t honor the source material, the books, like when they don’t seem to care about it, they don’t treat it with the same care and don’t know all the detail. That to me is a bit like, okay, no, they deserve to be called out for that. [laughs] Try and do it. It’s hard getting up and being creative and taking risks. I think we all should be… if we’re all out there doing what we’re meant to do, using our talents, then we won’t be so critical and we’ll have more compassion for people, for artists, I think.

[Ad break]

Laura: Well, I want to highlight some of your other projects, and I also want to use this as an opportunity to pull that thread in talking about activism and advocacy, so let’s talk about The ChickPeeps. I’m wondering if you can speak to how veganism changed your outlook?

Evanna: Ooh, on life?

Laura: Yeah.

Evanna: Oh, that’s a really big one. Well, first, initially, it made me more angry, and it made me quite cynical about human nature. But then it did the opposite. The more I got into veganism of like, “Cool, we’re going to try and be really compassionate to animals and do everything mindfully, how you eat, how you buy clothes, what you spend your money on, all those things,” and struggling… finding that I still can’t be perfect; I have to buy cat food all the time. And meanwhile, I’m making videos against slaughterhouse farms, so it’s like, I think the deeper I got into that of tying myself in knots and realizing I am a good person and I’m trying my best, but it’s still hard, it made me have much more compassion for everyone. And to just also… over the years, I think it’s too easy to say the “good guys” and the “bad guys,” and “We’re fighting.” I used the language of violence before in my early days of activism, of “fighting for this” and “We’re going to beat the competition, blah, blah, blah, and we want this business to crumble.” And I don’t like that type of language now, and I think it’s just destruction. You need creativity, you need to create solutions, because especially over the course of my exploits and activism, I’ve met farmers, dairy farmers, or just people who hunt… hmm, I don’t know about if I can redeem them. [laughs] But dairy farmers, they’re nice. They’re just people trying to feed their families; they’re actually not evil. And I thought before they must have… or slaughterhouse workers, and even those people can be… you can look at them and be like, “They are messed up,” but something has done that to them. So it sort of has made me really believe that we are innately good, and to try and speak to the good in people. Yeah, I do believe that most people would be vegan if it was just more accessible, if they were educated the right way. So yeah, I always do that. And as I say, when I find it now, when people are like, “Take a side, stand up for this,” I’m like, I don’t want sides; I want the space in between. I think we’re all very complex and full of light and shade and have capacity for evil and good. So yeah, it’s made me be more… I want to slow down and just have conversations, be more neutral, I suppose.

Andrew: Amen. Well said.

Laura: I love that. I love the idea that learning that compassion can fuel someone’s ability to potentially become an activist one day, the idea that funneling compassion into others may have been what allowed you to feel more compassion for yourself. Would you say that?

Evanna: Yeah, that’s a nice way of putting it. Yeah, definitely. But also, what you said there about “Compassion can lead.” Compassion can lead people to kill animals, because they’re just trying to do something to help other people, blah, blah, blah. It’s very complicated, that’s what I’ve realized about it. But that’s probably a very weird way of putting it. It’s the classic quote, “The world is not divided into good people and Death Eaters,” isn’t it that?

Laura: That’s exactly what I was thinking.

[Everyone laughs]

Evanna: Such wisdom in that. I love it.

Eric: Wrapping up about your book, what would be the one takeaway that you would want readers to get out of the book?

Evanna: Ooh. I hope it has a long-term effective in waking them up to their creativity, giving them courage. I wanted it to be a book that gives people a shake, makes them see what it will cost if they keep entertaining the voices of self-hate, that that will wear them down. But how choosing to believe positive thoughts, choosing to do loving things towards yourself, that will build you up. And you can make either choice, but just know what both are going to do. And I hope, yeah, it gives people courage to shake themselves out of their self-destructive behavior and to keep choosing creativity and to prioritize it, and just to facilitate conversations. A lot of mothers have been messaging me asking, “Is it suitable for young people?” or friends, and yeah, I hope it will create greater understanding about mental health and eating disorders, especially for young people, because they can often be dismissed. So yeah, just hearing people say, “Oh, it made me have a chat with my sister,” that’s the best I could hope for, really.

Eric: My girlfriend had a question. She’s about halfway through the book, and really, really loves it so far.

Evanna: Aww, thank you.

Eric: And she had a question about the title, which is, “I think of butterfly hunting as the human desire to capture beauty and perfection and to display it to the world, but it’s at the cost of the butterfly’s life. The opposite of butterfly hunting, then, would be to let beauty exist as is, naturally and without force. Am I way off base and what does the title mean to you?”

Evanna: Nope, she’s nailed it.

Eric: Okay, awesome!

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Evanna: You’ve basically explained it in my words. Well, it’s about letting beauty – or whatever that is – free, letting it evolve and change, that you’ll see it a moment and then it goes away. And it’s a metaphor for how we treat our bodies, that we shouldn’t… this idea of trying to, for women… or, well, for everyone, really, but trying to especially… I think it is more for women, that we have this obsession with keeping them looking youthful and young and girlish, and that they shouldn’t change with life. And I’m like, “Cool, physical perfection is nice,” but it costs you your life. It does cost you your creativity and all your time and energy, and it’s just like, life’s too short. You’re not a cartoon, you’re not a sculpture. You’re a human body, and that should change, so let it. Yeah, let the butterfly free and stop trying to possess perfection and stick it down with a pin in its chest. [laughs] But yeah, she nailed it. I love it.

Eric: I’ll tell her.

Evanna: She’s probably like, the only person. Everyone’s been like, “What the hell is this title about?”

[Everyone laughs]

Evanna: I’m like, “I’m sorry, you don’t find out until the very end of the book.” But she’s got it.

Eric: I’m glad that you explained it.

Micah: So just to wrap up, we’ve seen you having a lot of fun at bookstores, signing copies of your book. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers? And do you think you’ll be writing another book at some point in the near future?

Evanna: Nice. Let me see, advice for aspiring writers… I definitely learned a few things from writing this book, as in first of all, just stop trying to write like your favorite writer. I did that for ages. But I think that would take ages, and I think after a certain point, you have to just accept who you are will come out on the page, so it’s better to just work on yourself. And you kind of get to a point, you’re like, “Okay, this is me. Maybe I’d be cleverer if I’d read those 50 books on my bookshelf, or if I had a degree,” but if you keep doing that, you’ll never write anything. So just accept where you are, who you are, and accept that who you are will come out on the page. And that’s the shocking thing; every day you show up. And I would do at least two hours every day, and I’d be like, “I don’t think I have anything to say; there’s nothing in me.” But something always came out. So just trust that you have it in you.

[snorting sound in the background]

Evanna: That was Puff snorting. That wasn’t me.

[Everyone laughs]

Evanna: And then, what else would I say? Make writing time sacred. So I have an app on my phone called Forest, and it grows little trees so that you don’t check your phone.

Andrew: Oh my gosh.

Evanna: And if you check your phone, the trees die. It’s great.

[Andrew gasps]

Evanna: Or a sand timer. I’ve got a sand timer. And us mystical people, these things matter. I would turn this over… and I’m not even going to turn it now because it’s so sacred. So when that’s over, it’s writing time, and nobody can disturb it. And I would also say, don’t be precious on the first writing, because the edit is a nightmare, as in, it’s so thorough. Somebody is going through every word, every line, asking you about this, “Did you know this actually means this? Oh, you spelled this wrong.” It’s very in-depth. So when I saw how thorough the edit process was, I was like, “Why did I spend half an hour trying to figure out how to say one line?”

[Andrew laughs]

Evanna: So I think in the edit, you will end up rewriting your book, so don’t be precious. Just get it down on the page. So those are my tips. And yes, I do want to write more, yes, but I want to write fiction.

Andrew: Oh, fiction, okay. But I’m sure you’re taking a well-earned break for a little while, I would imagine.

Evanna: Yeah, I am taking a break, get this book out there and launched. But yeah, I don’t think I ever want to write nonfiction again. It’s a bit hard on your relationships, like my family…

[Eric laughs]

Evanna: My mom was like, “It’s fine for you, you’re off in London. You don’t have to deal with the neighbors.” But they do. And my sisters are school teachers, and I’ve got an anecdote of one of my sisters with her first bra in there. And she let me keep it in, but she was like, “My students are 12.”

[Everyone laughs]

Evanna: So yeah, I don’t think I could do that again. It’s just… yeah, it’s a bit hard. [laughs]

Andrew: This is an aside, but when you go into bookstores, do you first tell people, “Hey, this is my book, I’m not defacing it, I promise you,” when you’re signing the books in the bookstore?

Evanna: No, you just walk in. So I went with a publicist, and she was like, “Cool, you just go ahead and sign those.”

[Andrew laughs]

Evanna: And I felt really self-conscious that people were going to be like, “Who is this woman that’s just scribbling all over?” And then they just put the stickers on them. That’s that.

Andrew: Wow. That’s fun.

Evanna: Oh, no. I mean, you could conceivably sign other people’s books and just be like, “I’m this person.”

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: “I’m Tolkien.”

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Evanna: Whose book would you sign if you had the choice?

Andrew: Oh, my gosh. [laughs] I might do a Harry Potter one for fun.

[Evanna laughs]

Andrew: I’ll do your book. Is that okay?

Evanna: [laughs] Please do.

Andrew: Kidding, kidding, kidding. So we wanted to ask about the Secrets of Dumbledore; this is the new Fantastic Beasts movie that’s coming out. Do you have any theories about this title? Secrets of Dumbledore? It’s quite intriguing, isn’t it?

Evanna: It is intriguing. I have no theories. I’ve not engaged with this at all, really. I’m the kind of person like, “Yeah, cool, I’ll sit and wait for the secrets. Don’t need to…” But I mean, we already know he’s loads of secrets, don’t we? Isn’t it all about Ariana?

Andrew: Yeah. I mean, we’re guessing it has something to do with Ariana or his relationship with Grindelwald, something like that. But yeah, we didn’t get a lot…

Evanna: Yeah. Oh, do you think they’re going to give more detail on the romance aspect?

Andrew: Maybe. I heard from somebody who went to a test screening that it’s quite gay.

Evanna: Quite gay? Ooh, Warner Bros. has been taking notes.

[Everyone laughs]

Evanna: Great.

Andrew: Yeah, I know, it’s very exciting. Actually, in an email to us recently, you described yourself as a Dumbledore fangirl. [laughs] And I think you touch on that a little bit in the book. Is he your favorite character?

Evanna: After Luna.

Andrew: After Luna, of course, yeah.

Laura: That’s fair.

Evanna: Oh, I love him.

Andrew: What do you love most about him?

Evanna: Well, he reminds me of that philosopher Eckhart Tolle. Do you know him?

Andrew: Yeah.

Evanna: Yeah, he reminds me of him because he’s so wise, he just seems to have the answers to life, and yet he’s whimsical. Eckhart Tolle is always cracking little jokes and he loves just enjoying moments in the present, and I think Dumbledore has that present moment-mindedness. I like that he’s this brilliant sage, but you feel you can have a chat with him. You don’t feel intimidated by him or that he’s so otherworldly or anything. Yeah. And I like his fashion sense.

[Andrew laughs]

Evanna: I like his kindness. I like that he is complicated.

Andrew: Which Harry Potter character do you think would be the first to write a memoir besides Harry Potter himself?

Evanna: Well, it’s Lockhart, isn’t it? He already wrote like, five.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: That’s a good answer.

Laura: But he would write somebody else’s memoir.

Eric: Oh, that’s true.

Andrew: [laughs] He would be in the bookstore signing somebody else’s books.

Evanna: Aww. I’d love to read his books, though, because it’s kind of fantasy, isn’t it? It’s not really real. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, real costs, though.

Evanna: Yeah, yeah. True. And narrators who are very self-important, they’re insufferable, so maybe not. Who would be…? Maybe… I can see Umbridge having one.

Andrew: Ugh. [laughs]

Evanna: Yeah, totally controversial.

Laura: What would it be called? “Hem-hem”?

[Andrew and Evanna laugh]

Evanna: No, she’s not that self-aware. It’d be long, long title. I don’t know. It’d probably be a self-help book.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Evanna: What about Neville, though? What about Neville when he’s an old man? And he’s the one of the group that was overlooked, and people are always curious about him. “Is he just quiet?” and “Does he just not have a lot going on there?” And then he reveals all his…

Andrew: “What it was like being the other chosen one.”

Evanna: Yeah, there you go! You’ve gotten his memoir title already.

Laura: Oh, man.

Andrew: “The Second Chosen One.”

Evanna: “The Almost Chosen One.”

[Andrew and Evanna laugh]

Andrew: I like that.

Laura: Can we have parentheses around the “almost”?

[Evanna laughs]

Andrew: Yeah.

Evanna: Who do you think would write a memoir?

Andrew: I was wondering about Dumbledore, actually. But when would he have done that? Had a bit of an untimely death. I could see Slughorn doing that. [laughs]

Evanna: Oh my God, exactly. Definitely.

Andrew: Yeah, all his fame, his love for fame.

Laura: Right, and bragging about all the people he collects.

Andrew: Yep, yep.

Laura: It would just be a series of anecdotes about other famous people.

Eric: Yeah, name drops.

Evanna: Yeah. There’d be a lot of shiny photos in that book, wouldn’t there?

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: On a coffee table, like a picture book of him with other people.

Micah: Reflecting on that one word “Horcrux” that he told Tom about?

[Andrew laughs]

Evanna: Who do you wish would write a memoir of the Harry Potter characters?

Eric: Probably one of the ghosts, to be honest.

Evanna: Oh!

Andrew: Ooh.

Eric: Nearly Headless Nick as a memoir… he struggles, obviously, with being dead. He kind of regrets becoming a ghost. He’d be fascinating.

Evanna: This is a throwback to your appearance on ChickPeeps.

Eric: Oh, yeah.

[Everyone laughs]

Evanna: You were so into him!

Eric: Nick, yeah, for sure would just… but like, centuries of Gryffindor tower, that’s cool. Like Gryffindors through the centuries, anecdotes, and internal struggles. That’d be great.

Evanna: That’d be great.

Andrew: Or maybe somebody at the Ministry who went through this wizarding war. I’d be curious to know what the thinking was going on there. But of course, if Fudge was writing it, he’d be making stuff up to make himself look better.

Eric: Oh, right.

Laura: I would like to see McGonagall write a memoir. I think that would be fascinating.

Evanna: And heartbreaking.

Laura: Yeah. And we know that she was at Hogwarts with Professor Sprout, right? They were schoolmates. So it would be interesting to get some of those anecdotes as well.

Eric: I would like to have seen Sirius live long enough to write a memoir. That would have been great.

Evanna: No, he’s too cool. He would have just had one written about him, wouldn’t he?

Eric: Oh, that’s true.

Evanna: He just has too much glamour about him.

Eric: Good point.

Evanna: As in he’s got so much glamour that he wouldn’t reveal his inner life. That’s part of it, that he’s so elusive, and then…

Eric: Yeah, the ability to be vulnerable and face it. Yeah.

Evanna: It’s a fun question.

Andrew: All right. Fun answers. So Evanna, your book is The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting, available in bookstores – I want to say everywhere, but since we have a worldwide audience, I know it’s available now in the UK and US.

Evanna: And Ireland.

Andrew: And Ireland, okay. It will be available everywhere at some point. But of course, check it out. If it’s not available where you live now, preorder it.

Evanna: Ask!

Andrew: Ask, yeah! When the heck is it coming?

Evanna: Ask, ask the publishers in those countries, “Can we have a translation?” And then maybe they’ll do that. [laughs]

Andrew: There you go.

Evanna: I don’t know. So there were a few territories that did buy the rights, but because it had to go through a lot of legal edits, because there are real people, so we couldn’t give the manuscript… the manuscript is only really being distributed now. So I hope it will be translated, but don’t know yet.

Andrew: Interesting. Yeah, all right. Well, check it out, everybody. Evanna, congratulations.

Evanna: And it’s on Audible.

Andrew: Oh yeah, narrated by you. What was that experience like, doing an audio book?

Evanna: Not fun.

[Everyone laughs]

Evanna: Oh my gosh, it’s not. I thought it would be. I thought, “Great. I’m an actor. I can act this out.” But it’s just you in a little box, and there’s somebody on the other side. And this guy was in his 60s; he was not the target audience for the book. And he just… and maybe it was me, I might have been projecting, but I was like, “He does not like me, and now he’s having to listen to five days of me just talking about my life.” So it was hard.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: If you can do that experience, you can do anything.

Laura: Right.

Evanna: Yeah, maybe. [laughs]

Eric: The book is amazing, Evanna.

Evanna: Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

Eric: Speaking personally, it’s now my favorite thing that you’ve done.

Evanna: Oh! Whoa.

Eric: And it usurped the season of Dancing with the Stars

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: … which was frickin’ amazing, and so evident how hard you worked. Micah and I were watching every damn week; I don’t know if you heard.

[Andrew laughs]

Evanna: That was so fun. Thank you.

Micah: That ending, though.

Eric: Yeah, you guys should have gotten it. You and Keo.

Laura: I agree.

Eric: But yeah, this is amazing.

Evanna: Well, I had fun. I’m just happy I made it to the end. Thank you.

Andrew: The book is beautifully written. You’re great.

Evanna: You guys are amazing.

Andrew and Micah: Aww.

Evanna: No, seriously.

Andrew: This is about you.

Evanna: No, stop.

[Andrew laughs]

Evanna: No, this has been so nice because I’ve been doing a lot of podcasts and it’s just like, “Oh, I’m tired.” But this just feels like a homecoming of a podcast. It always does.

Andrew: Well, thank you.

Evanna: Because you know that, you’re my first podcast I listened to and you guys are still the same at heart.

Andrew: I know, that means everything to us. Yeah, that means a lot. That means a lot.

Laura: It does.

Andrew: We love you, and we’re so proud of you and this book, and it’s beautifully written. So everybody, again, check it out: The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting. We’ll have a link in the show notes, of course, so everybody can grab it. Maybe we just should quickly plug… we also appeared on your podcast, which is on hiatus right now, The ChickPeeps, so check that out.

Evanna: Woohoo!

Andrew: I think that’s the second to most recent episode in your feed.

Evanna: It was super fun.

Andrew: Yeah, and of course, we’ll link to Evanna’s social… are you on social media right now? Did you leave?

Evanna: I’m on Instagram, yeah.

Andrew: Okay. We’ll link to Evanna’s Instagram as well so everybody can follow her. All right, thanks again, Evanna.

Laura: Thank you guys. Thanks for having me.

Laura: Thank you.

Micah: Thanks.

Andrew: All right. Well, gang, that was a great interview with Evanna, wasn’t it?

Eric: That was so good.

Micah: Awesome.

Andrew: She’s the best. Such a deep thinker.

Laura: She’s just a gem of a human being.

Andrew: Yeah. I am thrilled with how that interview went. Please, everybody, support her. Check out her book; it’s really great. If you have any feedback about today’s interview, you can contact us by writing to MuggleCast@gmail.com, or you can send us a voice memo. If you do that, just record a little voice memo on your phone; send that to MuggleCast@gmail.com. You can also use the contact form on MuggleCast.com, or you can leave a voicemail on our phone. The number is 1-920-3-MUGGLE. That’s 1-920-368-4453.


Quizzitch


Andrew: It’s time for Quizzitch!

[Quizzitch music plays]

Eric: Last week’s question was, what sweet treat does Professor Flitwick give to Harry after his interview is published in the Quibbler? The correct answer is a box of squeaking sugar mice. Correct answers were submitted by the Jonas Brothers; Spooky cookie; Steven Stevens; Hufflepuff plant lady; He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Bort; a Lost Packet of Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum; and Long live no character limits on this section; Runalb Wazlib; and The Cactus. Next week’s question: What is the name of Aragog’s wife? This is actually in the books; it’s not a Pottermore thing. Submit your answer to us over on the MuggleCast website. Click on “Quizzitch” from the top main menu, or go to MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch.

Micah: It’s not Hagrid, right?

Eric: Oh yeah, no, that’s more his daddy.

Micah: Oh, his daddy.

Laura: Oh. I don’t…

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Adoptive daddy?

Andrew: Spider daddy. All right, let’s keep moving.

Eric: Yeah, anyway.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: Make sure you are following the show for free in your favorite podcast app, so you never miss an episode. And if they have a review section, please do leave us a review as well; we really appreciate that. And we love reading the reviews that come in, so thank you, everybody who takes a moment to do that. And finally, do follow us on social media. We are @MuggleCast on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And of course, check out our show notes today for a link to Evanna’s book, The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting, as well as a link to her Instagram and ChickPeeps podcast. All right, thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.

Eric: I’m Eric

Micah: I’m Micah.

Laura: And I’m Laura.

Andrew: Bye, everyone.

Transcript #530

Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #530, Celebrating and Criticizing Gryffindor House


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: On today’s episode, we are wrapping up our series on the Hogwarts Houses, and this week we are focused on Gryffindor! And our two ex-Gryffindor panelists, me and Eric, will lead today’s discussion as we celebrate and criticize the House, and we are also joined by a current Gryffindor, my boyfriend, Pat. Welcome back to the show, Pat.

Pat: I’m so happy to be back.

Eric: Woo!

Andrew: Pat is a huge Harry Potter fan who knows his stuff, so I’m sure he’s going to add a lot to the show today, like he did last time he was on. But before we get started, make sure you’re following the show for free in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode, and look out for a new episode every Tuesday morning. Also, stay tuned to our Patreon this week for an all new bonus MuggleCast installment in which we look at HBO Max’s new Harry Potter hub, because in this they make movie and TV suggestions for members of each Hogwarts House, so we’re going to look at their lists and determine if they made the right choices. And some choices in there I think are very debatable, so that’s why I wanted to make this a bonus MuggleCast today. For example, is Gossip Girl really for Slytherins?

Laura: Yes.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: This Slytherin won’t be watching it, I’ll tell you that. [laughs] That’ll be available at Patreon.com/MuggleCast.


Main Discussion: Gryffindor House


Andrew: Okay, so let’s get to our discussion on Gryffindor House today. To kick off this discussion, I thought we could start with why myself, Eric, and Pat all joined Gryffindor initially. So just to catch everybody up, in case you missed it, I’m currently Slytherin. Eric is currently a Hufflepuff. Pat’s been a Gryffindor all this time. I already explained why I left Gryffindor for Slytherin, but I feel like I joined Gryffindor when I was a kid simply because it was the House that the trio were in. That was basically it; I just wanted to be with the trio. And then Pottermore validated my feelings when I did the quiz and I got Sorted into Gryffindor. I was like, “Great. Okay, cool. I don’t have to think about it any further.” How about you, Eric?

Eric: Yeah, same. I mean, more or less, if you wanted to do any kind of costuming, the Harry Potter costume that was available was a Gryffindor costume, and if you wanted a House tie, the Gryffindor House tie was just the most available that you could find. And I had no delusions when I did start dressing up as a Gryffindor – when I got the Gryffindor robes that I got and still have from Twin Roses Designs – I didn’t pretend to be Harry Potter, but I very much felt very comfortable being one of the Gryffindors. They’re the heroes of the books; they’re the series’ heroes. And I felt really that I would be Harry’s friend if we were together at the same time. I just felt like Gryffindor was a natural fit, and I didn’t question it.

Andrew: And Pat, why did you join originally?

Pat: Well, I think for me originally, when I started reading the books… because I did read them in ’98 when they came out in the US, and at that time, I was the shyest kid ever. I would have to go talk in front of people and immediately start crying.

Andrew: What? Oh, gosh.

Pat: Oh, yeah, I was so painfully shy, and I really wanted to break out of that. So I think I just wanted to be like Harry, in a way, because I related in a lot of ways of kind of feeling left out, especially with being gay, so I think subconsciously… now looking at it, I’m like, “Oh, yeah, I made that decision,” but back then, you’re not mature enough to make a decision to be like, “Yes, I am going to change,” or digging in yourself and letting those parts of me that were Gryffindor-esque actually come out and just grow as a person that way, so I kind of unlocked those over the years to become where I am now.

Eric: Yeah, that kind of speaks to what I said last week about Hermione valuing bravery even though she herself, we thought, fit more into Ravenclaw. It seems like again it is about what you value and what traits you most wish to embody.

Pat: Yeah, I see that for sure. And at the time, I think I probably would have been like, “Oh, yeah, I’m a Hufflepuff.” Especially now I realize, too, like in my job that I’m working in now I very much use that Gryffindor side of me to stand up for myself and really be like, “No, this is what’s going to happen, and you’re going to listen to me at this moment.”

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Laura: Love it.

Eric: Love it!

Andrew: Scary.

Eric: Just brow-beating people with your job. “I am here.”

[Laura laughs]

Pat: Yes, basically.

Andrew: “Little did you know I’m a Gryffindor! Hear me roar!”

Pat: Right.

Eric: [laughs] Well, that actually kind of touches on… so why I left Gryffindor, why I’m now a proud member of the Hufflepuff family, is I was looking to set down some of the traits that I felt were more negative to me. I reached a point in early 20s where I decided I really had to make a concentrated effort to think before I act on a lot of things, and I felt like some of the boldness and some of the fly by the seat of “Life’s an adventure” stuff that I really enjoyed in the teenage years and really kind of propelled me in my relationships, that I needed to take a step back and start really thinking about what I want and who I am. And so a lot of that brashness, a lot of that teenage energy and spirit kind of flew out of me. And when I read the Hufflepuff welcome letter, it felt like there’s a House that really values interpersonal communication more, and so it just… it wasn’t a rebuke of Gryffindor, but it was very much like “This served a place in my life when I was bolder, and now I’m going to actually work on building and not always going and getting and going and having that mentality.”

Andrew: Yeah, that makes sense.

Laura: It sounds like for most of you, your House alignments were a way for you to step outside of your comfort zones, in a way.

Pat: Yeah, for sure. Especially for me just really embracing the leadership qualities in me as well, because I was such, just so… I don’t want to say “meek,” because I don’t like that word, but I was just very, very shy and quiet until, really, I got to maybe the end of middle school into high school. And then the other stuff, the other clubs that I was in and stuff like that, really pushed me to be a leader, for one, and then just to get out of my comfort zone, and that’s when I found theater and all of that acting stuff, too, to really be on stage where I probably would have pooped myself if I was in middle school and needed to do that.

Eric: [laughs] Hey, fellow theater kid.

Pat: Yes.

Eric: Yeah. But I mean, that’s all about… it’s a cutthroat kind of thing. If you’re fighting for a role, or even just to go and do that takes a lot of energy and confidence, and with confidence in high school, you’ve got to fake it till you make it, baby. And I think Gryffindor is a very good House about faking it till you make it.

Pat: Oh, for sure.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Micah: And Pat, you could have just used Evanesco. You would have been fine.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: So quick question: Do we think many readers or fans who were or are in Gryffindor only there because the trio – like me, guilty as charged – or maybe because Dumbledore is a Gryffindor too? I just feel like most people selected Gryffindor simply because the trio are in it, and then they just stuck with it.

Eric: I feel like there’s probably a huge swath of people that don’t think about it. There’s probably a huge bunch of listeners that are like, “I don’t even know what House I am and it’s cool,” or fans of Harry Potter, at the very least. Maybe not listeners of our show, because on our show, you have to choose. You know that. [laughs] But no, the episodes that we’ve done – the last few episodes on Houses, I feel like – have gone really into details of what makes a House. But we had to fight for that. We had to work for figuring out those details. Gryffindor is the one House in all of Harry Potter that really you get to see just a huge variety of people in it, and the rest of the Houses, like I said, we had to work for. So I wouldn’t be surprised if, even if you do think about what House you are, that most people find themselves in Gryffindor, just because it is the most fleshed out.

Laura: It’s kind of the default, right?

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Micah: It is. I would say, too, I don’t think I thought much about what House I would be in until I finished the books.

Andrew: That’s a good way to do it.

Micah: And maybe that’s why I ended up in Ravenclaw. But I just think that when you’re reading the story, I think you’re just taken by the story. And maybe it was also because so many things came out after the books were released, including being able to be Sorted. I don’t really know that I did too much Sorting of myself beforehand, so… but I agree to, Laura, your point; it’s kind of a default. Or you probably would want to choose Slytherin; I feel like those were probably the two most popular choices, just because we don’t see much of the other two Houses.

Laura: Yeah, and there was a time, even – to the point that was raised earlier – it is correct that originally, the only House merch you could get was Gryffindor, but when they started releasing more, they released Slytherin items, but for the longest time you couldn’t get Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. So it was kind of these two rivals. It kind of felt like they were your only two prominent choices.

Eric: They’re the real Houses.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: But I mean, even if you’re Gryffindor because it’s the default, there was enough variety of characters in the books to be like, “Oh, I’m a Hermione Gryffindor,” or, “Oh, I’m the Weasley twins Gryffindor.” You could identify with a different Gryffindor and have that really speak to your individual traits without having to change Houses.

Andrew: Yeah. And I think for a lot of people when they were buying the cloaks or anything else with a Gryffindor emblem on it, I think they just wanted to be a Hogwarts student. It wasn’t necessarily about the House so much as it was looking like a Hogwarts student. But they really lean into the House merchandise now; now you can easily get anything. I go into – we’ve mentioned before – BoxLunch. It’s a Hot Topic, but less emo…

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: … and you can buy a shirt for each House, you can buy a scarf for each House… they got ’em all. So let’s talk about what we know about Gryffindors, and like we have with our other House episodes, we’ll start with the Sorting Hat lines about Gryffindor. The Hat says, in one book, “While the bravest and the boldest went to daring Gryffindor,” and in another book, the Hat says, “You might belong in Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart. Their daring, nerve, and chivalry set Gryffindors apart.” Believe the second one was Book 1.

Laura: Yes.

Eric: “Brave” and “daring” make it in both books. That’s like, “Ah, do you dare? I dare.”

Andrew: They’re double brave. So these are all traits that we admire, and I don’t think there’s anything here that we look down on.

Eric: No.

Andrew: And the reason I mention that is because last week, we discussed how some narration and Sorting Hat descriptions of Ravenclaw don’t do its members any favors. Setting aside talk from outside Hogwarts students in other Houses or professors, is there anything from the Hat or the narration that you all remember reading over the years that maybe you thought put Gryffindor in a bad light?

Eric: Not really.

Andrew: Yeah, I don’t either.

Laura: No, but I think it’s also because we’re reading these books from Harry’s point of view, right? And he kind of has the tone set very early on. He knows that Ron, the first nice person he meets on the Hogwarts Express, wants to be in Gryffindor and is terrified of not ending up there, so I think Harry, by default, kind of romanticizes Gryffindor a little bit. He certainly doesn’t want to end up in Slytherin, right? After he’s met Draco Malfoy…

Andrew: “Not Slytherin… not Slytherin…”

Laura: Malfoy has completely tainted that House’s perception for him. But yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with the viewpoint of the character we’re seeing that House through.

Pat: Yeah, I feel like the only time something negative about Gryffindor is said is any time that Draco says something.

Eric: Yeah, or if it’s specific Gryffindors when Snape says it, right? Usually about Harry’s dad.

Andrew: And we have a quote from Phineas, too, that we’ll get to in a moment.

Micah: I wanted to ask, though, do you feel like this description from the Sorting Hat is the most aspirational of any of the Houses? Because I feel like you’re talking about, at this point, 11-year-old kids, and to have daring and chivalry and bravery, to me… not to say that there aren’t brave 11-year-olds, but I do think perhaps this is the most forward-looking of any of the House descriptions that we see.

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Eric: I think that’s very fair. If I were 11 and I just found out that I’m a wizard and can do magic, I would want to be the boldest and bravest. And chivalry, I had to look that up, but it’s the combination of qualities expected of an ideal knight, especially courage, honor, courtesy, justice, and a readiness to help the weak. I’d be like, “I just got all these magical powers? Yeah, I’m going to help the suffering. I’m going to kick some ass.”

[Andrew and Pat laugh]

Eric: “It’s going to be great.” I think that’s a great point about it being aspirational verbiage.

Andrew: Yeah. At the least, I love the point that when you’re that young, you’re not necessarily going to be brave or courageous.

Micah: Unless you’re Harry.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Right, right. Harry is a very special exception.

Eric: He was born that way.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: I feel like this is also the descriptor that is probably the least nuanced of all four Houses. I mean, we could very easily with the other three Houses pick out items and qualities that are represented in the Sorting song that could be interpreted a certain kind of way, but you don’t get that so much here. It’s really hard to read anything potentially negative into this the way that it’s written.

Andrew: Well, on that note, let’s talk about the good of Gryffindor, and we have a couple traits here. Conviction. Now Pat, you wrote these out, so maybe we should let you do this. Tell us about conviction in Gryffindors.

Pat: I do think that when it comes to conviction, most Gryffindors really have a strong sense of what they believe, and they stick to that until you’re proven wrong, which, I’m very much that way. When I speak, I very much use that authority in my voice, and a lot of people just kind of believe what I say, then.

Eric: [laughs] It’s true!

Andrew: Not me. I don’t fall for it.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Pat: But sometimes it’s just if you say something in a way where you believe it yourself, others are also going to believe it. And I think that that’s something that a lot of Gryffindors use because they are so strong-headed, which can also be a negative trait, because you really have to be proven wrong for you to change your mind and have facts come out, just to be like, “Okay, yeah.” I think a good example of that is when Seamus is very much against Harry, until he realizes, “Okay, no, I’m wrong here,” and he immediately apologizes. And I think that happens in a lot of other areas, too; I have this example later, but I think it applies to conviction as well, where Ron is so mad when Harry gets into the Triwizard Tournament and he will not speak to him or anything until he realizes, “Oh, you would never have put yourself up for this. Okay, I’m wrong here,” which is my next point in here, that Gryffindors will usually admit fault right away once they are proven wrong, which to me, I think is a good quality. And also, relating to myself, that’s something I do, too. Especially in my work, if I screw up on something, I am the first to admit, “Hey, I did this wrong. How can I fix it?” Or, “What can I do better next time to make sure that it doesn’t happen again?”

Eric: I think the task of proving a Gryffindor wrong, or showing a Gryffindor that they are wrong, can be an uphill struggle sometimes. I myself am a Taurus; it’s really difficult to convince me I’ve erred, even since my switch to Hufflepuff. And so I think of Lily Potter having to soften James, but he was a straight-up bully for Snape for many, many years, and his friends, especially Sirius. And so while they could admit that they were wrong, I don’t think those particular characters ever do, and so it is a show that when they have their morals, they kind of are on that path, and it can be a bit difficult to sway them a different direction.

Laura: Yeah. I mean, look even at the conflict between Ron and Hermione in Prisoner of Azkaban over Crookshanks and Scabbers. I mean, it’s pretty clear when you’re reading the book that Crookshanks has it out for Scabbers – we later learn that there’s a very good reason for that – but Hermione just doesn’t want to see it.

Pat: And in the same book, too, when both Harry and Ron are mad at Hermione for turning in the Firebolt.

Laura: Yep, great example.

Pat: But Hermione sticks to her guns on it where she’s like, “No, this needs to be looked at.” And once they do all the tests and everything, she’s like, “Well, there you go. At least you know it’s safe.”

Eric: Yeah, she doesn’t apologize on that. [laughs]

Pat: Right. But she was right.

Laura: She was.

Eric and Pat: Yeah.

Eric: Well, she was right in that the broomstick did come from Sirius Black.

Pat: Yeah, but she was wrong on the fact that it was cursed. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, and it’s something bad to it, yeah.

Laura: She ends up being right again in Half-Blood Prince about the origins of the Half-Blood Prince’s name, right? And she’s trying to explain it to Harry throughout the book and he’s not willing to accept it, and then at the very end, she’s like, “Yeah, see? About that… I was pretty close.”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Listen, women cannot be princes, Laura. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this.

[Laura and Pat laugh]

Eric: It cannot happen. It’s not a thing!

Laura: It’s 2021. That’s all I’ll say.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Andrew: And then the third trait we have here is loyalty.

Pat: Yeah, I do think Gryffindors are very loyal people, which is in part of the whole description of being a Gryffindor. But I think a very good example of this is with the Marauders and when they do finally realize that Remus is a werewolf, and they just stick by his side the entire time. And yeah, for those first few years until they become full Animagi or however you say it, they still stick by him, and then once they figure it out and they’re able to go along with him, then they go on all the adventures with him and just really defend him to everybody else when everybody’s trying to question and figure out what’s going on. And yeah, they pull the prank on Snape where he almost gets killed, but they’re loyal to him still throughout the whole thing. And especially the trio is usually loyal to each other throughout most of the books, except for petty little arguments. The only time where, at least me, personally, I feel like the loyalty can come as a fault is Harry to Dumbledore, because he really can never see any wrong in Dumbledore. Even throughout reading Rita Skeeter’s book about him, he questions it slightly, but he still really doesn’t ever find a fault in him.

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Eric: And if we’re thinking about the Marauders not really minding or taking care of their friendships – they just expect something to be a certain way – they kind of neglect Peter Pettigrew, and he turns sour because he has all these insecurities about not fitting in, but they’re not minding their friendship; they’re not keeping up with that. They just expect him to fall in line because Gryffindors are all part of the same cool team of knights. And they also downplay the severity of almost every conflict; I think maybe the wizarding war really sobered them a lot, but I think that up until that point, they are thinking that having a best friend who’s a werewolf is nothing but the coolest thing you could ever do or have.

Andrew: New toy!

Eric: Yeah, new toy! Well, yeah, almost. I think they really appreciated Remus as a person, but I think they also thought it was straight-up awesome.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s like a…

Pat: And once Remus also in Book 3 puts together “Hey, Sirius is actually innocent,” his loyalty comes back 100% immediately.

Eric: You’re right.

Micah: And this would also be one of those qualities, I think, that aligns very well with the House sigil. If you think about even talking about zodiac signs, Leos are usually characterized as being immensely loyal individuals. And then another moment of loyalty I thought about, too, was with Neville, but loyalty to the entire House, going back to Sorcerer’s Stone, right? He stands up to the trio, and I think you could define that as a moment of loyalty to Gryffindor House.

Eric: Absolutely.

Pat: And when he gets the sword of Gryffindor out of the Sorting Hat at the end of Book 7. That really shows that loyalty as well there, too, because he is a true Gryffindor in that moment, and he deserves the sword.

Eric: Well, and part of being a knight is having honor. He has that sense of real honor. There are things that you cannot do, and “You should not lose our House more points, because it would dishonor us.”

Micah: Sir Longbottom.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: And now let’s talk about the bad. [evil laugh]

Micah: Now Andrew is happy.

Andrew: [laughs] No, I lift up every Hogwarts House. I mentioned this a few minutes ago: Phineas actually had a critique of Gryffindor. He said that other Houses, particularly Slytherin, believe that Gryffindor is sometimes engaged in “pointless heroics.” So a pointless heroic, I guess, would be something that they go out of their way to do for really no good reason other than hoping people will pat them on the back. That’s kind of the read of what I get from a “pointless heroic.”

Eric: Yeah, and there’s evidence of this in the books, again, with James Potter and Snape. But there’s that moment where Harry is horrified that Sirius says he was bored, and so James goes and picks a fight and is like, “Everything’s an adventure; let’s see if we can see Snivellus’s underwear” or whatever, and totally antagonizes Snape in some righteous “We’re the good guys; you’re the creepy, nobody likes you, bad guy of school. We’re going to engage in this pointless heroism of attacking you unprovoked,” absolutely. Phineas’s read on what other people think of Gryffindors… there’s just evidence right there.

Pat: I think that what some people like Phineas – since Phineas, granted, is a Slytherin – but he could consider also helping people as a pointless heroic. Like the times where Harry would maybe pick up somebody’s books when they fall out of their bag, or something like that. Or defending Luna to somebody else, be like, “Oh, she’s my friend.”

Eric: Yes.

Pat: Would a Slytherin then consider that a pointless act of heroism? Just by helping another person?

Eric: Maybe.

Laura: Or what about when Harry went to take on Draco in Book 1 and get Neville’s Remembrall back, right? I could see a Slytherin being like, “Whatever, it’s a Remembrall, who cares? Why are you making such a big deal about this?” But Harry being like, “No, he’s my friend, he’s in my House, and you’re bullying him, so I’m going to stand up to you.”

Micah: Oh, yeah.

Pat: But in the same moment when he agrees to go to the duel, that, I think, is the negative pointless heroic. Like, you really did not need to do that, bro.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: It’s a trap anyway.

Andrew and Pat: Right.

Micah: I think you could go even larger scale. I think if you just look at the plot of all seven books, if you’re Phineas, you could say pointless heroics.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Micah: Sorcerer’s Stone? Pointless heroics. Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets? Pointless heroics. Freeing Sirius Black? Pointless heroics.

Andrew: They like doing these things for attention, at least in Phineas’s mind. And probably there is a little bit of truth there, because I feel like there is a bit of an ego to Gryffindor, being considered the brave House, the courageous House. So here’s another one, and again, this person is biased as well: Snape called Gryffindors “self-righteous and arrogant.” Of course, he’s probably speaking about James when he’s talking here. [laughs]

Eric: Right.

Andrew: But here’s a little bit of evidence to back this up: In the Pottermore welcome letter for the Gryffindor House – which we’ve cited a couple of times now across these House discussions – Percy Weasley says, “This is, quite simply, the best House at Hogwarts. It’s where the bravest and boldest end up – for instance: Albus Dumbledore! Yes, Dumbledore himself, the greatest wizard of our time, was a Gryffindor! If that’s not enough for you, I don’t know what is.” And here’s the other thing, because I looked at the other welcome letters: This is the shortest welcome letter of the four, by far.

[Laura and Pat laugh]

Andrew: The Gryffindor welcome letter is, like, a paragraph. Everything else, it’s pages. You’ve got to sit down to read it. [laughs] Maybe Snape is right; they are self-righteous and arrogant. “We have the best House. I don’t even have to convince you.”

Laura: I think it’s also just interesting that Percy was the character that was chosen to write this welcome letter…

Pat: Yeah, that was annoying.

Laura: … because we know how he felt about Dumbledore towards the end of the series. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, but he’s such a kiss-ass.

Laura: I know.

Micah: Couldn’t it also be that because we get Harry’s welcome letter in the book, that they don’t need to make this one as long?

Andrew: I think the length is very purposeful.

Eric: They would just roll the tape of Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best.”

[Micah laughs]

Andrew: The author isn’t one to be short on details.

Eric: Right.

Andrew: She’ll put the work in if she needs to, so I think this just perfectly plays into Snape’s thoughts.

Micah: One thing that I think that’s important about the fact that Snape colors all Gryffindors “self-righteous and arrogant,” shows an important point about how one bad experience can cause an individual to really generalize an entire group of people, and in this case, it’s a group of people that normally all of us would think are pretty good, easygoing individuals. And if you look at it through Snape’s perspective, it’s completely different, and it’s certainly wrong of him, just because particularly James and Sirius treated him so foully that he would look upon the entirety of Gryffindor House the same way.

Eric and Laura: Yeah.

Eric: And I like at least that in the entirety of the story there are… our Gryffindor heroes do get some pieces knocked off of them. You question Dumbledore by the end of the books. You question Harry. You question what everyone really means or thinks. You question James Potter. So these so-called heroes, there is room in the books made available for you to question what they were going for and whether Snape could even be right.

Andrew: We are having a great discussion today. Can’t wait to continue it.

[Ad break]

Andrew: Speaking about habits, let’s talk about some bad habits maybe? Eric, you have an interesting observation about a couple of pairs at Hogwarts.

Eric: Yeah, here’s an interesting personality trait that you don’t find in the Hogwarts Sorting song, [laughs] but it comes in this line from Madam Rosmerta, I believe. And Laura, would you like to read this quote?

Laura: Sure. This is from Prisoner of Azkaban. Madam Rosmerta says,

“‘Naturally,’ with a small laugh. ‘Never saw one without the other, did you? The number of times I had them in here ā€” ooh, they used to make me laugh. Quite the double act, Sirius Black and James Potter!’

Harry dropped his tankard with a loud clunk. Ron kicked him.

‘Precisely,’ said Professor McGonagall. ‘Black and Potter. Ringleaders of their little gang. Both very bright, of course ā€” exceptionally bright, in fact ā€” but I donā€™t think weā€™ve ever had such a pair of troublemakers ā€”’

‘I dunno,’ chuckled Hagrid. ‘Fred and George Weasley could give ā€™em a run fer their money.'”

Eric: So this is an interesting comparison across the generations. You have these two groups, and both of them are two people, troublemakers. What is it that rule-breaking and mischief…? What does that have to do with being a Gryffindor or being brave?

Micah: Well, not necessarily being brave, but I think looking at daring and nerve, those two align a little bit with rule-breaking and mischief. You have to have a little bit of nerve to be mischievous and to break the rules.

Andrew: Absolutely.

Micah: I think it fits.

Andrew: Some courage too.

Laura: I think particularly with James and Sirius, we’re seeing the negative side of bravery and nerve. If you’re viewing those things as a spectrum, as we’ve discussed in previous discussions like this, and you toggle it all the way over to one extreme end, the results are not going to be great. But I like comparing them to Fred and George, because I think even though Fred and George are very mischievous – they’re troublemakers – they’re still pretty different from James and Sirius. Fred and George don’t strike me as bullies. In fact, I remember… I can’t remember the book, but I remember one line where they’re having a fun back and forth and they’re saying, “We always knew where the line was. We might have put a toe across it every now and then, but we never went too far.” And James and Sirius went too far.

Eric: Yeah, that’s actually fair. I think they’ve probably maybe learned from their predecessors, or maybe because they had something like the map, they were less reckless and they could plan more.

Andrew: It maybe has to do with how they were raised as well. They were born to be jokesters and pranksters, but they knew they didn’t want to mess with their parents. We know what Molly does with those Howlers; that’s not something to be messed with.

Eric: [laughs] That’s a good point. Yeah, I like that that leans into sort of the daring side of things. It’s like, “Well, we’ll cause a ruckus.” Yeah, that fits with me for Fred and George.

Andrew: Toe that line. Go just far enough where you can get away with it. Maybe we’ve all been there at some point. [laughs] I can’t think of any examples; don’t ask me for any right now. But I feel like sometimes…

Laura: Andrew is very lawful.

Andrew: Right, right. Sometimes I just get to the edge. I get to the edge.

Pat: Yeah, you push the limits a little bit.

Eric: It seems like in contrast, those Slytherins, if they’re going to be mischievous, they’re going to work within the system to do it, right? So we’ve seen this a bunch of times in the books, actually. I’m thinking of the Inquisitorial Squad, or Malfoy abusing being prefect to take House points away. This is an example. It’s not rule-breaking; it’s mischief and ruckus, but it’s because the system works for him and works for what he wants to do. He’s going to get himself a position of power to give in to his negative whims, whereas Fred and George are exercising that firmly from without the system. They’re breaking the rules.

Pat: Yeah, and I think more of a… instead of breaking the rules, I think the Gryffindor trait is more so bending the rules to your favor. You’re still following the guideline of them, but you find that loophole, like with the DA or Hermione bending the rules as well to knitting the hats and stuff and hiding them around to secretly free elves that she knows she probably shouldn’t do but she still does.

Micah: Or getting a Time-Turner. I mean, that’s pretty rule-breaking as far as I’m concerned.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Eric: Kind of like guerrilla efforts to circumvent the natural flow of things.

Micah: Yeah. I also think we have the benefit of being at school with Fred and George for five years, so we get to see a little bit more of their personalities, versus James and Sirius, we just hear stories, and most of them aren’t that great. The one good one I think about, too, but I guess it’s kind of edgy, is the story J.K. Rowling wrote about the two of them and the police officers and the motorbike that they stole.

[Eric laughs]

Micah: But yeah, I mean, they seem like they get up to more adult type of trouble than the Weasley twins do, also.

Pat: Yeah, because all of the memories we see of James and Sirius are through Snape’s eyes, both in Book 4 and in Book 7, so…

Eric: Well, I think the Pensieve is a non-biased third party, right? Why it’s made. But I also think, thinking of Fred and George not crossing a line, they did experiment on children. They gave their products to… now, it wasn’t anything they didn’t try on themselves first, maybe, but I’m thinking of the Dudley scene. And we know from our Fred and George character discussion that Fred would kind of push the envelope maybe a little too far, and George would try and reign him in. But yeah, there was definitely a reckless aspect to the Weasley twins, though. I wouldn’t want to say that they were too safe in comparison.

Laura: Yeah. I guess we’re talking about the difference here between being reckless and being malicious?

Andrew: Good line to draw.

Eric: Yeah. And Sirius’s own dislike for his own family made him cool to the idea of Slytherins, and James’s just comes from, what, seven generations of Gryffindor? So he’s bound to dislike Slytherins as well.

Andrew: Micah, I think you had a point you wanted to bring up.

Micah: Yeah, we touched on this a little bit already, but just going back to the courage aspect of Gryffindors. I was thinking earlier just how interesting it is that if you look at the plot of all seven books – involving the trio, specifically – they all really exemplify the courage needed to achieve a certain goal, right? And so I just pulled examples; I’m sure there’s a lot of different smaller examples from each of the books of courage, but you think about in Sorcerer’s Stone, defeating the tasks and ultimately defeating Quirrell. Chamber of Secrets, the Chamber of Secrets itself, the Basilisk. Prisoner of Azkaban, confronting Sirius, but also freeing him. Goblet of Fire, you have the Triwizard Tournament and the graveyard. Order of the Phoenix, the battle at the Ministry. Half-Blood Prince, you have the cave. And then in Deathly Hallows, you have the Horcruxes and the final battle. And I think it was probably intentionally done that way by the author, in the fact that you do have three Gryffindors as the main characters, but just the level of courage that would be required to do all of those things in all of those books. They’re just central to the plot.

Andrew: And these are all epic moments in the books. And I’m sure in a lot of literature you can point to great moments of courage that really make the book, so maybe that’s one aspect of it too. It’s like you need some courage in your lead character to make a good story.

Eric: Yeah, and overcome great odds. I was going to say, if you’re telling the story of the hero’s journey, it makes sense that your hero would be from the House of heroes.

Andrew: Yes. Yeah, good thing the Sorting Hat didn’t put him in Slytherin. Damn.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Eric: It’s a pretty good thing.

Andrew: And Eric, Gryffindors don’t always agree with each other, right?

Eric: Yeah, I thought it would be interesting to delve a little deeper into the Seamus and Harry conflict. Pat, you had a good summary and explanation of it at the start, but I wanted to actually read the specific where they butt heads, because not only is Gryffindor the House we know the most about and see the most of firsthand in the books, but we can actually… there’s so much of it that there’s such nuance here.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: So there’s actually… this is crazy, because you could see where Seamus is coming from as a reader when the whole thing goes down. So Andrew, would you like to read the first bit here?

Andrew: Yeah.

“Seamus did not answer immediately; he was making rather a meal of ensuring that his poster of the Kenmare Kestrels Quidditch team was quite straight. Then he said, with his back still turned to Harry,

‘Me mam didnā€™t want me to come back.’

‘What?’ said Harry, pausing in the act of pulling off his robes.

‘She didnā€™t want me to come back to Hogwarts.’

Seamus turned away from his poster and pulled his own pajamas out of his trunk, still not looking at Harry.

‘But ā€” why?’ said Harry, astonished. He knew that Seamusā€™s mother was a witch and could not understand, therefore, why she should have come over so Dursley-ish.

Seamus did not answer until he had finished buttoning his pajamas.

‘Well,’ he said in a measured voice, ‘I suppose… because of you.’

‘What dā€™you mean?’ said Harry quickly. His heart was beating rather fast. He felt vaguely as though something was closing in on him.

‘Well,’ said Seamus again, still avoiding Harryā€™s eyes, ‘she… er… well, itā€™s not just you, itā€™s Dumbledore too…’

‘She believes the Daily Prophet?’ said Harry. ‘She thinks Iā€™m a liar and Dumbledoreā€™s an old fool?’

Seamus looked up at him. ‘Yeah, something like that.'”

Eric: So I mean, Seamus is in a pickle. I don’t think any of us envy him the situation where he may not be being allowed to continue his year of education. But what’s at issue is not necessarily the facts; it’s how they’re stated. Seamus at first says, “It’s you; you’re the reason why I haven’t come back,” and that’s just false. And he immediately tries to backtrack and say, “Oh, actually, it’s also Dumbledore,” but by this point, Harry is so… he could not handle just the idea that somebody’s coming for him, that he just reacts so poorly and he completely shuts down. He’s in defense mode.

Andrew: Yeah, “something was closing in on him,” like the line says. And I don’t blame him; you cannot blame him for this. “You weren’t going to come back to school because of me?” Suddenly people see him as a threat. That’s a terrible feeling.

Eric: It’s a really bad feeling. Micah, would you like to read the other part of this quote?

Micah: “He got into bed and made to pull the hangings closed around him, but before he could do so, Seamus said, ‘Look… what did happen that night when… you know, when… with Cedric Diggory and all?’

Seamus sounded nervous and eager at the same time. Dean, who had been bending over his trunk, trying to retrieve a slipper, went oddly still and Harry knew he was listening hard.

‘What are you asking me for?’ Harry retorted. ‘Just read the Daily Prophet like your mother, why donā€™t you? Thatā€™ll tell you all you need to know.’

‘Donā€™t you have a go at my mother,’ snapped Seamus.

‘Iā€™ll have a go at anyone who calls me a liar,’ said Harry.

‘Donā€™t talk to me like that!’

‘Iā€™ll talk to you how I want,’ said Harry, his temper rising so fast he snatched his wand back from his bedside table. ‘If youā€™ve got a problem sharing a dormitory with me, go and ask McGonagall if you can be moved, stop your mummy worrying ā€”’

‘Leave my mother out of this, Potter!’

‘Whatā€™s going on?’

Ron had appeared in the doorway. His wide eyes traveled from Harry, who was kneeling on his bed with his wand pointing at Seamus, to Seamus, who was standing there with his fists raised.

‘Heā€™s having a go at my mother!’ Seamus yelled.

‘What?’ said Ron. ‘Harry wouldnā€™t do that ā€” we met your mother, we liked her…’

‘Thatā€™s before she started believing every word the stinking Daily Prophet writes about me!’ said Harry at the top of his voice.

‘Oh,’ said Ron, comprehension dawning across his freckled face.

‘Oh… right.'”

Eric: So much here, right? I mean, tempers are high, and Harry’s got his wand out! What? What’s he going to…? He’s provoked to a fight because Seamus is…?

Micah: He’s being courageous.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Yeah, and Seamus has got his fists raised. This is just absolutely nuts. And even when Ron has to come in and defend Harry, he’s like, “Wait, Harry, wouldn’t… I don’t care. I know I just missed the conversation, but there’s no way Harry is making fun of your mom; that doesn’t make any sense.” Immediately leaps into defensive friendship mode, defense of Harry. It’s just crazy. This is Gryffindor, maybe the negative side of Gryffindor, but this is Gryffindor.

Andrew: Yeah. Courage on courage. Gryffindor on Gryffindor. Tempers are going to rise up. I think they’re going to really butt heads when they both think they can win an argument in the moment.

Eric: They haven’t seen each other all summer, and all of a sudden, it’s fists up and wands out. And they’re both Gryffindor. [laughs] They’re both in the same House.

Micah: Yeah, it’s very much, though, a loyalty being questioned type of moment, right? Truthfulness being questioned, or calling his character into question. So it’s like a knight pulling out a sword and defending himself, and that’s what Harry is doing in that moment.

Eric: Could it also be a masculinity thing? Like Harry’s… or honor, because Harry’s honor is being questioned, right? Whether or not he’s truthful.

Micah: Yeah, but I don’t think it’s… I mean, maybe just in terms of testosterone, but I don’t think it’s like his masculinity is being called into question here. I think it’s more like a believability factor. Truthfulness.

Andrew: They both have reason to be angry. For Seamus, Harry is involving his mom. For Harry, he’s being attacked and being told he can’t be believed, and neither can Dumbledore. So I can see where both sides are coming from and why they both have reason to be angry.

Laura: I think that they’re both defending their honor in a way. Harry is in this state where he’s not prepared to be questioned about what he experienced, and Seamus is one of the many students last year who had to just take Dumbledore’s word for it. Seamus wasn’t in the maze; he didn’t get to see what happened. All he got to see was Harry come back to school with Cedric Diggory’s body, and he had to take Dumbledore’s word for it. And then he spent all summer hearing about his mother reading the Daily Prophet, so it makes sense that he would be skeptical. Now, I would argue that both of them, they’re not handling conflict in the best possible way here.

Eric: Let’s talk about it, boys.

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: But they’re teenagers, so it’s not uncommon. I wasn’t good at handling conflict when I was 15.

Micah: And remember the summer Harry has had up until this point.

Pat: I was just going to say that too.

[Eric laughs]

Micah: Yeah, the last thing he wants at this moment is one of his closest Housemates to call his believability into question.

Andrew: In the darn dorm.

Eric and Pat: Yeah.

Eric: That’s fair.

Pat: Yeah, he spent all summer in the dark; he spent all summer just really mad at Ron and Hermione because they weren’t allowed to write to him.

Eric: That’s right.

Pat: He fought with them as soon as he got to them. Then he had to go to court…

[Eric laughs]

Pat: … and then jump right into school where he’s being attacked for his sanity, basically, because everybody thinks he’s crazy. Yeah, I would have flown off, probably, just like Harry at that moment too.

Laura: True. He’s been traumatized, and people are expecting him to relive that for them, when he’s like, “I’m actively still living the trauma. Leave me alone.”

Pat: Yeah, even months later when they start the DA, they ask, “Oh, what happened?”

Eric: And he’s still like, “Mm, not going to talk about it.” Hogwarts really needs grief counselors.

Andrew: We screamed again, somebody, please get these people grief counselors. My gosh. Get them therapy. Get them our sponsor, BetterHelp.

Eric: Andrew, you have a really good topic here to talk about, which may be causing the Gryffindors some extra grief throughout the books.

Andrew: [laughs] Yes, and part of this is inspired by last week’s Ravenclaw discussion. We spoke about the Ravenclaw common room; the entrance is guarded by a trivia question. For the Gryffindor common room, it’s guarded by a simple password. And again, we’ve got a big security nightmare on our hands. Anybody can grab the password, find it out, overhear it, walk up to Fat Lady, say the password, and she lets you on in, presumably. Why does it have to be so simple? This is a major security issue, Pat. Aren’t you concerned when you sleep in the dormitory at night that somebody’s going to break in? It’s happened before.

Pat: [laughs] I would say for me, no, because if I don’t want somebody in there, I’m not going to tell them. And somebody would have to be trustworthy enough to really give the password to somebody else, I think. I think at the same time, though, a part of me is like, “Okay, well, the Fat Lady has some sort of sentient being to her; she should know who all the Gryffindors are and who all the professors are.”

Andrew: It should just be that simple for all of them.

Eric: Really.

Pat: Right, so she shouldn’t allow anybody else in…

Eric: Yes.

Pat: … but she did allow Sirius in. Unless there’s something with the portraits where she’s like, “Oh, you were a Gryffindor once. You can come in.”

Eric: Well, wasn’t it Sir Cadogan that let Sirius in because he had the whole list of Neville’s passwords?

Pat: Oh, that’s right.

Laura: Yeah, because Sirius slashed the Fat Lady up.

Eric: Because she wouldn’t let him in, but he also didn’t have the passwords then. But yeah, Sir Cadogan as a knight, who is tasked with defending the castle, defending Gryffindor tower… I get it; it’s a plot point about Neville, but he shouldn’t have let just some random – former Gryffindor – but some random older guy in, especially after hours.

Pat: My question more so with the password system… because we’re never explained it. How do they know when it’s changed? And nobody ever says anything; there’s never a notice. Maybe there’s something on the notice board. But the Fat Lady, she’s always pretty petty, the way that she gossips with other portraits and stuff.

Laura: Oh, yeah.

Pat: I would love to just… like if Harry when he was pissed at Ron, or vice versa, if they would have been like, “You know what, I’m mad. Hey, you want to change the password and not tell him?”

Eric: Ha!

Pat: I think that would have been hilarious.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: It also seems like the password updates are always spread by word of mouth. I feel like there are so many points in the book where somebody’s like, “Oh yeah, the new password is ‘Cockroach Cluster'” as they walk into the portrait, so they’re openly saying the password.

Eric: In the middle of the hallway. Anyone can overhear.

Laura: [laughs] In the middle of the hall.

Pat: Isn’t that how Percy tells them in the very first book when he’s prefect?

Eric: Yeah, I think so. And the passwords are never one foreign character, a capital, lowercase… they’re not even that secure of passwords. They’re at least random. I would say the hierarchy of passwords has Dumbledore’s password being the worst to get into his office.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Because if you know anything about Dumbledore, you just keep guessing sweets. But then Gryffindor is right beneath it, because it is just word-based. Slytherin, it is a password, I think, too, usually a racist one – like “Mudblood” when they use it – but Slytherin, at least, has the benefit of being down in the dungeons. I think that all dungeons kind of look alike; I would have a little bit of difficulty trying to find and suss out what wall to say a racist word to, so that would be difficult. But Gryffindor tower, I think it’s probably pretty jewel-encrusted with an easy path. Everyone knows where the entrance to Gryffindor is, so I would say Gryffindor does have a really super weak whole system.

Pat: I do think it’s kind of, granted, a lazy system in a way as well. One, I don’t think Gryffindors really want to think too hard about when they want to just go study or go to bed, whatever. But also, at the same time, I mean, it worked throughout the entire prohibition for speakeasies. They had passwords to get in, so if it worked for them for how long…

Laura: Fair.

Andrew: I’m looking at a list of known passwords used to enter the Gryffindor common room. We should have made a game out of this, but we didn’t think of it, so instead I’ll just read some of them off: Banana Fritters, Fairy Lights, Abstinence…

Eric: [laughs] That’s the best one.

Andrew: Yeah, like, what’s up with that one? What’s the context there?

Micah: That’s got to be in Half-Blood Prince.

Eric: Isn’t it when everyone’s snogging?

Andrew: That was Half-Blood Prince, yeah. Of course, Mimbulus Mimbletonia, the only one that Neville could remember. Pig Snout, Scurvy Cur, Tapeworm, Wattlebird, amongst others, some of which I can’t pronounce. Flibbertigibbet, Balderdash… random indeed. I just think… I like the idea that was brought up a few minutes ago: Every portrait should just be in charge of knowing who belongs in the House and who doesn’t, who’s in that House and who isn’t. That simple. Hogwarts is quirky, I get it, so that’s why they each have these different systems, but man, it could be so much simpler. Sometimes things are just too complicated at Hogwarts. Complication nightmare, am I right?

Eric: You’re right.

Micah: Or a key.

Andrew: Or a key, sure.

Eric: Oh, yeah! Like, it can’t be duplicated by anybody other than Professor McGonagall type key?

Micah: There you go.

Andrew: Give ’em a key. Or in the case of Gryffindors’ House, make them display an act of courage in some form. I don’t know.

[Eric laughs]

Micah: Every time?

Andrew: Every time.

Pat: And just think, because you need to be courageous, stealing it from Book 6, like when the blood on the wall of a cave. If they had to prick their thumb and touch a spot on the wall every time or something.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: They all have to lick the same brick on the wall because it’s brave that they won’t catch something.

Andrew: Eugh!

Eric: Or some kind of germ feature type to it.

[Pat laughs]

Micah: Oh, man.

Andrew: COVID nightmare. To wrap this up, we have some notable Gryffindors to run through.

Eric: We tend to know a lot about these Gryffindors already because Gryffindors are the heroes and the main characters in Harry Potter. But worth just noting Godric Gryffindor himself, of course, one of the four founders. He was apparently, according to WizardingWorld.com, a truly exceptional wizard; he was also the most accomplished dueler. And we know that he left behind not only his sword, but the hat that he had itself, as heirlooms that would become very important to Harry and many generations of Hogwarts students. I’ve got to say, it always seemed like a hat that would have the ability to look inside your head and Sort always seemed more like a Ravenclaw trait to me. I’m surprised that the Sorting Hat wasn’t Ravenclaw’s originally.

Pat: Well, wasn’t he just wearing the hat, though, and he plucked it off, and they all made it speak and everything?

Eric: Oh, that’s a good point. Yes.

Laura: Plus, if it had been Ravenclaw, it would have been the Sorting Tiara.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Pat: Ah, that would’ve been way better.

Eric: I’m a fan of that! [laughs]

Pat: The little jewel in the middle has a mouth that talks.

Laura: Yep.

[Laura and Pat laugh]

Eric: Yeah, you’re Sorted into House Genevia. You can go now.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Of course, we also have Albus Dumbledore we talked about. Now, Dumbledore is very brave, but he gets into murky territory when he’s talking about the ambition of subjugating for the greater good, all the stuff with Grindelwald, thinking that wizards should be superior and could somehow take by force. I know he’s disillusioned of this, but he remains a figure who ultimately way manipulates people for the greater good. He still lies and cheats and holds the truth from people who probably deserve to hear the truth, because he ultimately believes that he is a righteous knight, an avenging angel against what is impure in the world.

Andrew: Beautiful. Put that on his headstone.

[Pat laughs]

Eric: I mean, I think Dumbledore… are we surprised that he was a Gryffindor? Because he could have also been, I think, Slytherin.

Laura: Oh, I think that point got brought up on our Slytherin episode. We were like, “Why was Dumbledore a Gryffindor again?”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Or Ravenclaw.

Andrew: To be in the same House as Harry.

Pat: Yeah. Until this discussion, I’ve never associated Dumbledore with a House ever, really. He’s just always kind of been a culmination of all of them, I think. I think of most characters, he is a little bit of every single one equally in my mind, at least, so I never… I don’t know why I never associated or thought, “Oh, what House was Dumbledore in?” It just never occurred to me.

Eric: I know what you mean. It could have been cool… J.K. Rowling could have invented it where, because Albus is older than everybody else – he’s 150 – she could have made it where there weren’t any Houses when he was at Hogwarts, right? And have the Sorting Hat be only something that came after his time, so he literally would have been in all Houses, or omni-Houses, and then they switched to a different system.

Andrew: I’d love that.

Eric: So she could have gotten out of having to place him there.

Andrew: I just wish the Sorting Hat put him in all four Houses.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Or at least deemed him a Hatstall. That would have been cool too.

Eric and Micah: Yeah.

Eric: “You can just do independent study. Whatever you want, sir.”

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Micah: It’s interesting, too, that you said… when you were kind of going off there, you mentioned knight, and one of his middle names, Percival, is actually a knight from Arthurian legend, so probably not by accident that J.K. Rowling gave him that middle name.

Eric: Ohh. That’s why the Sorting Hat put him there. He’s like, “Oh, finally, something to go off of. Chivalry! Knight! Percival, got it.” Well, we also have Minerva McGonagall. And we all love McGonagall, but as Head of Gryffindor House, what traits of a Gryffindor do we think that McGonagall exemplifies?

Pat: I think becoming an Animagus, because can you imagine if that does go wrong? How hard it is to perfect that? That’s a brave thing to even endure learning to be able to do.

Andrew: And I want to also observe that Minerva actually was a Hatstall, and the Hat was debating between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw.

Eric: Yeah. The way that she stands up to Umbridge comes out, stands out to me. Definitely huge bravery there. Huge cojones.

Laura: I’m going to say honor, because she doesn’t take BS off anyone, including her own students.

Pat: Very true.

Laura: So she’ll be the first one to step up and let them know, “Hey, I think you messed up.”

Pat: And I think out of… besides Snape, she’s probably the one that takes away House points from Gryffindor the most.

Eric: That’s a good one. So also, we have Hagrid in Gryffindor House, and he was only allowed to study for about three years, but when he did, he was a Gryffindor. What do we think that says about Hagrid’s character, that he was a Gryffindor specifically?

Pat: I really do think it fits. I mean, yes, he can be kind of buffoonish once in a while, but he really always stands up for the people he cares about, no matter what. Even in… I mean, yes, he has his moments, like in Book 4 when he’s outed, basically, but he still stands up for everybody else around him once he gets over his feelings.

Andrew: He’s very loyal to Dumbledore and he believes Dumbledore through and through, so there’s the conviction as well.

Eric: Okay, we also have Neville. We talked about Neville being very honor-bound and like a knight and defending his own House, even among friends.

Laura: He was also the other Chosen One, right? That speaks for itself.

Eric: Yeah. So Voldemort, if you’re going to go up against two potential babies, they’re both going to be in the House that’s opposite the House that you were.

Laura: Right. And red and green are opposites on the color wheel, right?

Eric: Oh, yeah, they are! Love that.

Pat: I don’t know; I’m colorblind.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Are you red/green colorblind?

Andrew: Womp-womp.

Micah: Yeah, and I would say, too, just… we talked on other episodes about how Neville has his glow-up during Order of the Phoenix – everything that he does inside of the Ministry, facing down Bellatrix – and then ultimately even facing down Voldemort in Deathly Hallows, right? He’s the ringleader back at Hogwarts for Dumbledore’s Army when the trio aren’t there. So I would say he probably has the biggest arc of any character in Harry’s year, outside of maybe Harry himself.

Pat: How many does he ask to the Yule Ball?

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Yep, gotta get him that.

Pat: All of that too. He’s just very… and that takes a lot of guts, too, when you’re what, 14?

Eric: Yeah!

Andrew: Oh, yeah. It’s one of the hardest things you do at that age.

Eric: [laughs] Yeah, pretty much. And then two others here, two other Gryffindors of note: We have Celestina Warbeck, who… that actually shocks me.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: But it takes a lot… and not for any particular reason. I just, she could be in any… you could tell me she were a Slytherin, you could tell me she were Hufflepuff, and I’d be like, “Oh, that’s interesting.”

Andrew: Right.

Eric: But as a Gryffindor, I would just say, probably you need to be bold. You need to be brave to try and make it in the cutthroat industry of entertainment, arts and entertainment, and you need to be persistent – sometimes bullheaded – to get your record out there and have these record execs listen to your demo. You’ve got to do it.

Andrew: And to not have stage fright. That takes a lot of courage to get up there and perform live in front of audiences at Universal Orlando every day.

[Pat laughs]

Eric: Yep. And as a thought experiment here, do we think anything of Peter Pettigrew? What do we make of him being in Gryffindor? This is the one that I think least fits, not because he betrays his fellow friends, but because a lot of his character arc is marked by cowardice. And that is called out multiple times, not just by his Marauder friends, but by Voldemort. What Voldemort cannot get by with Pettigrew is his cowardice. Even when he acts to betray his friends, it’s because he’s specifically not being brave. So why is he a Gryffindor?

Laura: I think this boils down to choice. Pettigrew probably had the qualities to make him a Gryffindor, but he chose not to live up to them. It’s similar to what, Eric, you and Pat were both saying at the top of the episode. You both made the conscious choice about selecting the kinds of values that you wanted your House to represent in yourself, and at some point, Pettigrew made a choice. Not the right one.

Pat: Yeah. And I mean, he very well could have been like Harry. Maybe the Hat was debating between two, and he chose. He asked to be in Gryffindor, maybe.

Andrew: The Hat did. The Hat was also thinking about putting them in Slytherin.

Eric: If it is about wanting to surround yourself with everyone who’s stronger than you, I can see why Peter would absolutely want to go to Gryffindor.

Andrew: Also, this from the author: “The Sorting Hat, which is infamously stubborn, still refuses to accept that its decision in the case of the latter,” in the case of Peter Pettigrew, “may have been erroneous, citing the manner in which Pettigrew died as (dubious) evidence.”

Eric: I don’t really know what any of those words mean.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Because he made good on his promise? Or I guess it’s not a promise.

Eric: He didn’t have a choice on that, right? His hand…

Micah: Harry saved his life, yeah.

Eric: He hesitated.

Micah: Yeah, well, I think a part of that was due to the fact that it was magic that Voldemort had used to create his hand, and so effectively, he was going against his master’s wish, and so he had to. Yeah, I mean, I know I saw some feedback on I think it was the last episode when we were talking about certain characters that don’t really fit with their Houses, and Pettigrew was used as an example. But I said that maybe there is a bit of courage, a bit of bravery that comes with betraying your friends. I know it’s seen as sort of this pure cowardly action, but I don’t know. I feel like there has to be something in him – maybe it’s the nerve or the daring – that allowed him to do what he did. Maybe it’s not real courage in the truest sense of the word, but I don’t know. I’m not willing to completely write him off as a Gryffindor. We don’t get a whole lot about him from the time with the Marauders, just because he’s always kind of seen as that person on the side that nobody really pays a whole lot of attention to. But maybe we Sort too soon.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: I think what it is is economy of storytelling. I think they could have made it where Peter Pettigrew was one of the Marauders, they could have made it where he was one of their core four, all this other stuff, but he could have been from Slytherin. He could have been from Ravenclaw. He could have been from Hufflepuff. I just think all the other Houses fit Peter better, but because in the Harry Potter books, Houses don’t really mingle with one another, no matter how much you try, they really just don’t hang out. I think for that reason alone, Peter had to be a Gryffindor like the rest of them.

Micah: Right, I’m just saying that inevitably, there are going to be bad seeds in every House, right? You can’t get away from that. If we were to say, before we had the information, “Oh, by the way, Lockhart was a Ravenclaw,” what would our reaction be? “No, he would have had to be in Slytherin, because that’s the House where all the evil wizards are,” right? But I mean, we pretty much talked through Lockhart using the cunningness and intellect of Ravenclaw House to his advantage, and I think maybe Pettigrew did a bit of that himself.

Laura: That’s a great point.

Andrew: Well, on that note, I want to revisit this question from last week: Is there anything else we need to address to maybe take Gryffindors’ heads out of the clouds? Like Pat’s?

[Eric and Pat laugh]

Micah: Dumbledore. That’s all you’ve got to say.

Andrew: [laughs] A flawed man indeed.

Pat: I fully believe that after Slytherins, Gryffindors would be the next House to use Dark magic and to successfully use an Unforgivable Curse purely because of their conviction, like when you see in Book 5, when Bellatrix is like, “Oh, you really have to feel it,” and Harry does use it on her, and it works the next time.

[Eric laughs]

Pat: So I just think that there is that next step, that with the courage and the bravery, I do think that they would be the next ones to do it. And you see that in Snape’s memories, too, where they use the spells that they invent – or not invent – but they use the spells on other people to play pranks on them, and it usually just makes a fool of the other person. Not necessarily meaning that that’s Dark magic. But I could 100% see a Gryffindor make their own form of a Horcrux that doesn’t involve killing somebody. If there’s some other way to do it, I think a Gryffindor would do it.

Eric: Yeah, that’s an amazing point about Dark magic and Unforgivable Curses. They would do it just on a dare. And to that point, I would say for Gryffindors, just try and think before you act; try and consider the options. It doesn’t need to come to fists all the time. And here’s the thing: If you get into a wizard duel, there’s going to be a loser of that duel. Duels do not end in ties. And for the sheer fact that you cannot have more than a 50% real chance of winning a duel, don’t duel everything. Don’t make everything down to a duel. Just think, just consider, talk it out, deescalate, and there are other ways to solve things.

Pat: That’s my issue. I get in trouble so many times at work because my mouth just goes off and I say exactly what comes to my head instead of thinking about it, and then my boss is like, “Okay, next time, sit back, write your passionate email, set it aside for an hour, and then come back to it.”

[Eric laughs]

Laura: That’s a great strategy.

Micah: See, this is where you need Ravenclaws to give you multiple options, to your point, Pat and Eric. Having alternate options. And I think we see the decisions made a lot of times by Gryffindor with them not taking recklessness into account, especially… the best example I could think of that is going to the Ministry to try and rescue a Sirius Black who’s not there, and a lot of the driving factor there for Harry… of course he cares about Sirius, but I don’t think he fully appreciates and thinks through the situation. It’s actually another Gryffindor in Hermione who’s trying to convince him, “Hey, why don’t you consider the alternatives here?” And I think that if he had, it would have been a much different outcome.

Laura: I think that if I were a Gryffindor, I would aspire to be a Neville Gryffindor, someone who is true to his values all the time and doesn’t go… he doesn’t blow with the prevailing wind, right? He sticks up for what he believes in, even when he knows he’s wrong and finds himself singled out. I mean, think about in Book 3 when McGonagall demands to know who left their list of passwords laying around. He admits it. He admits it in front of all of his peers because he’s honest and true, and I think that is what I would aspire to be if I were a Gryffindor.

Andrew: The only thing I would… I don’t have anything to add, other than to reiterate I think there is a chip on Gryffindors’ shoulders across fandom and in the books as well, and we’ve presented a little bit of evidence around that today. So that’s my one critique. They can stop thinking they’re the best House.

[Eric laughs]

Micah: And I do think we should just shout out the House ghost, Nearly Headless Nick, because we’ve done it for every other House that we’ve discussed, and he may be by far the coolest of any of the four.

Andrew: [imitating Hermione]Nearly Headless?”

Eric: [laughs] I think he’s great. He’s a ghost who… he’s not sure; that’s the thing. If he were the most cavalier ghost, there’d be issues, but I think he’s a soft Gryffindor himself.

Andrew: Well, if you have any feedback about today’s discussion, you can contact us by writing or sending a voice message to MuggleCast@gmail.com, and for the latter, just record a message using the Voice Memo app on your phone. You can also use the contact form on MuggleCast.com or you can leave a voicemail on our phone. The number is 1-920-3-MUGGLE; that’s 1-920-368-4453. Next week’s episode is a Muggle Mail episode, so get your feedback in ASAP, and we’ll catch up on some feedback next week. I think we’re also going to touch on Sorcerer’s Stone the film a little bit because the 20th anniversary of that movie is quickly approaching.

Laura: Wild.

Pat: I was in sixth grade.

Laura: Me too!

Eric: I was in eighth.


Quizzitch


Andrew: All right, it’s time for Quizzitch.

[Quizzitch music plays]

Eric: Last week’s question – Ravenclaw themed – was on which floor at Hogwarts can you find the staircase that leads directly to the door to Ravenclaw’s common room? And this is in a scene from when they’re trying to get to the diadem in Book 7. The correct answer is the fifth floor; Luna leads Harry up to the fifth floor, where they find the spiral staircase. Correct answers were submitted by S. Ram; The Dark Bort; Pius Thicknesse is back; Countess Bucatini; Would Micah date a Hufflepuff?…

Laura: Oooh.

Eric: … Micah Choo-Choo is godly; Fanfiction is cool; HufflepuffDes744; MustBeAWeasley922; BlueSnake88; Andrew, you should be a pop star…

Andrew: I know.

Eric: … Natasha, your fave local Hufflepuff; and I answered this question before listening to the episode, as somebody submitted as their name? Micah, what do you think?

Micah: Choo-choo.

[Andrew and Pat laugh]

Micah: Of course.

Andrew: That’s his pickup line.

Laura: Full steam ahead you would date a Hufflepuff?

Andrew: [laughs] Full steam ahead.

Micah: Well done, Laura. Well done.

Pat: That was good. That was real good.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: All right, Hufflepuffs. You heard him.

Eric: That would win. And here we go for a Gryffindor-themed Quizzitch question: The Sorting Hat tells us that Hufflepuff came from valley broad, Slytherin from fen, and Ravenclaw from glen, but from where did Godric hail?

Micah: Hollow.

Eric: Submit your answers to us on the MuggleCast website, also located at MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch.

Andrew: Coming up on bonus MuggleCast this week, we’re discussing the movies and TV shows HBO Max thinks each Hogwarts House should be watching on their platform. Did they make the right choices? We’re going to look at it and tell you. This and many more bonus MuggleCast installments are available at Patreon.com/MuggleCast; so much to check out on our Patreon. And your support goes to running the show, growing the show, and spending more time on the show, and it just makes us feel good that we receive your support, so thank you very much. Also, don’t forget to follow us on social media. Our username is @MuggleCast on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Pat, thanks for joining us today. You are a true Gryffindor, as we learned today.

Pat: Yesss.

Andrew: And we’ll see everybody for next week’s episode. I’m Andrew.

Eric: I’m Eric.

Micah: I’m Micah.

Laura: I’m Laura.

Pat: And I’m Pat.

Everyone: Bye.

Transcript #529

Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #529, Celebrating and Criticizing Ravenclaw House


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: On today’s episode, we are continuing to look at each Hogwarts House, and this week we are focused on Ravenclaw, and our resident Ravenclaws will guide us through the discussion today, those residents being Laura and Micah. And Laura, you noted you have your purple hair for today?

Laura: I did. I didn’t do my purple hair specifically for today, but I felt like it was a nice tie-in.

Andrew: Just pretend. And I wore this purple shirt specifically because of today’s discussion, yeah!

Micah: Of course you did.

Laura: Sure you did. [laughs]

Andrew: Before we get started, make sure you are following the show for free in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode, and look out for new episodes every Tuesday. That’s it, just a quick little reminder. Let’s jump straight into the discussion today.

Micah: Let’s nerd out.

Andrew: Let’s nerd out!

Micah: Not that we never do that on other episodes of this podcast, but I’m actually excited. We’re all wearing glasses today, too; I think we planned that for the Ravenclaw episode.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: I don’t usually bring these bad boys out, actually.

Andrew: Eric, are those blue light glasses? Are they reading glasses? What are they?

Eric: No, I thought I had pretty good vision until I actually booked an eye doctor appointment, and they did that thing with the lenses where they flip all sorts in front of you, and now I can see in quadruple HD. So I was like, “Wow.”

Andrew: Nice.

Eric: It’s a minor adjustment.

Laura: Isn’t that something?

Eric: Yeah, it’s a minor adjustment. I could use these to read, but I still do all right. [whispers] It’s mostly for the future.

Andrew: Micah and Laura actually need glasses. I just wear blue light glasses because they’re helpful, and because I think they make me look smarter.

Eric: They look nice. Everybody looks nice.

Laura: Oh, that’s very kind. That was a very Hufflepuff thing to say.

Eric: Aw.


Main Discussion: Ravenclaw House


Laura: Jumping on into our discussion, we figured we could start similar to how we started with previous House discussions about highlighting a passage from the Sorting Hat song. Micah, as the other resident Ravenclaw on the panel, would you want to read this passage?

Micah: Of course. I read it every night before I go to bed, actually.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: Just to remind myself how smart I am.

Eric: It’s a good affirmation.

Micah: “Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, if you’ve a ready mind, where those of wit and learning will always find their kind.”

Laura: This leads us to believe, of course, that we’re talking about a high degree of academic prowess, right? But as a Ravenclaw, I feel like that’s one of the only things that people seem to know about this particular House, so I wonder, to kick off this discussion, is Ravenclaw possibly the House that we know the least about?

Eric: This is interesting, because you know what my argument is going to be almost, Laura, about Hufflepuffs getting the short end of the stick and all that stuff.

Micah: You have a movie franchise, though, Eric.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: Well, yeah, not only that, there’s not… I mean, I think maybe Kennilworthy Whisp was a Ravenclaw, and he’s going to feature prominently in the Quidditch Through the Ages movie. But no, I think there’s something to be said for this question. I think that it’s quite possible, because they didn’t even get a Triwizard champion from their House. And the characters that we do know – Luna, Cho Chang – also are not very prominent at all, and it never really goes into what their habits are like at Hogwarts, what their personalities are like outside of the friend group that Harry is friends with them. So yeah, I think it could be. It could be that Ravenclaw is the one we know least about.

Andrew: We just hear that they’re intelligent in a hundred different ways throughout the series. For example, I found this little bit of info on the Ravenclaw page on Fandom.com; these are small little tidbits that you may have forgotten. “According to Slytherin prefect Gemma Farley, Ravenclaws were so competitive when it came to academic success that they were known to backstab each other, and likely other students, in order to get top marks. Meanwhile, Hufflepuff prefect Gabriel Truman noted that they were so proud of the success of famous members that they claimed any intelligent wizard as a member of Ravenclaw House…”

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: “… such as Bridget Wenlock, who was in fact a Hufflepuff.”

Eric: That’s right.

Andrew: [laughs] They’re taking credit for smart people even if they’re not in the House, which actually is not too intelligent. Now, of course, this Hufflepuff and this Slytherin could just be making things up or exaggerating the truth because House rivalries, but there’s probably some truth to this.

Laura: But remember, we talked about in the Slytherin episode that we felt like of all four Houses, Ravenclaw and Slytherin shared the most overlap if we were to look at Houses as duos, as Venn diagrams of each other. Micah, as a Ravenclaw, would you still agree with that statement in light of this little bit of info Andrew has presented?

Micah: Definitely, especially reading about the competitive nature; I think that’s something that would be both a trait of a Slytherin and a Ravenclaw. And I’d go back to… I know I mentioned that I was actually a Hatstall when I took the Pottermore quiz between Ravenclaw and Slytherin, but because I had identified all along as being a Ravenclaw, I stuck with Ravenclaw, but I could see traits of Slytherin in myself.

Eric: Well, which traits are those?

Micah: Cunning.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: I was slightly joking.

Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, I don’t see that for you.

[Eric laughs]

Micah: I think competition is something I would say probably all the Houses on some level could identify with, competitiveness, but coming at it from different angles.

Eric: Yeah, I agree with that. In trying to see the similarities between Ravenclaw and Slytherin, I get this impression of more introverted people. You think studious, but also just they get their energies from within as opposed to without. I spoke on our last House episode in Hufflepuff about how I feel that Hufflepuff House is very social, and I think that Gryffindors also have this need to be loud in a crowd, but I tend to think of Ravenclaws and Slytherins working the other way.

Laura: Yeah, I think that’s fair. I mean, I’m very much an introvert. Do not enjoy large social settings; they kind of freak me out. I would much prefer to be surrounded by a small group of people, much like this panel.

Micah: Yeah. And as far as Slytherin traits, I know one that we talked a lot about during that episode was ambition, and I feel like Ravenclaws could also have that trait shine through. Again, approaching it maybe from a somewhat different angle; being achievement-oriented certainly is a Slytherin trait, but you could look at it for Ravenclaws as coming from the perspective of wanting to do well academically. I definitely think that there’s some overlap that exists there.

Laura: Definitely. So based on this passage from the Sorting Hat song, it doesn’t seem that there’s any morality tied into why someone would be Sorted into Ravenclaw. It just seems if you’ve a ready mind, if you’re into wit and learning, you’ll always find your kind. So are we to assume that the point of Ravenclaw House is to group students together based on academic prowess, regardless of the morality behind their intent?

Eric: Well, if it’s the Sorting, it’s probably talking about potential academic prowess, right? Or what are the qualities that lead someone to have academic prowess or succeed academically; is it things like patience? Is it things like an ability… just kind of a with it-ness, an interest in the details? I think one of the categories, or one of the traits that I’d be looking for in a Ravenclaw is curiosity. This leads to the other type of Ravenclaw, the non-Cho Chang style, but more the Luna style of being curious about the world, of believing in things that are a little out of the ordinary. But curiosity, the best kinds of curiosity, also do come in the most studious people, because it’s wit and learning, but you have to have that inspiration to want to know more than you already do.

Micah: That’s really interesting.

Laura: Beautifully said.

Micah: There are times, though, too… and Laura, you called attention to the part here where it says, “find their kind.” There’s moments when Ravenclaw House is being talked about – and we’re going to get into another one a little bit later on – where it’s almost like they’re elitist and they look down upon the other Houses because of their level of intelligence, or presumed level of intelligence, I should say. There’s just something that rubs me the wrong way about it saying that they’ll “always find their kind.”

Andrew: It’s interesting you say that.

Laura: Me too. I hate this.

Andrew: Oh, okay. Well, I have a different way to approach this: I kind of took it as there’s a certain kinship between the Ravenclaws, and they just sort of naturally gravitate towards one another. I don’t know if the other Houses, the members of those Houses, have that. I kind of read this as like you naturally gravitate towards a Ravenclaw, whether or not you know that they’re a Ravenclaw.

Eric: I like that too. This seems the least cultish of all the ways that the Houses are described by the Hat. [laughs] But I’m curious in seeing what you guys find at fault with it. Why does it rub you the wrong way, Laura?

Laura: To me, it rings of elitism, and I think that it is possible to excel academically and do really well in that space without looking down your nose at other people. That is the brand of Ravenclawism, if you will, that I don’t particularly care for, and it’s part of what makes me wish that we saw more characterizations of Ravenclaws, that perhaps we had a movie franchise that featured a Ravenclaw so that we could rid ourselves of some of that stigma.

Eric: Well, I’m going to put out to WB that I’m available for Lockhart: The Series.

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: Is he the best representative?

Eric: Of Ravenclaw? I don’t know.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: It’s interesting because if we can… I know we’re going to talk about famous Ravenclaws and stuff, but two of the biggest villains, or two of the biggest, I should say, antagonists in Harry Potter, in Gilderoy Lockhart and in Professor Quirrell, were Ravenclaw, and that’s book canon; it’s said in the books. But with Quirrell, I think his pursuit of knowledge led to him, if I’m remembering correctly – this might have been said on Pottermore – but it led to him thinking that he could destroy Voldemort. He got really big in his britches, and was like, “I’m going to go find Voldemort, and I’m smart enough, I’ve studied enough, that I can defeat him.” And then he did find Voldemort, so he was smart enough, but Voldemort ended up playing him like a fiddle, and we all know what happened there. So I think that there’s some folly existent there. And Lockhart is not without that level of, I think, egotism as well, to a certain extent. I don’t think that it’s a trait of the House to be egotistical, but I think that they all have this in common, where they pursue knowledge, and the pursuit of knowledge has them, depending on whether or not they were successful at making their own goals, they are either down to earth or up in the clouds.

Laura: That’s an interesting point we’ll talk about in a few moments when we get to the Ravenclaw common room. But before we move on to a couple of other points, I wanted to ask: We know the Sorting Hat seriously considered putting Hermione into Ravenclaw. Why do we think it didn’t?

Micah: Harry needed her.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Oh, you went there.

Laura: Plot device.

Andrew: Yeah, it is a plot device. I think sometime on this show we should discuss how the series would have changed if Hermione was a Ravenclaw after all. But there is some bravery that Hermione carries with her, absolutely, throughout the books, so maybe that was a big aspect to it. Maybe… I don’t know. Could the Sorting Hat be like, “Hey, Harry is going to need some help; maybe I’ll put her over in Gryffindor”?

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Eric: The Sorting Hat is really just building its own cliques where it sees fit. “And they need comic relief; we’re going to get this Weasley there.”

Micah: I just think it’s wrong to make the assumption that just because Hermione is smart, that she should be in Ravenclaw.

Eric: Yeah, but she also read the entire school book list prior to arriving for year one.

Micah: Are you saying then that no students of ready mind or wit and learning can be in the other Houses? With some of the other famous witches and wizards we’ve discussed from Hufflepuff and from Slytherin, they definitely have those traits, so why not Hermione?

Eric: That’s right, yeah. Well, I think, too, that the argument I hear about Hermione all the time is it’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you value that chooses your Hogwarts House. So Hermione has that line in Book 1, “Books and cleverness! There are more important things, courage, bravery,” and that just goes to show that although she may be intellectually capable, good at reading, knows how to, she really is the kind of person that sees what the importance of standing up to injustice is, and that’s possibly what makes her Gryffindor. That’s what gives her that edge.

Laura: That’s a fair point.

Eric: So I wanted to say, before we continue, I have the question of what makes you guys Ravenclaws? You’ve talked about this a little bit beforehand, about being Ravenclaws, about thinking that you were one and then finding an alignment, but I’m really curious on this point. What are the traits that you think are most similar to you that you hear or see represented in the actions of the characters, versus which ones aren’t that way?

Micah: We’re smart as hell.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Micah does have a lot of books behind him.

Laura: Well, I’m curious to hear… Eric, I want to know what you and Andrew think first.

Micah: Yeah, I was going to flip it too, and that’s such a Ravenclaw thing to do.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: “Yeah, well, what do YOU think?” [laughs]

Laura: Using the Socratic method over here.

Andrew: Well, for starters, I mean, they’re both wearing glasses right now. That’s a sign of intelligence.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: I think they’re both very intelligent people.

Eric: The audience here may not know that Laura actually reads a book before breakfast every day, and that’s why I think she’s a good Ravenclaw. That’s pretty important.

Andrew: Damn. That reminds me of the founder of MuggleNet. He would read a book every day, wouldn’t he?

Laura: Yeah, I was going to say, I’m learning new information about myself right now.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Eric: And Micah is a Ravenclaw because his favorite color is blue. I said it. This all goes back to a third grade teacher, Mrs. Cameron, saying that he looked really nice in a blue sweater that he had, and so ever since then, he’s been real hooked on blue. And when he read Harry Potter, he was like, “Ah, that makes sense.”

Micah: Both Laura and I have eagle tattoos.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Yep. We actually got them at the same time. We got matching eagle tattoos.

Micah: And that’s another thing to talk about with Ravenclaw as well, because it’s such a Ravenclaw thing to be called Ravenclaw but then for your House emblem to be an eagle.

Eric: And then you need to explain it in this longwinded way of “Well, actually…”

Laura: Right.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Laura: No, it was funny because before we started this episode, I was talking about how much it irks me on the official merchandise that they oftentimes depict a raven as Ravenclaw’s mascot, as opposed to an eagle. It super gets on my nerves.

Eric: I feel like it’s a built-in test that Ravenclaw would do to suss out the people that are not Ravenclaws. But if that’s the test, then everyone in the Harry Potter merchandise world has failed it. It’s just obnoxious how many items in the parks… how can they be allowed to sell official merchandise with ravens on it? [laughs] It’s awful.

Micah: I also think, too – and it may not be the case for all Ravenclaws – but there is a strong desire to want to learn, and that could be more so from an academic sense. There’s just this eagerness, and that’s something that I associate with, but it doesn’t have to be true for everybody, because I think street smarts is just as important at times, if not more so, than book smarts.

Andrew: Do either of you really identify with a particular Ravenclaw? Maybe that can help us get a better sense.

Laura: For me personally, of the ones that we know and that we’ve spent a lot of time with, it would be Luna. And I wouldn’t say that I’m a lot like her per se, but I think that we share some qualities. I like to challenge myself, because we’re all human, so we’re all fallible, but I like to challenge myself. I like to challenge my own assumptions about things, and I think that somebody like Luna only gets to exist because she was brought up by people who were open to other possibilities outside of what’s considered the norm, right? So that’s something I try to push myself to do. Something else that I also really love – and I feel like Luna would really love, so maybe this is a Ravenclaw trait – I live for nuance. I love nuance. Nuance is one of my favorite words. I can’t think in a binary, for example. I could not be an engineer, because my brain does not go from point A to point B; it’s point A, but then to get to point B, there’s something really critical that has to happen later in point D that we haven’t even thought about yet. So I tend to think that perhaps it is a trait that Ravenclaws are maybe big picture people. I consider myself a big picture person.

Andrew: And Micah, which Ravenclaw do you identify with most?

Micah: Probably an Ollivander. I always just… we don’t know a whole lot about him, but he seems very much the studious type, the academic who built his entire career around one thing, and did it extremely, extremely well. He became the best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Micah: To what Laura was saying, I find myself ultra competitive at times when I don’t even understand why I’m being ultra competitive. I’m the person watching Jeopardy when people get happy for answering the $200 question, I’m like, “Why did you even bother saying that out loud? It’s not even worth our time.”

[Eric laughs]

Micah: Things like that.

Andrew: But it’s funny you say you’re ultra competitive. I don’t think I…

Micah: Low-key.

Andrew: In person, I don’t really ever see you being ultra competitive. You are in front of the television, I guess, is what you’re saying?

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Laura: So I have a question about that: Does your competitiveness manifest in a way that is different from how we might typically think of a competitive person looking? I know for me, for example, it is very important to me – and we can talk about whether or not this is a strength or a weakness a little bit later – it’s incredibly important to me to be seen as impressive or worthy to authority figures, so like my boss, teachers when I was in school. If I’m trying to achieve something major, whether it’s get a new job or, I don’t know, put together a discussion for a podcast, it’s really important to me that the people that I’m either working with or who are above me find the work that I’m producing to be of a certain quality, and so I can be a little hard on myself if I feel like I’ve done something that maybe doesn’t stack up to what is typically expected of me. So it’s almost like competing with myself in a weird way.

Micah: Yeah. No, I totally agree; the competitive edge can come through in many different ways, but I think in a lot of cases, for those who are Ravenclaws, it is a bit under the radar. It’s not as in your face. And the Jeopardy example would be more of one that’s in your face, but I feel like a competitive edge from a Gryffindor or a Slytherin would be more in your face than a Ravenclaw. Ravenclaw is just going to do it under the table, and it’s not going to be as… you’re not going to brag about it.

Laura: So it’s subtle.

Micah: Yeah, it’s subtle. And to your point about what you were saying with the work that you do, I find I’m the same way. I’m really analytical of myself, really detail-oriented in the work that I do, and to a fault at times, also; I’m not saying it’s always a positive trait, because I think sometimes it can actually inhibit you and prevent you from being a little bit more open-minded and doing things in different ways. You settle on doing things very specifically, and you’re not willing to deviate from those ways, so it’s not always a positive.

Laura: Oh, yeah. I don’t know, Micah, do you ever get dragged down a rabbit hole that you think is really important and you spend tons of time working on something that feels like it’s the right lead to be chasing, only for somebody to come to you and be like, “This is all really great information, but we want to consider this other context too”? So I think sometimes maybe we’re victims of our own tunnel vision.

Micah: Definitely.

Andrew: I found some other descriptions of Ravenclaws in the Ravenclaw welcome letter on Pottermore, which I think Eric cited the Hufflepuff one a couple weeks ago. Apparently, Ravenclaws “aren’t put off by people who march to a different tune; on the contrary, we value them… our people are the most individual – some might even call them eccentrics… Ravenclaws learn quickly…” they are “the cleverest, quirkiest, and most interesting House at Hogwarts,” and “Gryffindors haven’t got our intellectual curiosity.”

Eric: There’s that C-word, curiosity.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: And the elitism. Why Gryffindors in particular?

Andrew: Well, you know. They’re seen as the top dog.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: Well, and it’s all fun that they appreciate each other for marching to the beat of their own drum, but that’s already once they’ve made it into the club of the elites, right? Luna would not say that she has a tremendous time in Ravenclaw House, necessarily. She gets made fun of. She’s not allowed to participate in any of the other Ravenclaw games.

Micah: Well, I think this is actually a really good segue to us talking a bit about how the Ravenclaw common room is described. Eric, I think it’s going to hit on one of the points that you just mentioned. So the description of their common room reads, “The arched windows set into the walls of our circular common room look down at the school grounds…”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Ohh.

Micah: “… the lake, the Forbidden Forest, the Quidditch pitch, and the Herbology gardens. No other House in the school has such stunning views.” So what do we make of these words “look down”? Casual reference or more meaning?

Eric: They’re above it all. They’re above it. They’re better than.

Andrew: I wouldn’t read too far into this. Your common room sits up high. Your tower sits up high. That’s okay.

Laura: I think that there was intended meaning here. This really makes me think of the ivory tower stereotype you often hear thrown at academics who are maybe very lofty and in the clouds and not in touch with reality, with what the everyman is dealing with down amongst the rest of us mere mortals, so I think that it was a nod to that kind of stereotype. Does it necessarily mean that all Ravenclaws are elitist? Of course not. We have a perfect example of that in Luna, in somebody who’s decidedly not elitist. But I think that it was a fun allusion, similar to it was fun to put the Slytherins in the dungeons, it was fun to put the Hufflepuffs next to the kitchens, [laughs] and I don’t know what Gryffindor’s common room signifies. I don’t know if it was placed anywhere significant in the castle like the other three Houses.

Andrew: It was perfectly placed.

[Laura laughs]

Micah: Well, and Andrew, to answer your question, though, why not just say it looks “out” at the school grounds?

Andrew: Because the tower is so high that you have to look down. [laughs] I’m trying to defend it.

Eric: Well, I mean, Hufflepuffs by comparison… isn’t the Slytherin’s…? Aren’t they in the lake? They’re underneath with a view of the lake? And Hufflepuff is basically ground floor as well, very earthy…

Micah: And, by the way, I think it’s very Ravenclaw-like to be as critical of our own House as Laura and I are being on this podcast.

[Eric laughs]

Laura: Yeah, 100%.

Andrew: Fair.

Laura: See, that’s like… we are people who are critical of things because we care, right? That’s why I feel like… is it true to say Micah and I are the most critical of Harry Potter? [laughs] Because I’m wondering this now.

Andrew: I don’t know.

Eric: I think we all dish it.

Andrew: It depends on the context.

Micah: We’ve planned the best discussions by far.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Oh, high up in your tower.

Eric: And I wanted to say that, actually… I wanted to make sure when you were talking about being nervous and self-critical, I wanted to say what a fabulous discussion that you two have planned today.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: I just really want to put that out there.

Laura: Thank you, thank you.

Micah: Look, Andrew, Eric, if you’re cool with Laura and I looking down on you, then that’s fine by us.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: Well, I will say… look, I take Laura’s point, and I absolutely see how it could be seen that way, and I’ll just back it up now by adding just the way this whole passage is written is also very egotistical. “The eagle soars.” It’s very colorful language. “The eagle soars where others cannot climb.” The common room is “behind a door with an enchanted knocker. The arched windows set into the walls…” and like you said, “look down at the grounds.” “No other House in the school has such stunning views.” The whole thing is just very pompous. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah. And I looked up the other Sorting Hat songs; they’re very, very short for Ravenclaw, but Book 4 says, “For Ravenclaw, the cleverest would always be the best.” They actually said “the best.” And in Book 5, “Said Ravenclaw, ‘We’ll teach those whose intelligence is surest.'” So she’s kind of a purist.

Micah: That goes back to the point that we’ve made in the other episodes when we were talking about Slytherin and Hufflepuff, and just the fact that there are inherent biases in each of these Houses, no matter which House you’re talking about.

Eric: That’s a good point.

Laura: Yep. Well, while we talk about elitism, I think you’ll be happy to hear a little bit more about how Ravenclaws get into our common room. Micah, do you want to share?

[Eric laughs]

Micah: Yeah, Andrew touched on this a little bit, but the door to the Ravenclaw common room lies at the top of a tall, winding staircase. It has no handle, but an enchanted bronze knocker in the shape of an eagle. When you rap on the door, this knocker will ask you a question, and if you can answer it correctly, you’re allowed in. This simple barrier has kept out everyone but Ravenclaws for nearly a thousand years, a great bonding experience for students trying to figure out the answers.

Andrew: Security nightmare. Security nightmare!

[Eric laughs]

Micah: Can you imagine 50 kids outside of the… what if you forgot a book for class? You’re totally screwed. [laughs]

Eric: Oh, man.

Andrew: Well, and what are the questions? Are they specific to Ravenclaws, types of Ravenclaw, or Ravenclaw traits? Why can’t the other students get in from other Houses?

Laura: It definitely seems like a faulty security system, for sure.

Eric: Well, considering Gryffindors, where you just have to know a password, right, and they’ll let anybody in?

Andrew: Yeah. No, I know. Oh, we’ll complain about that one next week.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: This week, I’m wondering why it’s just a simple question. And they even have to say “a simple barrier,” which implies that – it could imply that – it’s not a very tough question.

Eric: I would get stuck. I would absolutely be…

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: No, really. The sphinx riddle from Book 4 just floored me. Meg had to explain it to me two years ago. It literally stumped me for like, 19 years.

Andrew: Eric, as the host of Quizzitch, you can’t say that. You have to pretend like you know all the answers to everything.

Eric: Oh, goodness!

Laura: It’s like Jeopardy.

Eric: Well, you know how some people didn’t get the sphinx riddle right away? “Spy-d-er” is kind of a little wonky? I feel like with the Ravenclaw common room, at least, the answer given that we see, “A circle has no beginning,” or “They go into non-existence, that is to say, all things,” blah, blah, blah, blah, that could be that… as long as you have a “well-reasoned” argument, like the door knocker compliments, I think it’s Luna, “well-reasoned,” you should be able to talk your way in. If you don’t have the answer, perhaps there are alternate answers to allow you in. So if you’ve forgotten a spell book, as long as you know generally how to showcase that you’ve thought about the question being asked, maybe that’s how you really get in in a rush.

Laura: Perhaps.

Micah: Doesn’t McGonagall get in at some point?

Eric: Yeah, and she and Flitwick, according to Pottermore, were going to be in each other’s Houses. McGonagall was a strong contender for Ravenclaw and Flitwick was that for Gryffindor. I believe that’s what it said.

Laura: Interesting. So I have to admit, I mean, I’m a pretty strong Ravenclaw, but this would stress me out if this was the barrier to entry to where I was living. I would be so nervous that I was going to be the dumb one in my House that couldn’t answer the questions, and that I would just be perpetually stuck outside. It would be crippling for me; my anxiety would just get the best of me.

Andrew: This type of technology needs to be created in the Muggle world, a smart lock for your front door that asks you a question using Amazon’s Echo, and then you have to answer correctly, and if you do, it’ll unlock for you. That’d be so fun!

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: But Laura, give yourself some credit. And Micah, too. You would both be able to answer these questions. They can’t be too difficult, because the students got to get in.

Eric: Right.

Micah: Can you imagine coming back from a long day of classes, maybe you had Quidditch practice, you had to stay out late for any number of reasons, and you just tiredly stumble back to the common room, and it throws out some crazy, quizzical question…

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: …and you’re just like, “Forget it. I’m going to sleep right on the floor, right here.”

Laura: Right here. [laughs]

Andrew: Or you just curse it out.

Eric: Well, there’s got to be safety in numbers, right? It’s like doing an escape room with five of your best friends; there can be discussion had, right? You can suss out the answer, and once one person goes through the door, the door is not going to immediately shut and everyone’s going to have to answer their own riddle. It doesn’t work that way.

Micah: True.

Andrew: And again, security nightmare. Somebody can pretend to be a Ravenclaw in this group of Ravenclaws and just go through with the rest of them.

Laura: Well, and I saw somebody in the Discord pointed out earlier, “I’m not going to waste time trying to figure out the password to the tower; I’m just going to scale the tower if I want to get in.”

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Andrew: Wouldn’t that be tougher? Physically tougher.

Laura: Or you can get on a broom and fly up there. That’s the thing that, I think, is the irony about where Ravenclaw’s common room is situated, because you would think that it’s this terribly hard feat to get into, but if you apply an ounce of common sense to it, if you really wanted to get in, you don’t need to go through the main entrance and answer a riddle. It’s a tower. There are windows.

[Eric laughs]

Micah: That look down on the grounds.

Andrew: Do the windows open, though? Hmm…

Eric: That’s a good question. Yeah, it could be like the steps to the girls’ dorms in Gryffindor. It could be like, “Nope, you can’t get in this way. You can only go out the windows.”

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: There you go.

Laura: The founders didn’t trust the other Houses. “They’ll try to get in.”

Eric: [laughs] Yeah. But I’m happy for them. I’m happy they have a good view of the clouds and the scenery and the landscape, to feel like they’ve been elevated, of sorts, among the Houses. I like that, kind of.

Andrew: A nice view is nice to have. People on House Hunters love nice views when they’re shopping for homes.

Laura: How much would you pay for Ravenclaw tower, Andrew?

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Andrew: As long as it also has a nice kitchen and granite countertops, hundreds of thousands of Galleons.

Laura: I don’t think granite was probably a thing at Hogwarts. [laughs]

Andrew: Fair.

Laura: We’ll be back to the show in just a moment, but first, I wanted to share a quick word from one of our sponsors.

[Ad break]

Micah: Really great Ravenclaw trait that LanceDance just pointed out in the Discord is that Ravenclaws have the best butts, walking up all them stairs all day, every day.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Fair.

Andrew: No need for a stair-stepper.

Laura: I think I would hate that so much. I hate the stair-stepper. So moving on, we wanted to talk about this stereotype of overly studious students, or Ravenclaws, if you will, having their noses stuck in a book. So I thought we could kick this off by asking what kinds of students did we consider ourselves to be during our schooling years? Were you studious? Were you a social butterfly? Were you the class clown? How would you categorize yourselves?

Andrew: I was somewhere in the middle. I never studied too hard. I definitely wasn’t the class clown. I was an outcast in middle school in particular; I kept to myself during all my schooling years, pretty much. I got some very bad grades at times, and I didn’t beat myself up over it too much, [laughs] and I dropped out of college, so I’m just kind of all over the place.

Eric: I was definitely more that class clown vibe. I did well in math and science, but I was more in school for, I don’t know, my own enjoyment necessarily. I did study hard at certain times when there was an importance placed on, like a test, but I was not in any AP classes, and I probably would have liked to have done… there was a AP World History type thing, and I think in retrospect, I really would have enjoyed that, but I did not apply myself enough in academia in order to be qualifiable for that class. One of my high school regrets. While education is free, folks, you’d better do it.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Micah, what about you? Did you have your nose in books all the time?

Micah: I wouldn’t say all the time, but I definitely wasn’t the class clown, and I definitely wasn’t overly social. I think if… I was just part of a group that was really ultra competitive when it came to academics, a group of friends, so that pushed me at times. And I wasn’t always the best, and I think that probably bothered me, but it all worked out okay in the end. I think it’s very stereotypical to say that Ravenclaws have their nose stuck in their books all the time.

Laura: I agree.

Micah: I don’t know that we really even see examples of that, to be honest with you. The most prominent Ravenclaw is Luna, and she moves to the beat of her own drum, right? She’s eccentric, like we were talking about earlier. I don’t know. Maybe when people think of Ravenclaws, they just think of the library filled with blue and gold and just… or blue and gray and just that’s where they are all day, every day.

Eric: It’s actually blue and bronze.

Micah: Oh, see? I don’t even know my House colors.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: Blue is what I care most about.

Laura: You failed the test, Micah.

Andrew: Fake member.

Eric: I’m sorry. Yeah, no, in the books, but again, that’s a movie-ism. They change it in the movies.

Micah: Well, being the elitist, I went for gold, because what’s bronze, really, at the end of the day?

Eric: Third place.

Micah: Third place, exactly.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: And Laura?

Laura: I was pretty studious, but I wouldn’t say that I was top of my class or anything like that. I always excelled in academics in the subject matters that I cared about, so for the subject matters that didn’t particularly appeal to me, I still tried to do well, but it resulted in me being an A/B student. I got A’s in all the things that I loved, and in the things that I didn’t care much for, I was more of a B/B+ kind of gal. And I think the same was true throughout my entire academic career. Even when I went to grad school, there were some classes that I just knew I couldn’t be bothered to expend energy on, but then there were other classes where I really, really tried and would work myself into a stupor trying to be good at. [laughs]

Andrew: Yeah, I feel that. When I really care about something, I will work hard, but if it’s something I don’t care about, if it’s a course I don’t care about, then I’m not going to try. For some reason the grades just weren’t worth it to me. Weren’t worth the stress.

Laura: Well, Micah, you raised an interesting question here about viewing Ravenclaws. We’ve talked about the other Houses as being spectrums, right? We’ve got the creative side of Ravenclaw versus the studious side. Can you tell us a little more about that and where you’re seeing those sides represented?

Micah: Yeah, I actually had copied this over from another document, so I’m not going to take credit for it.

Laura: Oh, excuse me.

Micah: I don’t know if it was Eric or Andrew who put it in there. See, I’m…

Eric: Yeah, you’re citing your sources. Look at you, man.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: Is he citing? Now he’s citing.

Eric: Well, he just said one of us did it.

Andrew: Plagiarizing isn’t very Ravenclaw of you, or is it?

Eric: I got caught for plagiarism once. Actually, it was a funny story.

[Andrew gasps]

Eric: I didn’t write the paper, but actually, it was my mom. And so when my science teacher said that my science fair project was plagiarized, it was my mom, who’s got her master’s and 48 credits, and yeah, my mom definitely didn’t plagiarize. It was one of those online software systems. But have you guys ever been caught for plagiarism?

Andrew and Laura: No.

Laura: I would never.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Because we totally got caught…

Micah: But hey, let’s admit to it live on air.

Eric: Well, no, we grew up in where you could just copy and paste people’s assignments into that website that does it.

Andrew: Right, yeah.

Eric: Our teachers would actively run those… and I’m assuming that’s just the norm now.

Laura: It is.

Andrew: I’ve cheated, but I haven’t plagiarized, no.

Laura: Y’all, you’ve got to be careful with this, because to be honest, half the time your teachers don’t even need a plagiarism checker to know when you’re plagiarizing.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Right, it’s just not you.

Laura: Yeah, I caught one of my students doing it one time. I knew from the first line of the paper that he didn’t write it, so sure enough, I googled that first sentence? Article came up.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Oh no.

Laura: Found the exact thing that he pulled it from. I was so mad.

Andrew: What grade was he?

Laura: He was in college.

Eric: Oh, okay.

Micah: Oooh.

Laura: Yeah. [laughs]

Andrew: Now, Eric, did your mom plagiarize or she just wrote it for you?

Eric: She wrote for me, but it came up on my teacher’s plagiarism detector, because there’s a fine line, isn’t there, between citing and paraphrasing? I think it was a paraphrasing issue. I think that it was a unique enough topic. It was whether plants grow with rock music… or no, that wasn’t the one. It was life on Mars.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: And so you’re using a scientific term, and this is 2001 or 2002 so I’m assuming there weren’t that many articles on life on Mars readily available, that kind of thing. So I think it was actually a disagreement in terms of how big to paraphrase, if I had to guess.

Andrew: Oh, okay.

Eric: I got a D. It was not great. [laughs]

Micah: No.

Laura: A D is pretty generous for plagiarism, though, I will say.

Eric: Well, thank you. Yes, that was very much shown to us as kids, as being the number one thing never to do, and I didn’t do it still to this day, so it’s totally fine. [laughs]

Micah: It’s the opposite, Laura, what you were talking about, that I experienced. One of the kids that I went to school with showed me a paper one time when we were in a high school where they literally wrote in the paper somewhere, “Mr. So-and-So is a bleeping bleep, bleep, bleep…” keep going, keep going, keep going. And he got like an A minus on it, [laughs] so clearly the teacher wasn’t reading.

Andrew: Wow.

Laura: He just didn’t read it.

Eric: Oh no…

Micah: It’s the opposite of plagiarism in this case, I guess.

Laura: Well, I mean, there are lazy people in every profession.

Andrew: And we here at MuggleCast do not endorse cheating, plagiarism, or any other form of…

Micah: Exactly.

Eric: Or even having your mom write papers. Don’t do it.

Micah: So Eric, I will just say that I borrowed a little bit of my Lockhart side for putting this question in the document, but I will give you credit for it.

Laura: There we go.

Micah: Yeah, so I think we’ve talked a lot about the studious side of being a Ravenclaw, but what about the creative side? What about Luna? I mean, is there anybody more creative in the entire Potter series than her, and the way that she just expresses herself and is authentically herself?

Eric: Right.

Laura: I don’t think so.

Andrew: It extends to her father too. I mean, The Quibbler is definitely a unique publication, [laughs] and there’s definitely some creative thinking going on there. But yeah, I mean, the big thing about Luna is she isn’t afraid to be herself, and at first, people are very put off by it. But of course, Harry, most of all, really comes around on Luna.

Eric: Yeah, she has also this blunt honesty, which if wielded by the wrong person, or a person who wanted to do harm, if wielded by anyone other than a Ravenclaw, I think would be very harmful. I think that if anyone’s hurt by something Luna said, it’s because they’re hurt by their own reflection, right? I think that there’s a weird, cutting part of Luna that is all about honesty and truthfulness, and when you hear the phrase “The truth will out,” it’ll come out, you think of Luna’s ability to pierce through all the BS.

Laura: 100%. And I think something that probably helps to set Luna apart from the other students, and it’s also something that allows her to relate to Harry – it’s ultimately the thing that tears down the wall Harry has built between himself and Luna – is the accidental death of her mother. She died doing a rare bit of magic that backfired on her, and Luna had to grow up in a household where taking that kind of risk was apparently something of an expectation, right? I mean, it’s why we see her being so willing to put her life on the line despite not being terribly close with Harry and the rest of the gang at that point in the series, because she felt she was doing what was right and what was asked of her in that moment, and I think that it’s probably a trait she gets from her mom.

Micah: And while she’s definitely a strong example of a creative Ravenclaw – I don’t know that we get a whole lot of insight into her studiousness – but there are certainly characters from Ravenclaw House where they use their wit to serve some really terrible purposes. I know, Laura, you noted that for both Quirrell as well as Lockhart.

Laura: Yeah. And I wonder, is the tipping point for Ravenclaws, is the weakness for Ravenclaws – that is, it’s our Achilles heel; it’s what can turn us potentially to the dark side or to towards nefarious intent – is our pride? And also how that intersects with a potential desire for power and influence, right? We saw that with Quirrell 100% – Micah, you touched on that earlier in the episode – but then you also see it with Lockhart. I mean, we don’t get to see him remain sane long enough to see which side of the wizarding war he would fall on, but we know that he was ultimately willing to wipe the memories of two 12-year-olds to save his reputation as this famously skilled wizard that he actually was not. He was taking credit for other people’s work the whole time.

Micah: Right. He was a fraud and very good at what he did, and it was probably the traits that he honed in Ravenclaw House that allowed him to do what he did, and I think he’s another example of a Peter Pettigrew from Gryffindor. We always talk about how, “Well, can you flip it on the other side?” And I know we’ll probably talk about him when we do our Gryffindor episode, but you could argue that courage comes in many different forms, and the courage to leave your friends and betray your friends and go and join the Dark Lord is certainly not the same as the courage that is shown by other characters in the series, but it’s still courage nonetheless, and so there’s another example of somebody using a House trait to do something that is not so good.

Andrew: That’s an interesting observation. I’m sure part of it, too, is their upbringing outside of Hogwarts that had these negative influences on them, but it’s making me think maybe we need some classes at Hogwarts to teach people how to use these traits of theirs for good. Maybe there needs to be specifically a Ravenclaw class about how you can use Ravenclaw traits to be a good person and why you shouldn’t be a you-know-what.

Eric: Right. I love that idea, like a Ravenclaw seminar type thing, or Gryffindor… yeah, like, “So you’re here; now what?”

Andrew: Right, what do you do with these traits? What do you do in this House that the Sorting Hat assigned to you?

Eric: I like that a lot.

Laura: Yeah. And I think this is a point that has come up in all of these discussions so far, and I’m sure it will continue to, but you can pervert any institution or the intent behind any positive cause or group simply because we’re human, and humans always manage to bring their own interpretations of things to the table. So it makes complete sense that someone like Quirrell would go off into the wilds of Albania hoping to get some real world experience so that his lessons are not just based in theory, and he decides once he’s there and once he’s found what he’s found, “I’m going to level up. I’m going to take this somewhere that nobody would have ever expected me to be able to go.”

Eric: That reminded me as well of that quote from Ollivander about You-Know-Who doing terrible things, but great, and even in that moment, Harry is like, “Harry wasn’t sure that he liked this person very much.” And it’s true, but at the same time, it comes from this being morally outside. There’s no morality to Ollivander; he is disturbingly calling Voldemort’s actions great, as in grandiose. He’s not wrong about that, but it’s so unmoored from something like a Gryffindor mentality of “Voldemort is bad, we’re good,” that it does unsettle you a bit, kind of like how Luna, a fellow Ravenclaw, also just unsettles you with the truth, Ollivander is similarly not tied down to any one morality, it would seem.

Micah: No.

Laura: Yeah, great point.

Micah: And even his line to Harry in Sorcerer’s Stone, “The wand chooses the wizard,” right? That’s such a Ravenclaw thing to say.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: You based your business off that tagline, but I’m sure you could have not played with somebody’s mind, like, “Oh.” Think about what that does to you psychologically, right? When you walk in at that tender age and you’re just, “Wait, wait, the wand is supposed to choose me? What if it’s not a good wand? What if I don’t get what my friend got?” But I don’t know. I’m just…

Eric: That’s a great… well, we all know the iPod chooses the customer, right?

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: Or the iPhone as well. That’s why I have just the XS and none of the Pros, right?

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: So we’ve talked a lot about the characters, right? We’ve mentioned Luna. We briefly mentioned Cho. Those are the two that really get the most airtime during the Potter series outside of Flitwick, being Head of House. But I’m wondering, with a lot of this other discussion that we’ve had, we’ve talked about Quirrell and Lockhart and Ollivander, if we would have known they were Ravenclaws, would our perspective of the House maybe have changed a little bit?

Eric: Could be.

Micah: Good, bad, indifferent. Doesn’t matter.

Eric: Yeah. I think the books would have had a serious problem with Ravenclaws, kind of like I spotted how all the Hufflepuffs were just very catty and horrible to Harry. If we would have known that Quirrell was a Ravenclaw, Lockhart, Ollivander, the books would have had a really big problem with snooty or self-interested individuals just either straight-up manipulating Harry or being too in pursuit of their own… not necessarily greatness, but proving to others that they’re great in order to endanger people. I think the books would have had a real big problem, because the only antithesis to that is somebody like Luna, who’s just there to live her life and is fine, but Luna cannot hold up the weight of everyone else that is working against either the side of good or just Harry.

Andrew: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting because we were just talking a couple weeks ago about how the tone is set for Hufflepuff very early on. If we found out in Book 1 that Quirrell was a Ravenclaw, if we found out in Book 2 that Lockhart was a Ravenclaw, that could have set a bad tone for Ravenclaw for the remainder of the series.

Laura: True.

Andrew: So maybe it was by design that they’re not mentioned, that their Houses aren’t mentioned. When did we hear it? Pottermore?

Micah: Pottermore.

Laura: Yeah, it was after the fact.

Eric: Yeah, I might have to go back on what I said earlier about it being book canon. I think it was Pottermore, yeah.

Micah: Because to your point, Andrew, it would’ve probably taken a lot of pressure off of Slytherin.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Because if you go through the first two books, and the DADA teacher is from Ravenclaw in both of those books, and Voldemort was on the back of his head in Book 1…

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Micah: … and in Book 2, he’s just a terrible professor.

Andrew: But then maybe there would have had to have been scenes where we’re hearing… Harry is being told, “Just because there’s a couple bad eggs in a House doesn’t mean everybody’s so bad,” and that would have been a good reminder for the reader as well when they’re thinking about Slytherin.

Eric: It just doesn’t mesh well with “There’s not a witch or wizard who went bad who wasn’t in Slytherin.” It’s a direct contradiction to that.

Laura: Right, but that’s also Hagrid’s perception, right?

Andrew: Yeah, Hagrid is just being a…

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: He was a little tipsy when he said that.

[Eric laughs]

Laura: But I think that it is an interesting thing to point out that perhaps intellectual elitism may have been a larger issue in this story if there hadn’t been the overarching issues of a war happening, of the classism that was at play, the discrimination that was at play based on blood status or whatever breed of magical creature you may have been. Perhaps if there had been less serious and life-threatening drama happening, Harry et al. would have had more time to be like, “Oh, the Ravenclaws are so obnoxious. They’re so snooty; they think they’re better than us.” Because with Ravenclaw, maybe you can make the assumption, or you can lean on the stereotype that they think they’re smarter than you, so they think they’re better than you, but I would argue that it’s way worse to think that you’re better than someone because of their blood status than it is to think you’re better than someone because of your intellect. Does that make sense?

Andrew: Well said. Yeah, definitely.

Laura: We should talk about the Grey Lady. She really captures something that I think is really interesting context on Ravenclaw herself. So we know the Grey Lady, Helena Ravenclaw, was the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw. We find out in Book 7 towards the end that the Grey Lady actually stole Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem, and Harry is, of course, shocked to learn that Rowena’s own daughter took this from her, but she added this additional bit of context. She said, “My mother, they say, never admitted that the diadem was gone, but pretended that she had it still. She concealed her loss, my dreadful betrayal, even from the other founders of Hogwarts.”

Eric: Yeah, fake it till you make it, or kind of like, nobody will know the difference, prove it… there’s an arrogance, but there’s also… and there’s pride, but there’s a lot of hurt for when your own child… when you suffer this betrayal. So she faked it convincingly from those even closest to her, but it came from this place she didn’t willingly decide to fake it out of just because she was going to be smart enough to pull it off, right? So she made the best of a bad situation.

Laura: I think that there had to be a level of embarrassment too. I mean, the creator of this tiara that effectively made you so much wittier and so much more clever, the person who originated all of the values that would come to make up the idea of Ravenclaw House did not foresee that her own daughter would be so threatened by her that she would try to steal the diadem. So I think there is an element of pride here; I think she was using her pride to shield herself from the embarrassment, from the judgment from the other founders, and also the fear of losing this thing that was so iconically hers, right? Wanting to conceal this tool of cleverness that she had all this time, to pretend she still had it, to give her whatever power or influence that she thought she had while that thing was in her possession, I would argue those were the things she didn’t want to let go of.

Andrew: FrumpyButSuperSmart said in our Discord, “Another symptom of Ravenclaw elitism: She literally made herself a crown.” [laughs]

Laura: Yeah. “I’m going to make myself a crown to make myself smarter.”

Eric: I would just go to Burger King and get the $1 paper crown that they gave with kids’ meals. I liked wearing that.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: That’s so Hufflepuff.

Andrew: Do they charge you a dollar for that piece of cardboard?

Eric: What? It was jewel-encrusted, or paper jewel-encrusted, but it was really nice.

Micah: In fairness, Slytherin created an entire chamber below the school with a horrible monster in it, and Gryffindor had a sword, so it’s… I get the whole crown thing, but… I mean, I guess Hufflepuff gets through unscathed here a little bit.

Andrew: Just a Burger King crown.

Laura: We should all want to be Hufflepuffs, remember? That was the lesson we learned.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Eric: That’s right. Paper crowns all the way.

Micah: Well, I thought we could talk a little bit about Cho as well, given that she was Harry’s real first love interest in the series.

Andrew: [emotionally] Yeah, she was.

[Eric laughs]

Micah: Interesting that Harry is drawn to Ravenclaw. Instead of being critical here, Laura did a really nice job of laying out the fact that Cho actually has some really good moments in the series.

Laura: Yeah, so I just want to highlight, yes, Cho makes a very big mistake in Book 5, right? But we have to remember that she comes across as a pretty genuinely kind person at other points in the series. I would also argue that much of the Cho hate in this fandom comes from Movie 5 changing the plot point about Marietta Edgecombe. We remember in the book, it was Cho’s friend Marietta who ratted out the DA, but in the film, they changed it so that it would be Cho as the person ratting the DA out.

Andrew: Good point.

Eric: Oh, I forgot about that.

Laura: Yeah, and I think that’s where a lot of the Cho hate comes from. I think it’s very undeserved. Eric, would you like to read this passage from Goblet of Fire where Harry is asking Cho to the ball?

Eric: [laughs] Oh, would I?

“‘Dā€™you ā€” dā€™you want to go to the ball with me?’ said Harry. Why did he have to go red now? Why?

‘Oh!’ said Cho, and she went red too. ‘Oh Harry, Iā€™m really sorry,’ and she truly looked it. ‘Iā€™ve already said Iā€™ll go with someone else.’

‘Oh,’ said Harry.

It was odd; a moment before his insides had been writhing like snakes, but suddenly he didnā€™t seem to have any insides at all.

‘Oh, okay,’ he said, ‘no problem.’

‘Iā€™m really sorry,’ she said again.”

Laura: This is a really genuine interaction. They’re both embarrassed.

Andrew: Cho is very kind about it.

Laura: But she genuinely seems sorry for needing to say no.

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Andrew: It’s a really good scene, actually, because I think we’ve all been in similar situations where we’re turned down for something, and I don’t think Cho could have handled it better other than saying, “Yes, I will go to the ball with you.” [laughs]

Eric: Right, yeah. If she’s booked up, yeah.

Andrew: Yeah, this is the next best way to handle it.

Laura: I agree.

Andrew: So yeah, you’ve got to give her props for this.

Laura: I’ll read another passage from Book 5, and this is when Cho and Harry meet in the owlery. She says, ā€œThat Umbridge womanā€™s foul. Putting you in detention just because you told the truth about how ā€” how ā€” how he died. Everyone heard about it, it was all over the school. You were really brave standing up to her like that.ā€ Again, I think these are the moments people forget about when it comes to Cho. I feel like Cho got done dirty here.

Andrew: Justice for Cho!

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Eric: Actually, as far as Harry being into Cho, I can’t get out of my head this… I don’t know if it’s a joke or discourse I read online, that was like, “Harry is only romantically interested in girls who could kick his ass at Quidditch.”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Because if you think about like, he’s into Ginny, and he’s into Cho, and they’re both on the Quidditch team, they’re both jocks… I really like that characterization of why Harry is interested in both of them. But yeah, Cho is very heartfelt, and just because we see more of her emotions on display… I’m always thinking of the Puddifoot’s tea scene when I’m thinking of Cho, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, and honestly, she’s been through trauma. I think Cho, as a character, has the difficult position in the books of reminding the readers that people and characters actually are suffering as a result of what is going on. Harry kind of goes with the flow the whole time, even when he’s right next to death’s door, and it’s only till Deathly Hallows that he really analyzes where he is, but Cho has to break down and mourn Cedric in a way that makes Harry just consistently uncomfortable, but it’s because that’s what gives the whole situation weight.

Laura: Yeah. And also, her wanting to be close to Harry, because he was the last person to be with Cedric when Cedric was alive, right? I think that a lot of the Cho hate is so undeserved because as you said, Eric, she’s gone through an incredible, immense trauma, and Harry does not have the emotional maturity at that point in the series to understand it, so he just thinks she’s kind of a whiny crybaby. But I think we all have to ask ourselves, how would we react in that kind of situation?

Micah: Yeah. It’s also interesting to me, too, that as you work through Goblet of Fire and then into Order of the Phoenix, you have basically Ravenclaws on opposite sides of Harry, right? Cho is on one side; Luna is on the other. One kind of falls out of favor with him; the other really becomes one of his best friends. And I just found that interesting that those two characters happen to be from the same House, whereas we don’t necessarily see that at all with Hufflepuff or with Slytherin.

Eric: That’s a good point.

Laura: I feel like that’s a good ring theory moment, too, because aren’t we first introduced to Cho in Prisoner of Azkaban?

Micah: Yeah, in Quidditch.

Laura: Yeah, and then to Luna in Order of the Phoenix, and they sort of swap, right? Because in Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry’s stomach is already doing flip-flops when he sees Cho out on the Quidditch field, and he sort of peaks with her, in a way. He really, really admires her, and then it just drops off so suddenly in Book 5, and that’s around the time that his admiration for Luna is starting to ascend. I like that point. That’s really cool.

Micah: Only a point a Ravenclaw would make.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: All right.

Laura: Well, we made it together, though.

Micah: We did. Two Ravenclaws.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Laura: Andrew…

Andrew: May I read this last quote?

Laura: Yeah, I’m wondering if you can read this. I feel like this gets into some of the nuance that I was talking about earlier.

Andrew: Yeah, so this is the scene about Marietta that Laura mentioned before.

“‘Sheā€™s a lovely person really,’ said Cho. ‘She just made a mistake ā€”’

Harry looked at her incredulously.

‘A lovely person who made a mistake? She sold us all out, including you!’

‘Well… we all got away, didnā€™t we?’ said Cho pleadingly. ‘You know, her mum works for the Ministry, itā€™s really difficult for her ā€”'”

Laura: So I want to know, is there an argument to be made in Marietta’s defense here? If we were Cho, would we try defending our friend in this case?

Eric: On paper, it’s fair. When you’re in it, when you’re in the books, when you’re in Harry’s Gryffindor mindset, there’s only good and evil. There’s only black and white. There is no nuance. She is a traitor, and Cho by extension is a traitor for seeing what Marietta did as anything other than the height of disaster, of betrayal.

Andrew: This is a tough one for me.

Micah: Yeah, it is. I think hindsight allows us to definitely be a little bit more sympathetic towards Cho in this moment. This is also her best friend, presumably, at the time, and you’d expect your best friend to defend you. And doesn’t Harry also make the point that other members of Dumbledore’s Army have family members who work for the Ministry too?

Eric and Laura: Yeah.

Eric: That’s a good point.

Laura: He makes that point about Ron.

Eric: And I forgot, Cho calls something Hermione did foul; was it the payback charm? Where she…

Laura: Yeah, the jinx.

Eric: Yeah, and then Harry is like, “Don’t insult my friend. I think she’s brilliant. I think Hermione is awesome, and I think Marietta got totally what she deserved!” This is a good walk into our Gryffindor discussion next week.

Laura: Right, yeah, which was the wrong thing to say if he was trying to win Cho back.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: No, and it’s gone. It’s done forever because Harry is too beetle-headed about this, and with the amount of pressure from the top that Dolores Umbridge was able to put on these children – they’re still 15 this year – there was always going to be a weak link. Just because it’s Marietta, just because it’s Cho’s friend, she has to bear the brunt of it, but there was always going to be a crack in… the weak link just happened to be a Ravenclaw. I don’t think that has anything to do with her House, and everything to do with the emotions and the very real considerations that somebody realistically would have as a member of the secret society in a school when secret societies are banned.

Laura: Yeah. I’ll also say, too, I think this could be somewhat of a Ravenclaw trait. I know for me, I will be very defensive of the people that I care about in these kinds of public contexts, if you will. So if somebody’s coming at my best friend about something they think my friend did wrong, and I think they’re out of line, I think that they’re taking it too far, I will rise to the occasion to defend my friend, even if I agree that my friend was wrong, because I feel like if anyone is going to tell my friend that they were wrong, it’s going to be me, and I’m doing that because I care.

Andrew: Yeah, right.

Micah: And was it just a movie-ism, too, that Veritaserum was used? Or did she use that on Marietta as well in the books? Do we…?

Eric: I think, don’t they fix it so that…?

Laura: I think that was a movie-ism.

Eric: Does Dumbledore and them all fix it so that Marietta can’t confess?

Laura: Yes, so Kingsley casts a spell on her in the moment so that she can’t confirm any of the information.

Micah: Oh, that’s right.

Laura: But if I recall correctly, I think the Veritaserum was a movie-ism.

Andrew: It’s a movie thing. Yeah, I just looked it up.

Micah: It’s all Dumbledore’s fault at the end of the day.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: Go easy on Dumbledore! That’s not right! I’m saying that because I saw a review recently saying we’re too hard on Dumbledore.

Eric: Well, Dumbledore is a Gryffindor, so we can get to that next week.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Yeah. Also, Dumbledore… he’s got his faults.

Andrew: No, that’s not true at all!

Laura: Sorry not sorry.

Micah: We could do a whole episode on that.

Laura: He’s simultaneously one of the best and worst characters in the Harry Potter books.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: That’s where he should be.

Andrew: All right, so we’ll wrap up our discussion on Ravenclaw in a moment. We’re going to talk about some other Ravenclaws quickly, and then I had an idea for a segment. I don’t know. Maybe we need to throw it out now, and I’ll discuss why when we get there. But first, it’s time for a word from this week’s sponsor.

[Ad break]

Laura: All right, Micah, let’s run through a few of the notable Ravenclaws that we didn’t get very much time to highlight today.

Micah: Yeah, so I think we can probably start with Padma Patil. We did mention Luna, we mentioned Cho, but Padma is certainly another one of the Ravenclaw characters that does come up fairly frequently. She’s probably most notable for taking Ron to the Yule Ball.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Laura: Poor thing.

Micah: Notice how I flipped that around there. I think it’s very interesting, too, that while she was Sorted into Ravenclaw, her sister – her twin sister – was Sorted into Gryffindor.

Eric: That’s right.

Andrew: I wonder what life would be like when your twin is in another Hogwarts House.

Eric: Yeah. She also became a prefect in her fifth year, so she was a Ravenclaw prefect that year, which speaks to her with it-ness.

Micah: I can’t imagine the riddles she had to come up with for the common room as a prefect.

Eric: Oh, God, do you think everybody gets a hard, higher-level riddle if they have a prefect badge on? That would be awful.

Micah: Or they’re responsible for coming up with some of those riddles.

Eric: Oh, yeah!

Laura: Then we also have Professor Trelawney.

Andrew: [imitating Trelawney] “Yes, you do! Yes, yes, yes, I am a Ravenclaw.”

[Laura laughs]

Eric: Kind of like Gilderoy in the fact that she was a big old fraud, but figured out a way to… well, mostly a fraud.

Micah: But is she fraud, though? She has an ability she can’t control, really.

Andrew: She didn’t think she was a fraud.

Eric: Well, I think she does think that she’s a fraud. I think nobody would be more surprised than Sybill herself to learn that she actually gave good intel, but Dumbledore, for strategic reasons, does not tell her that she did.

Andrew: Does she believe she is superior?

Eric: No.

Andrew: No?

Eric: But she’s… I don’t think so. She definitely interacts with the students in a way that suggests that she is very full of herself and very hoity-toity, but I think that that comes from a place of deep insecurity. I think that she, kind of like Lockhart, is of a “Fake it till you make it” type kind of mentality here, and I think that she learned everything that she could without herself really utilizing her gift. And yeah, so I think it’s a complete accident that she’s not a fraud, but I think that she’s behaving as if she is a fraud and has to conceal it from everyone by overacting and claiming to do all these amazing feats.

Laura: I do think that she can be a bit elitist when it comes to who she thinks is capable of performing in the field of Divination. So we absolutely see this with her, effectively, prejudice towards Firenze, right? When he starts teaching the subject. We see it in her reaction towards students who don’t gel with the subject. We see it in the way she treats Hermione, for example. I mean, the way that she is perfectly willing to tell a 13-year-old child that “Your soul is old and dry” and all of these horrible things.

Eric: [laughs] “You do not have the gift.”

Laura: Yeah. So I think that there’s some of that there. You could make an argument that it’s confined specifically to the field of Divination, though.

Micah: Yeah. It is somewhat disappointing, though, that so many of the Ravenclaws that we’re talking about here are considered to be frauds.

Andrew: Aww.

Micah: Though, I would say that if you look at, from a teaching standpoint, the cross section of subject, it’s also interesting that Ravenclaws are sort of the most diversified, right? You have Lockhart, who ends up teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. Quirrell taught Muggle Studies before becoming the DADA professor. Trelawney teaches Divination, and then Flitwick teaches Charms. So I don’t know if that has anything to do with their studious nature or that’s just a coincidence.

Eric: I think that’s a good point.

Micah: But speaking of Flitwick, Head of Ravenclaw House, and I think has a lot of cool moments throughout the course of the series.

Andrew: Yeah, overall good dude. Nobody’s got a complaint about Flitwick.

Eric: No.

Andrew: Except when his homework is too hard.

Laura: He’s a great choir director, too.

[Micah laughs]

Eric: And Charms are one of those subjects that when perfected… the coolest spells of all time are charms. They’re just… you can do really neat stuff with them.

Micah: Yeah, and was presumably a dueling champion back in his heyday.

Eric: That’s right!

Laura: Indeed.

Eric: He dueled people twice his size.

Micah: Another notable Ravenclaw to mention is Millicent Bagnold; she was the Minister for Magic when Harry defeated Voldemort the first time around. And I will say, for anybody who would make the argument that Ravenclaws do not like to party, she is known for saying, after Voldemort fell, that “I assert our inalienable right to party.”

Andrew: To parrrr-tay!

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: I never doubted Ravenclaws don’t party. I just look at Laura and Micah and I know they like to party.

Laura: That is true. I do like to party. I think we just enjoy indulging in a nice stiff drink now and again.

Eric: Oh, I was going to suggest that Ravenclaws were more the smoke and listen to jazz party, whereas Hufflepuffs the more drinking, and Gryffindor… but I won’t even complete that thought.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Micah: We like a good speakeasy.

Laura: Oh, yes, speakeasies are my favorite.

Andrew: Said everyone ever. That’s not a Ravenclaw trait, that’s just a cool thing to do.

Micah: Ah, geez.

[Eric laughs]

Laura: No, but real speakeasies.

Micah: But could you get in without us?

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Wow.

Andrew: Well, I don’t know. You guys don’t know the answer to a trivia question at your common room door, so how do you do with other doors?

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Micah: You bring Uric the oddball with you, and this is by far the strangest of any of the “notable” Ravenclaw House members.

Eric: It’s in the name.

Micah: He was a medieval wizard who was famous for his eccentric behavior, such as wearing a jellyfish as a hat…

Andrew: Fun.

Micah: … and sleeping in a room with 50 pet Augureys. He’s just weird, bottom line.

Eric: Huh.

Laura: Hence the name.

Micah: He’s the punchline for a lot of jokes. He seemed to be cool with it. And then finally, Ignatia Wildsmith, or as I like to call her, Ignatia “diagonalley” Wildsmith.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: She was the founder of – or the inventor, I should say – of Floo Powder.

Andrew: Fun, fun.

Eric: Oh. Very cool.

Micah: So finally an academic thing that we can get great for.

Eric and Laura: Yeah.

Eric: Honestly, that’s a bit surprising.

Laura: Not a fraud. We’re probably going to find out that she stole the idea from somebody. [laughs]

Eric: Oh my goodness. Probably a Hufflepuff who did all the hard work.

Micah: That’s the list. I mean, pretty much everybody else that we had on this list we talked about at some point during the episode.

Andrew: In our Hufflepuff and Slytherin episodes, we all said something nice about these Houses, and I thought since Ravenclaw and Gryffindor don’t need to be defended as badly as Hufflepuff and Slytherin do, we should say something critical of Ravenclaws here. However, I feel like we have been very critical of Ravenclaw throughout today’s discussion, so we can table this, but I want to say, I am very surprised by how critical Laura and Micah were of their House today, and now we’re going to need an episode dedicated to defending Ravenclaw! Look at this!

Laura: I mean, you shouldn’t be surprised. We say this on the show all the time: We are critical because we care.

Andrew: Right.

Laura: We care very much about our House. I think about any other item that we care about when we feel… great example is if something locally is happening, if a law is being passed, or your school board is doing something you disagree with, you’re not critical of those things because you hate your state or you hate your locality. You’re critical of them because you care about that thing and you want it to be the best version of itself that it can be. And that’s how I feel about Ravenclaw; I feel like we have not had enough positive representation of Ravenclaws as of yet. I hope that that changes.

Andrew: Fair, fair. Well, maybe we’ll get a TV show or movie about it one day. This new Hogwarts Legacy game, too; this is where we can right all the wrongs that we found.

[Eric laughs]

Micah: No, you’re right.

Andrew: Isn’t the tagline “Write your own destiny,” or something like that? “Write your own story”? It’s something like that.

Micah: I just don’t think it would have been… go back to what I said earlier, right? We are critical by nature. We are analytical by nature, so it would be odd for the episode to be anything but that. Doesn’t mean we don’t love our House. Maybe that’s part of the reason we do. Forget about Lockhart and Trelawney.

Eric: They give Ravenclaws a bad name.

Andrew: I’ll give Trelawney some credit. I don’t like being hard on her.

Laura: When you’re trying to think of positive representations of Ravenclaw, think about me and Micah.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: And Luna.

Eric: Yeah!

Andrew: Okaaayyy… sure…

[Laura laughs]

Eric: Hogwarts’s favorite graduates.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Put us in place. Please put us in place over Lockhart and Trelawney.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: All right, well, if you have any feedback about today’s discussion, you can email MuggleCast@gmail.com or use the contact form on MuggleCast.com. You can also record a voice memo on your phone and send that to MuggleCast@gmail.com. You can also call us, 1-920-368-4453; that’s 1-920-3-MUGGLE. We say it both ways because we’ve got to show off that our phone number has the word “Muggle” in it, but also we want to make it easy for you, so you get it both ways every week. We love getting your feedback; we can’t respond to it all, but we do read it all, and sometimes it makes it onto forthcoming Muggle Mail episodes.


Quizzitch


Andrew: All right, it’s time for Quizzitch!

[Quizzitch music plays]

Andrew: We need a new host now that Eric has admitted he’d fail at trivia questions at the Ravenclaw door.

Eric: Augh, yeah.

Andrew: [laughs] I’m kidding.

Eric: Okay, last week’s question – it was a tough one: In what books does Harry not directly interact with Draco Malfoy while on the Hogwarts Express? Let’s go through this. In Book 1, Scabbers bites Goyle when Malfoy is present. In Book 3, Draco comes in to make fun of Harry and sees that Lupin, a teacher, is there, and chickens out. In Book 4, he makes fun of Ron’s dress robes. In Book 5, he makes fun of being a prefect, and Harry says, “Ah, but I’m not a git.” And in Book 6, he smashes Harry’s nose. This means that the only books in which Harry does not interact with Draco during the Hogwarts Express is when he doesn’t get on the Hogwarts Express at all! The correct answer is Books 2 and 7.

Micah: He’s not on the Hogwarts Express in Book 7, right? Nor in Book 2.

Eric: Right, nor in Book 2, exactly.

Andrew: There you go.

Eric: So he interacts with Draco every time.

Andrew: I shudder to think what would have happened if he was on the train in Books 2 and 7.

Eric: Oh my goodness, yeah. So anyway…

Micah: Cormac McLaggen would have taken care of it since he showed up in the movie and shouldn’t have been there.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: Right, that’s right. Well, we actually had a fair amount of people who did get the correct answer. Congratulations to surely what must be these Ravenclaws: A lost packet of Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum; Annette the Hufflepuff; Bubotuber Pus; But I am the Chosen One; Countess Chocula; Frumpy But Super Smart; Helena deserved better; Hero with 1,000 fandoms; Marta Morgan; MustBeAWeasley92; Obscure Bloody Baron; Peeves Fanfic; Please say XXXX 10 times; The Dark Bort; Voldemort’s lost nose; What Is Your Name; and last but not least, “Give me your ramen, or else I will send the Monster Book of Monsters on you and Macnair and the Hufferhead common room.”

Andrew: Okay.

Eric: All right, next week’s question: On which floor at Hogwarts can you find the staircase that leads directly to the door to Ravenclaw’s common room?

Andrew: Fun!

Eric: Very specific Ravenclaw question.

Micah: Laura and I know the answer.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: I’ll look at my Lego set and I’ll let you know.

Micah: Yeah, you know, I was thinking one other thing here, because when we did the Slytherin episode, we kind of just honorarily inducted Cornelius Fudge into Slytherin House. I feel like we need to do that at least one time for Ravenclaw as well, and there was a character that came to mind that I looked up, but I couldn’t find anything for his House, and so I because we’ve had two really crappy Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers find their way into Ravenclaw House, I’m going to take Mad-Eye Moody for Ravenclaw.

Eric: Oh, I like that.

Laura: Yes. I can accept this headcanon. I love it.

Andrew: So it shall be written.

Micah: You have to say that in your Trelawney voice,

Andrew: [imitating Trelawney] “So it shall be written! So it shall be written…”

[Laura laughs]

Eric: We need a lightning/thunder sound effect.

[Andrew makes thunder noises]

Eric: Yeah. Submit your Quizzitch answer to us on the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or select “Quizzitch” from the main menu.

Andrew: After that, we would love your support at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. Our Patreon helps us keep the show running and growing, and in exchange for your support, you’ll receive bonus MuggleCast installments, access to our recording studio via a weekly livestream, early access to each episode, a personal video thank you message made just for you, and a whole lot more. Again, that’s Patreon.com/MuggleCast. Thank you so much for your support; we could not do this without you, and your support makes us feel good. So that does it for this week’s episode of MuggleCast. I’m Andrew.

Eric: I’m Eric.

Micah: I’m Micah.

Laura: and I’m Laura.

Andrew: Bye, everyone.

Laura and Micah: Bye.

Eric: Stay in school, kids. And write your own science fair project.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Transcript #527

Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #527, In Defense of Hufflepuff House


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.

Micah: And we’re in the right order this week.

Eric: I’m happy to fill that gap, you guys.

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Andrew: And what a change in tone. Oh yeah, Eric is back after he abstained from last week’s episode.

Eric: I absolutely abstained. But having listened to it, I’ve got to say, you guys did a tremendous job, and Tylor as a guest. You talked about the House that I just couldn’t bring myself to sympathize with.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: And you did a great job, and I think I learned a thing or two.

Andrew: Oh, good, good. Well, maybe for a couple of us on the panel, we’ll learn a thing or two today as well, because on today’s episode, following last week’s episode in which we defended Slytherin House, we will now be defending Hufflepuff, the House that was once referred to as having “a lot of duffers.” And like with last week’s episode, we’re hoping that this is a resource for those who want to know why Hufflepuff is no joke, so this is in defense of Hufflepuff. But before we get started, just a couple quick reminders: Make sure you’re following MuggleCast for free in your favorite podcast app, and leave us a review if they allow you to. Also, don’t forget to follow us on social media; we are @MuggleCast on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Follow us there. Hit us up if you have any thoughts about this episode, or any other episode. Also, very important, there’s one week left to become a patron at Patreon.com/MuggleCast and receive this year’s physical gift. You can receive the socks. You can receive the car. You can receive both if you pledge at the Slug Club level. Patreon.com/MuggleCast. And all patrons, don’t forget: You have to fill out that form by the end of August or we will not be able to send you your gift. So please, with peace and love, Patreon.com/MuggleCast. Become a patron today at the Dumbledore’s Army level or higher and you will receive this year’s physical gift.


Main Discussion: In defense of Hufflepuff House


Andrew: So Eric, let’s jump straight into the discussion today.

Eric: Absolutely. Well, one of my favorite things that you guys mentioned last week, and I think maybe Tylor was the first person to bring this up, but he talked about how J.K. Rowling started real bold in the Harry Potter books with Slytherins being very evil, and “There’s not a wizard or witch who went bad who wasn’t in Slytherin”; we all know that quote from Book 1. But Tylor said that J.K. Rowling kind of backed off towards the end and really tried to almost course correct, which is why in the later books like Book 6, we get Horace Slughorn, who’s objectively really not an evil character in any way. More nuanced. So funnily enough, as far as the Harry Potter books are concerned, J.K. Rowling kind of chose what she wanted to do with Hufflepuff and just kept going with it. Hufflepuff is the House in the books that’s picked last for kickball…

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: … and just contains some people that are really mean to Harry, and the only people that we love from this House die and don’t get to see their lives continue after the books go on. So it’s kind of… I don’t want to compare how slighted the House is compared to Slytherin because I think they both get flack, but I’m thrilled that we’re able to talk about Hufflepuff because Hufflepuff really is, I think, done a little dirty in the books themselves.

Laura: Agreed.

Andrew: Yeah, they get flack in different ways.

Eric: Yeah, so I thought we’d start off with a little bit of a fun segment. I’ve compiled the five most disparaging or damning lines involving Hufflepuff House.

Andrew: Uh-oh.

Eric: And this is my evidence, so to speak, that Hufflepuff is just treated very poorly by the author. [laughs]

Andrew: This is how we got here. Y’all wonder how we got here? This is how. [laughs]

Eric: Exactly. So Andrew, if you wouldn’t mind taking the first quote from Book 1.

Andrew: Sure. Sorcerer’s Stone, page 78. Draco says, “Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I’ll be in Slytherin, all our family have been – imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?”

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Andrew: So that’s the very first mention of Hufflepuff in the book, and it’s somebody saying, “I think I’d run far away from that House.” Not a good intro.

Micah: Setting it up for success.

Eric: Ugh. And he’s saying it to Harry, who for 11 years of his life didn’t know he was a wizard. And Harry is being asked wouldn’t he leave, if after all of that he finds out… he gets his spellbooks and everything, if he goes to Hogwarts and gets Sorted into Hufflepuff, wouldn’t you leave, Harry? I think I would.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Four pages later, here’s a quote from Hagrid. Micah, you want to take it?

Micah: Yes. So you can see almost immediately the influence that Draco has over Harry in terms of Hufflepuff. The quote starts from Hagrid saying, “School Houses. There’s four. Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o’ duffers, but-“, and then Harry says, “‘I bet I’m in Hufflepuff,’ said Harry gloomily.”

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Micah: “‘Better Hufflepuff then Slytherin,’ said Hagrid darkly. ‘There’s not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn’t in Slytherin. You-Know-Who was one.'”

Laura: And we know that’s not true. [laughs]

Eric: Well, that’s right. Yeah, Lockhart was a Ravenclaw, Quirrell, who’s the villain in this book, was a Ravenclaw, and Peter Pettigrew was a Gryffindor.

Laura: Exactly.

Eric: So Hagrid is a little narrow-minded here, but it’s just funny to me that Hagrid says, “Oh, better to be in Hufflepuff than in Slytherin,” but that’s not really a defense of Hufflepuff, at all.

Laura: No, it’s really not. It’s kind of like Hagrid saying, “It’s better for you to be a loser than to be evil, Harry.”

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: Exactly. And to top it all off, in Book 1 Hufflepuff does get fourth in the House Cup, and it’s not close; it’s by like, 70 points, and they’re fully 120 points behind everybody else, so it really just… the first Harry Potter book is not great to Hufflepuffs, and that is actually a trend that keeps going. We know in Book 2 after the Justin Finch-Fletchley incident – who is a Hufflepuff – Hufflepuffs kind of close rank against Harry, and the next quote is them gossiping, and Laura, I’d like you to take it.

Laura: Yeah, so this is a conversation between Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott – who’s someone who we actually focused on within the last few episodes – in Chamber of Secrets. And Ernie says, “Hannah, he’s a Parselmouth. Everyone knows that’s the mark of a Dark wizard. Have you ever heard of a decent one who could talk to snakes? They called Slytherin himself Serpent-tongue.” And then it says, “There was some heavy muttering at this, and Ernie went on. ‘Remember what was written on the wall? Enemies of the Heir, Beware. Potter had some sort of run-in with Filch. Next thing we know, Filch’s cat’s attacked. That first year, Creevey, was annoying Potter at the Quidditch match, taking pictures of him while he was lying in the mud. Next thing we know – Creevey’s been attacked.'” Then Hannah says, “‘He always seems so nice, though. And, well, he’s the one who made You-Know-Who disappear. He can’t be all bad, can he?’ Ernie lowered his voice mysteriously, the Hufflepuffs bent closer, and Harry edged nearer so that he could catch Ernie’s words.” And Ernie says, “No one knows how he survived that attack by You-Know-Who. I mean to say, he was only a baby when it happened. He should have been blasted into smithereens. Only a really powerful Dark wizard could have survived a curse like that.”

[Eric sighs]

Laura: Oh, Ernie.

Eric: Oh, Ernie. The information is not necessarily wrong – Harry is a Parselmouth, Harry defeated You-Know-Who – but the bias here, they just got it all wrong, you guys. And Harry actually confronts Ernie here, and it’s not good. Ernie is just like, “Oh, yeah? You want to prove you don’t hate Muggles? I heard you hate the Muggles you live with,” and it’s just meant to be this nail in the coffin of “You are this evil person and I know I’m right.” And it just feels sad because the Hufflepuffs are ganging up on Harry, but they just don’t really have it all right, they don’t have the facts, and they’re just mongering and… ugh. I feel really bad for my House when I see just how catty they can be, and it’s unfortunate they’re not really being intelligent about this.

Andrew: Yeah. Can we argue, though, that this type of behavior, this type of thinking was probably happening elsewhere around Hogwarts too? It wasn’t limited to Hufflepuff.

Laura: 100%.

Andrew: So at least there’s that.

Eric: I think that’s fair. Why I say this is a Hufflepuff trait is because it’s actually… Hufflepuffs value the social aspect of Houses, I think, more so than the other Houses. Their whole thing is society and talking with each other, and one of their big things is loyalty towards other Hufflepuffs, and so when they get… it’s like when you attack a badger, if you guys have seen that honey badger video on YouTube, like, ten years ago? If you attack a badger, you’ll get stung, or you’ll get crushed, so I think that this is a way of showing the negative side to that loyalty that Hufflepuffs have among each other.

Laura: Well, and I have to imagine that especially as a House – particularly this early on in the core Potter books – that takes so much flack and is given the social stigma of being the “loser” House or the “dumb” House or whatever adjective you want to put in there, I can see why that group of people would maybe be a little insular at times if they’re feeling threatened by outsiders, particularly given the unfair reputation that has been bestowed upon them.

Andrew: That’s a good point.

Eric: Well said.

Laura: And also, we have to point out Hannah is not convinced of this here. Hannah is trying to push back on it, so that’s a great trait. And I think, Eric, you have noted here that Justin Finch-Fletchley actually apologizes to Harry after all is said and done.

Eric: Yes, he apologizes apparently endlessly, it says, which… it’s Justin apologizing, not necessarily Ernie. But I think that they all… the problem is we aren’t also really seeing the good side of Hufflepuff, and this is the thing. It’s written in the books, but it’s not shown. Justin apologizing is just one of the hundred things that happen to Harry in the Great Hall that day, but we’re seeing and having to deal with Harry’s guilt and his witnessing of this gossip, and that portrays the Hufflepuffs as being very gossipy. They don’t have all the facts; they’re not smart enough to figure it out.

Micah: Right. Well, I don’t think Filch apologized, did he?

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: But I think this is the reaction, though, to a Housemate being attacked in some way, right? They’re defensive of their House, and I think had it been any other House, you probably would have seen similar conversation happen. Going back to the point that was raised earlier, it’s just that we get a glimpse into what the Hufflepuffs think in this moment, and it’s not great for them, because we don’t get to spend a whole lot of time with them, so we get these impressions of them. We just read from Sorcerer’s Stone what the general sentiment is, and now here we have them in Chamber of Secrets and they’re anti-Harry, so of course we’re not going to like them.

Eric: Right, exactly. And to find these quotes, I basically just did a find command on the ebooks and searched “Hufflepuff.” These are the only scenes that occur outside of Quidditch that feature the Hufflepuffs.

Andrew: Interesting.

Eric: They’re then the not great moments. So it is a bit rough, especially in the earlier books. And I thought with having a champion in Cedric Diggory in year four, we would maybe see more of a mutual support type of thing, but because Harry’s name is also pulled out of the Goblet of Fire, the Hufflepuffs, again, throughout the whole book… remember the “Potter stinks” badges? Cedric himself tries to downplay it kind of, but at the same time, the Hufflepuffs feel very slighted and threatened by Harry also being a Hogwarts champion, the second one, breaking the rules to do it, and so they’re not happy about it either. So this next quote comes from Goblet of Fire, page 293. This is right after Harry has been chosen as the other Hogwarts champion. It says, “The Hufflepuffs, who were usually on excellent terms with the Gryffindors, had turned remarkably cold toward the whole lot of them. One Herbology lesson was enough to demonstrate this. It was plain that the Hufflepuffs felt that Harry had stolen their champion’s glory; a feeling exacerbated, perhaps, by the fact that Hufflepuff House very rarely got any glory, and that Cedric was one of the few who had ever given them any, having beaten Gryffindor once at Quidditch. Ernie Macmillan and Justin Finch-Fletchley, with whom Harry normally got on very well, did not talk to him even though they were repotting Bouncing Bulbs at the same tray – though they did laugh rather unpleasantly when one of the Bouncing Bulbs wriggled free from Harry’s grip and smacked him hard in the face.” Come on, guys. It’s childish. “Harry even thought Professor Sprout seemed distant with him – but then, she was Head of Hufflepuff House.”

Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, and an adult.

Eric: Even the adults are… this kind of tribalism extends into adulthood. This is just… everyone’s disliking Harry.

Andrew: But we’re here to defend Hufflepuff, right? So I will say, I can definitely feel for the Hufflepuffs here because this was their moment. Cedric in the Triwizard Tournament, this was their time to shine. This was going to put Hufflepuff on the Marauder’s Map, and Harry steals the thunder.

Laura: [laughs] And think about how we feel, or even just the Internet responds anytime somebody gets out of their lane, if you will. I can understand that feeling, particularly if you’re a House that feels like you don’t get very much glory. And I will say, in defense of Professor Sprout, teaching is hard, and there are a million reasons she might have seemed distant that day, and it may have had nothing to do with the Triwizard Tournament at all. We’re also reading this from Harry’s point of view, so he’s had this negative interaction with two people who he previously thought he was friendly with, and that I could see setting the tone in his head that like, “Oh, everybody hates me now; even Professor Sprout hates me.” And that may not have been the case. It’s all Harry’s perception that we’re seeing.

Micah: Right. I think we talked about this when we did the episode on Professor Sprout. And to Laura’s point about Harry, seeing everything through Harry’s perspective, he’s probably really anxious in this moment, too; maybe just a little bit neurotic because of how everybody is perceiving him. And so it’s likely that perhaps Professor Sprout was just having a normal day and he’s looking at it just the wrong way.

Eric: Absolutely. And had these been isolated incidents and then there were other instances that we were shown where Hufflepuffs are friendly and amazing, then I’d be like, “Oh, Hufflepuffs aren’t maligned in the books at all.” But the fifth and final most disparaging moment about Hufflepuffs is from Order of the Phoenix. Who can forget the first ever Dumbledore’s Army pre-meet up with a one Zachariah Smith? Andrew?

Andrew: Yes, from page 340. He starts, “‘Where’s the proof You-Know-Who’s back?’ said the blond Hufflepuff player in a rather aggressive voice. ‘Well, Dumbledore believes it -‘ Hermione began. ‘You mean, Dumbledore believes him,’ said the blond boy, nodding at Harry. ‘Who are you?’ said Ron rather rudely.”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: “‘Zacharias Smith,’ said the boy, ‘and I think we’ve got the right to know exactly what makes him say You-Know-Who’s back.’ Zacharias said dismissively, ‘All Dumbledore told us last year was that Cedric Diggory got killed by You-Know-Who and that you brought Diggory’s body back to Hogwarts. He didn’t give us details, he didn’t tell us exactly how Diggory got murdered, I think we’d all like to know -‘” And he gets cut off.

Eric: [sighs] Yeah. Do you guys think Zacharias has a point in that he’s clearly entitled to some details, maybe? Or isn’t he? Dumbledore’s word as headmaster should be good enough for him, shouldn’t it?

Andrew: Yeah, but when something so huge like that happens, so tragic, losing a fellow student, you’re naturally going to want more answers when you’re grieving. So I understand where Zacharias is coming from from that perspective. However, this is probably not the time and place to get into this discussion. Maybe Zacharias could have reached out to Harry somewhere else, or he could have gone directly to Dumbledore, or maybe to Sprout. Sprout would know more information.

Eric: That’s true.

Laura: Yeah, I definitely understand where he’s coming from. Because we have to remember, Zacharias does not have the level of access to Dumbledore that Harry has, so I can understand why someone on the outside looking in might think, “Oh, Harry is Dumbledore’s golden boy. I don’t have access to those conversations. I don’t get the level of explanation that someone like Harry gets, and all I get to hear at the end of a year that was supposed to be a glory year for Hufflepuff is that our champion was murdered, and all we saw was that Harry Potter came back with the body.” I understand the suspicion.

Micah: Right. And I also think it’s important to put into context the age of Zacharias right now; he’s 15 years old. And to the point raised earlier, he’s most likely grieving, he’s most likely confused about what’s going on, and there’s probably a part of him, too, that just wants to be in the know. He wants information, and Dumbledore, Sprout, they probably should have set up grief counselors or people for these students to talk to instead of just treating it like another day at Hogwarts.

Laura: Well, yeah, and if you’re being asked to join something called Dumbledore’s army but the guy who’s the namesake of this didn’t really give any insight to anyone beyond that end of year speech, I can understand having a few questions. I think it’s completely valid to want to check your sources.

Eric: But because this is through Harry’s perspective – and even Ron and Hermione are having to sputter to defend Harry here – we just see Zacharias as a prick, right? Objectively, he’s got a point, or it’s fair to want to know more, but Harry is also not going to divulge that, especially in front of Cho. But also in general, Harry has no tolerance for being questioned in that manner, and when they’re all Harry’s friends here, and all of a sudden this Zacharias Smith – who is he? – comes up… so I guess my point in summarizing all of these quotes is just to say that Hufflepuff is the biggest antagonist to Harry, next to Slytherin. Anybody that’s giving… you just don’t have the Ravenclaws acting out like this. You don’t. Like, in none of the books.

Micah: It’s interesting, though, Eric, that you see this edginess from two characters that are both Hufflepuffs. You see it from Ernie first, and then you see it from Zacharias later on. And I don’t know, is that a quality of…? Not necessarily in a negative way, but just the edginess, the combativeness almost, in a way?

Eric: Yeah. Well, I’d say it goes to representation, right?

Micah: Don’t poke the badger.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Right, don’t poke the badger. Hannah Abbott seems nice, but she also doesn’t get her closeup the way Zacharias and Ernie do; we don’t find out about her or her thoughts or how her brain works. However, we are treated to the other two.

Micah: Right.

Eric: So it’s just an example of… these are the biggest excerpts involving Hufflepuffs in all seven Harry Potter books. So coming out of the book’s publication in 2007, I was not rushing to change House from Gryffindor to Hufflepuff. Nothing in the books themselves urged me to declare allegiance to the House where people gossip and give Harry crap.

Micah: [laughs] Maybe this is what happens, though, when you take all the rest. There’s just a weird cross section of students.

Andrew: Yeah, a hodgepodge. Well, I think to defend these attitudes that you see in these scenes, you could just argue that they’re standing up for what’s right. They just want answers. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Laura: Yeah, and they want to protect their own, right? Because again, we have this sense that the Hufflepuffs, they’re constantly treated like they’re in fourth place at Hogwarts all the time. That’s the brand that has been foisted upon them. And I understand why it would make you edgy, especially when a very near and dear member of your House is killed. I think if I were to put myself in the shoes of these characters and put myself in a mindset of being 15 years old and dealing with that, I don’t know that I would have the best reactions to this either.

Eric: So I love what you guys are saying, and I appreciate it because I think that we’re about to see different angles from Hufflepuffs other than the straight interpretation of what we see these characters do and say in the books, which is nice. So moving into kind of an overall, we’re going to talk about House traits like you guys did for Slytherin, which is really, really important. First, Micah, I see you have a point on Hufflepuff House in general.

Micah: This was something that came to mind when I was listening to our last episode on Slytherin. And I know, Andrew, you and I and Eric spoke about this a little bit last night. But I’m just wondering – and this is not necessarily how I feel – but I’m wondering, in the way that J.K. Rowling has come up with this name, what’s the first thing that we think of when we hear the name Hufflepuff? Does it sound a bit doofy to the rest of the group here?

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Andrew: And what’s “doofy” mean? Define “doofy.”

Micah: Silly. Not serious.

Andrew: Silly, yes.

Micah: If you think about the other names of the Houses, they inspire something, right? Just in the name itself, it’s very definitive, very solid. There’s no rhyming going on. It’s Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and then… Hufflepuff. It’s just not…

Andrew: Well, let’s start with…

Micah: Go ahead.

Andrew: Eric, what’s your point? Because I want to go off of this.

Eric: Well, I have the pleasure of actually remembering what I first thought of when I heard about Hufflepuff, which was the Tale of the Three Little Pigs.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down,” says the Wolf. And he’s, I don’t know, just blistering mad about what the pigs have done in shutting him out. So I just thought of a children’s fairy tale, which is like, okay, kind of fitting for a fantasy series involving kids, but also, the Big Bad Wolf gets his own. And also, you’re not supposed to aspire to be the Big Bad Wolf. And that’s not an accurate representation of what the kids in that House are, so…

Andrew: The name does sound flimsy to me. “I’ll blow your house down.” Maybe because I’m thinking of the Three Little Pigs, but “Huffle,” that’s not a word of strength. And “puff” is just blow. It’s a very flimsy, light name/word.

Micah: Right, so that’s why I wondered if in creating this name, that also lends itself to why there’s this stigma about Hufflepuff House, because the name itself fails to inspire any sort of confidence in even saying it. And I know we’re going to get a lot of emails for this…

Andrew: No.

Micah: … but I also looked up, just for some comparison, I happened across a few other translations of what Hufflepuff is like in other languages…

Andrew and Eric: Ooh.

Micah: … and I think some of them are a bit worse. I have two here to share with you. The first is French, “Poufsouffle.”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Oh my God. Could that be soufflƩ?

Micah: No, there’s no accent on the “e.”

Andrew and Eric: Okay.

Micah: At least in the ones, the versions that I saw. And then Welsh – and my Welsh is not going to be very good – but the way that it was phonetically spelled out was “hoof-tee-poof.”

Andrew: [laughs] Hoof-tee-poof.

Eric: Oh my God.

Micah: So if we think this is bad in English, it’s definitely worse in at least two other languages.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Oh my goodness. Hoof-tee-poof. Okay. All right, yeah. So if this was the experience reading the Harry Potter books when it first came out, and I think it was universally by everybody – I don’t want to speak for everybody – but I think that’s the general consensus. It wasn’t until a couple years later, like 2010-ish, where I felt that J.K. Rowling was really trying to right a wrong, or starting to tilt the other way. Because again, in the Harry Potter books we have Cedric Diggory, and also Nymphadora Tonks. Strangely, we don’t actually find out Tonks is a Hufflepuff until Pottermore, which happens years after the last book. But regardless, both of those heroes die. Cedric dies right away; doesn’t even get to duel Voldemort, dies. Tonks has a very depressing… she’s in her head all throughout Book 6, and then has a kid, and dies. So there’s no Hufflepuff heroes in the books. And that said, there’s this quote from J.K. Rowling, which it’s on YouTube. There’s a video of it. But she is talking about… she’s asked the question, “What would you say to people who are Sorted into Hufflepuff and are upset about it?”

Andrew: So the author said, “In many ways, Hufflepuff is my favorite House. Here’s my reasoning. There comes a point in the final book where each House has a choice whether or not to rise to a certain challenge. Everyone in the House. For reasons that are understandable, the Slytherins decide they’d rather not play. The Ravenclaws, some decide they will, some don’t. The Hufflepuffs, virtually to a person, stay, as do the Gryffindors. Now, the Gryffindors comprised of a lot of foolhardy and show-off-y people. That’s just how it is. There’s bravery, and there’s also showboating; sometimes the two go together. The Hufflepuffs stayed for a different reason. They weren’t trying to show off. They weren’t being reckless. That’s the essence of Hufflepuff House. My oldest child, my daughter, Jessica, said something very profound to me not very many days ago. She said to me, ‘I think we should all want to be Hufflepuffs.’ I can only say to you that I would not be too disappointed to be in that House.”

Eric: Well, how about that? Color me surprised. Color me yellow and black, actually.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: We should all want to be Hufflepuffs? But nothing in the book supports this except her interpretation of the events of the final battle.

Laura: Well, I think, too, we have to remember, again, we’re still seeing these events through Harry’s point of view, right? So Harry is not going to think of Gryffindors as show-off-y, right? Because he is a Gryffindor.

Eric: Right.

Laura: So I think it would be hard for Harry to maybe have this level of awareness about the qualities that make someone truly a Hufflepuff. I mean, bravery is a great thing, but bravery without loyalty, bravery without conscience can go the wrong way, right? And loyalty and conscience are things that Hufflepuffs have in droves, I would argue.

Eric: So it definitely… this interview, or this interview answer, and coupled with the Pottermore Sorting quiz, which I took and got Hufflepuff, were really, I think, the first steps that were being taken towards just healing the malignancy, or healing the opinion of Hufflepuff that might have come out of less than typical representation in the books; less than positive. Hufflepuff is the one House that Harry doesn’t go to the common room of. That’s neither here nor there, but when you look at it, and you’re like, “Oh, yeah, why did he never visit Hufflepuff?” It’s like, “Oh, were they not interesting enough? Were they not central enough to the plot? Because he went to all the other common rooms.” So it’s stuff like that.

Andrew: But they’re a bunch of duffers; that’s why he didn’t go.

Eric: They’re a bunch of duffers, yeah. He’s not going to want to go hang out with a lot of duffers, comfy seats or not.

Laura: And see, I think that he’s probably missing out, because we know Hufflepuff’s common room is near the kitchens.

Micah: Ron would love it. If he cared about Ron, he would have taken him there.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Yeah, I mean, we just… I feel like there’s probably a lot of good times he missed out on the Hufflepuff common room. They have an affinity for Herbology.

Andrew: Do the Hufflepuffs get all the leftover food at the end of each day?

Laura: Maybe.

Eric: Probably.

Laura: Because they’re nice. I could see the elves being like, “You guys are nice. Here, have all this leftover food.”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Yeah. “Don’t try to free us, but we’ll feed you.”

Micah: I used to love that at work because I was right by one of the really important conference rooms and so we used to get all the leftovers from all the catering that would go on.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Micah: It was fantastic, so I definitely wouldn’t mind being close to the kitchens.

Eric: It’s a sweet deal, yeah. Well, so let’s go back to basics: The Sorting Hat songs. What are the traits that actually on paper make up a Hufflepuff?

Andrew: Well, in year one, the Sorting Hat says,
“You might belong in Hufflepuff
Where they are just and loyal
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true
And unafraid of toil”

Eric: So, just.

Andrew: Just and loyal.

Eric: Strong sense of justice.

Andrew: Yeah. “Those patient…” so they’re patient. There’s a lot packed into these four lines.

Micah: But who are they loyal to? Themselves or everybody?

Andrew: I think anybody who places their trust in them. They’ll be loyal to any friend.

Micah: Except Harry.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Right, not Harry. Well, not after he attacks…

Andrew: Those were special circumstances.

Micah: Not until Deathly Hallows

Andrew: The Sorting Hat was going to get into how the Hufflepuffs would treat Harry, but he had to cut it for time.

Eric: [laughs] This is kind of what I’m getting at, saying Hufflepuff is the most social House though that loyalty, that kind of… they’ll be friends and they’ll be good friends to you type aspect is how I read that.

Micah: What I find interesting, too, is that Hufflepuff is really the House that does come around in the end. We just sat there and read quotes from four or five different books, and J.K. Rowling just talked about how it’s the Hufflepuffs who in the end stand next to the Gryffindors in the Battle of Hogwarts, and then you only have some of the Ravenclaws and really, none of the Slytherins. And so I think there was probably an expectation that it would be Slytherin that would do an about-face and maybe get Draco and some of his pals to join with Harry, but it’s actually like, in looking at this, it’s Hufflepuff that does come back in the end and stand as loyal to Gryffindor.

Laura: And honestly, there’s something to be said… and I think that sometimes where we get into trouble with having House discussions is it can be really easy to pigeonhole a whole group of people into a very short list of characteristics. I mean, we can dig into like we talked about with Slytherin; it is a spectrum, right? You’re going to find different people who represent Hufflepuff differently. I mean, Hepzibah Smith and Hannah Abbott are very different characters, right? But they’re both Hufflepuffs. So the follow-up to that is that it’s a special kind of personality that is able to admit when they were wrong. That’s exceedingly rare. Especially with online culture – think of Twitter culture – think about how hard it is for people to admit that they’ve had a change of heart or that they were wrong, or that they’ve changed their mind in the face of new information. I think that’s one of the things that makes Hufflepuff most special; I think that their North Star is the truth as they know it, and when that truth changes, or when it evolves, or when they learn more about what it means, what defines that truth, they continue following that North Star.

Andrew: Amen.

Eric: You’re right, that was a dynamite point.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: I love that a lot.

Andrew: In year four, the Sorting Hat says, “For Hufflepuff, hard workers were most worthy of admission.”

Eric: This line about hard workers… now, I think we can all agree that that is an amazing trait, right? For anyone to have. It’s really being able to put in the time. Patience was a trait earlier, but also, just being hardworking is a good quality. We would hate for people to be always apathetic or lethargic, because nothing in government or otherwise would actually get done.

Andrew: Right. Yeah, I mean, it can be really hard to be a self-starter. It’s not very common. Or just to be self-motivated, to get up and want to go to work. So I really admire Hufflepuffs for being hard workers, for not being lazy. That’s how I take this one.

Eric: Yeah. And it’s interesting to pair this alongside Slytherin’s ambition. Hufflepuffs are not characterized as ambitious people; that’s not what drives them the most. But the ability to do hard work… and they won’t always be, also, the most studious people. They aren’t the Ravenclaws. They’re not going to always be able to be academically as good, but they will do the hard work required to get to those places, to fulfill their dreams, while basically through merit, through actually doing the things. It’s very interesting to compare and contrast why a House would be said to be the hardworking House, comparatively, because everyone at school works hard.

Andrew: Not everyone.

Eric: Well, okay. Well, we’d like to believe that people work hard in each House, I’ll say.

Andrew: Okay, yeah. that’s fair.

Eric and Laura: Yeah.

Eric: So getting on to the only other Sorting Hat song we have, and this is a very interesting point about Hufflepuffs in education. Andrew, go ahead.

Andrew: Yeah, so in year five, the Hat says,
“Said Hufflepuff, ‘I’ll teach the lot
And treat them just the same’
Good Hufflepuff she took the rest,
And taught them all she knew.”

Eric: That’s huge.

Andrew: This is a big one.

Eric: So we have Salazar Slytherin, who says, “Those who are pure of blood, they’re the ones for me.” Gryffindor is like, “Yeah, loyal, brave, pure of heart. We’re going to do that. Totally. Gryffindor out.” And Ravenclaw is like, “Oh, the most studious, the smartest ones; I’m going to teach them.” And Hufflepuff is left with everyone else. But she doesn’t miss a beat; she says, “I’ll teach the lot and treat them just the same.” So I see a real almost ableism in the philosophies of the other founders, in comparison. When you’re talking about a magical school, I mean, these aren’t private individuals that are running a non-public academy here that can pick and choose students; you have the entire wizarding community of Britain, and they’re going to come to you because they need to be trained up. And Hufflepuff is the one that says, “I’m going to take everyone, I’m going to take everyone else, whoever doesn’t strictly fit into the other Houses, I’m going to take them.” And it’s really important when you’re talking about educating our children to have a no discrimination policy. Period.

Laura: Yeah, and it can be easier said than done. We are all subject to a level of bias, be it unconscious. And we’ll even just break it down to teaching a particular subject matter: If you routinely express favor for and admiration of and promotion of only the students who excel in the areas that resonate with you, then that’s not an inclusive way to run a classroom or a school. I’ve talked about this on the show a little bit before; I am formerly a teacher. I’ve been out of education as a field for several years at this point, so there are certainly current educators who would probably be far better to speak to this than I would. But running an inclusive environment is a constant work in progress, because we are all human beings, and we’re all fallible, and we’re all subject to confirmation bias as well, right? So if your favorite student is also really, really talented in your preferred field, then of course, you’re naturally going to gravitate towards that person. But as educators, we need to be careful to check ourselves and ensure that we’re affording the same level of opportunity to all students, and I think this is one of the areas where maybe the founders fell short. Even certain teachers at Hogwarts who really express a great preference for students who excel in their subject matter carry that unfortunate social phenomenon forward; it’s not anything new, certainly. But I think this is another thing that makes Hufflepuff very special, which is this idea that anyone can come into a school, and they may not fit this criteria of being pure of blood, they may not be brave, they may not be booksmart, but they still have a place at the school. They still deserve to be there, and they still deserve to receive the same education as everyone else, because maybe some of those qualities will come out in them later in their education.

Eric: Everyone’s 11, for crying out loud.

Laura: Exactly.

Andrew: Right.

Micah: I was going to say, when you were running through that checklist of criteria that some may be brave, some may be intellectuals, and it’s just we don’t know yet, but I do think it’s important that we’re looking through this lens now. But I don’t know that we would have necessarily looked at it this way when we were reading the book for the first time, and when kids read these books for the first time, because I think they might subscribe to more of a mentality like Hagrid had in viewing the Hufflepuffs as a bunch of duffers because of the way that J.K. Rowling positions Hufflepuff House in the sense that “Okay, well, Slytherin, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, they all had their pick, and Hufflepuff is just going to take the rest.”

Eric: Yeah, yeah. Again, being picked last for kickball.

Micah: Like you said earlier, Eric, picked last for kickball. It’s the perception that’s created around Hufflepuff House by the author; to me, that’s who really positions them in this type of light. But now that we’re reading it as adults, and we’re looking at these characteristics, these lines from the Sorting Hat… we did this with Slytherin, right? We deeply analyzed it last week through a different type of of lens, and I think that, yeah, it’s super important that she’s willing to just take the rest and treat them the same and give them the best education possible.

Andrew: Thank goodness for Hufflepuff. And I will add, we heard Rowling’s comments earlier. They don’t really mean much, because like you were just saying, Micah, kids are going to start reading these books today. As we speak, there are new readers, and they’re going to be reading this stuff. They might happen to go on YouTube and see a clip years down the road, but 100% of the Harry Potter readers are reading all the Hufflepuff hate in the books.

Eric: Right.

Andrew: So it’s kind of useless to years later say, “Oh, you know what? They’re not bad, and here’s why.” An interviewer just happens to ask her and then she finally clears the air.

Micah: And she puts it on her daughter, too. “My daughter said.”

Andrew: [laughs] Yeah. “And you know what? I didn’t even have this thought; my daughter did. She just happened to say it the other day.”

Eric: Well, and I mean, we didn’t mention this earlier, but the House ghost: the Fat Friar. We know how J.K. Rowling feels about fat characters in Harry Potter, too. It’s just one thing after the other. Like, why can’t they just call him Friar Tuck or something? Why is it Fat Friar?

Andrew: “The Friendly Friar.”

Eric: Yeah. He’s jovial about it; he’s rotund because he’s eaten well and lived a good life, right? That’s the part that doesn’t necessarily come across in the name. He could be the Friendly Friar, to your point.

Laura: Yeah, I feel like in that case, “Fat” and “Friendly” are used as interchangeable terms, whereas there are other cases in the book where the descriptor of somebody’s body dimensions may not necessarily be correlated with a positive personality or characteristic. But I think all of this conversation that we’re having about the reclaiming of Hogwarts Houses is what makes fandom so special, because fandom is really where this all got started. Fandom is what we have to thank for Hufflepuff pride, 100%.

Andrew: That’s so true. Actually, we should give a shout-out at some point during this episode to Puffs the Play, the Harry Potter stage play that is dedicated to Hufflepuffs, and it’s a love letter to Hufflepuffs. I believe somebody in our Discord who’s listening live right now, Beth, she’s listening live via our Patreon; she said, “I love that this episode is recorded one day after the two year anniversary of closing night for Puffs the Play.” [laughs]

Eric: Aww, that’s beautiful. Yeah, and I’ll say, too, the best people in life, I feel, have a good nature, a good spirit about… they can be a little self-deprecating. They don’t take themselves too seriously. No matter what your personality, I think it’s a good trait to have where you can laugh at yourself sometimes, and Puffs the Play very much carries on in that spirit with Hufflepuffs due to that stigma.

Laura: And I will say, something that I really like about these two episodes we’ve had back to back – we had our defense of Slytherin and now our defense of Hufflepuff – my partner is a Slytherin, and I said on last week’s episode, he’s the best person I know. My best friend is a Hufflepuff, and I’ve known her for more than half of my life at this point, and I can say with 100% certainty that my life is better because she’s been in it.

Andrew: Aww.

Laura: I know; you’re over there aww-ing. But she really exemplifies a lot of what we’re talking about today, because she wasn’t originally a Hufflepuff. She kind of adopted Hufflepuff and was adopted into Hufflepuff House, and she embraced it and really embodies a lot of what we’re talking about on the show today. So I consider myself lucky to have two of the most important people in my life represent Slytherin and Hufflepuff Houses.

Andrew and Eric: Aww.

Micah: And Eric.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: And I’m here too. I’m thrilled to be part of your life, Laura.

Laura: Obviously. I feel like it goes without saying; we do this together every week.

Eric: I know, I know. No, the feeling is mutual. So I’ve told the story on the show before, too, about how it was really the Pottermore welcome letter that made me… I was having a crisis after being Sorted on the old Pottermore, the original. I was like, “Oh my God, I got Hufflepuff. What am I going to do?”

Andrew: [laughs] Eric was on the floor, he was in tears, in the fetal position.

Eric: Yeah, like, “What’s going on?” It was like, “This can’t be right. I’m going to click ‘Next’ anyway. There’s a button that says ‘Next’; I’m going to click it.” And it wasn’t until I read – and right away it pops up – but really read and internalized the welcome letter that I thought, “Wow, okay. Not only is this me, but there are traits to Hufflepuffs that I haven’t previously thought about that I now feel very aligned with.” And I actually changed Houses. I felt comfortable. Some people were like, “Pottermore Sorted me as a Gryffindor. I know I’m a Ravenclaw. Screw Pottermore.” But I actually went through the trouble of admitting, “Yes, now I’m a Hufflepuff,” for many years.

Andrew: [laughs] Went through the trouble. And you went to the Wizarding World theme park and you bought the Hufflepuff crewneck sweater, and I was there that day buying a Slytherin one.

Eric: We both changed Houses at the same time!

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: I love that. Well, I didn’t do it because I wanted to be a badass; I did it because I was admitting that I was no longer a Gryffindor.

Micah: You both ditched Gryffindor.

Andrew: We did, we did. And we need a Gryffindor on this panel now maybe. [laughs]

Eric: So here’s some information and tidbits from that welcome letter. We’re not going to read the whole thing because it’s long, but it is fully available on the Internet, so I would recommend it. But in case anyone was wondering why the emblem is the badger – and I did mention that honey badger video, which you should absolutely see – but the welcome letter actually answers that question. “Our emblem is the badger, an animal that is often underestimated, because it lives quietly until attacked, but which, when provoked, can fight off animals much larger than itself, including wolves.” That’s actually pretty badass. The letter goes on to say, “Hufflepuff is certainly the least boastful House, but we’ve produced just as many brilliant witches and wizards as any other. We produce more than our fair share of powerful, brilliant, and daring witches and wizards, but just because we don’t shout about it, we don’t get the credit we deserve. Ravenclaws, in particular, assume that any outstanding achiever must have come from their House.”

Laura: [laughs] True.

Eric: I also think in this world that we live in, you’ve got to make noise to be heard, and that might not be in a Hufflepuff’s skillset or their… I often find this about myself; it’s like, although I talk a lot, I’m not always the most boastful person about my accomplishments, and I think that it’s caused others to succeed who were better than me at that.

Andrew: Okay. Are you taking credit for other people’s success because you didn’t brag about your own? [laughs] Is that what you’re saying?

Eric: No, no, not at all. That wasn’t a threat. I’m saying have you guys ever experienced people who are louder getting better, more recognition than you at anything?

Laura: Sure.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah.

Laura: I think a good way to think about this is who are you when you interview for a job? What does selling yourself look like when you’re interviewing for a job?

Andrew: Right.

Laura: And how comfortable are you with doing it?

Andrew: Or sometimes… there’s a common phrase, “It can’t hurt to ask.” Just ask a favor, or ask for a job. Ask something that might lead to greater things. That’s kind of what you’re talking about, Eric; you’d be surprised… some people are successful because they’re not afraid to ask. They’re not afraid to take that leap.

Eric: Right. Yeah, and I think the ambitious angle… if we’re talking about Slytherin being ambitious and Hufflepuff not, I lack some of those ambitious traits that would otherwise have me asking friends for help, or asking for a leg up or a way in or a foot under the door, the way you have to when you’re, for instance, seeking a new job.

Andrew: Right, I feel that.

Eric: So I just guess I’m saying I identify with that quieter aspect of Hufflepuff in terms of self-advocacy, but let no one ever say I’m not hardworking.

Andrew: That makes sense. I got you.

Laura: Right, and it can be hard to learn to advocate for yourself, because again, it is a learned skill. It’s not something any of us are born with. I think that – like all of these conversations about the Houses are going – it’s something that’s attained over time. There are some people who are more comfortable putting on that hat, and there’s some people who have to work a little harder to get there to get to that comfort level, but it doesn’t mean you can’t get there. Just means it’s not your default preference, right?

Eric: Yeah. Well, one thing that I’ll be interested in following in however many Fantastic Beasts films that we get remaining… that’s an open question.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: But with Newt Scamander, we see how brilliant he is and the love of animals is also this huge Hufflepuff trait now; that seems to be going really well. I know all Houses have pets, but it seems like Newt’s communion with animals is being portrayed as something to do with his Hufflepuff nature more than everything. His patience with learning what each of these animals need, his hard work in creating a housing environment for each of them in his case, all of that. But I’d like to make sure that whatever J.K. Rowling’s plans are for the future, that Newt does succeed not because he’s Dumbledore’s favorite. There was this thing where Dumbledore in Movie 2 put him in that position to be in New York at the time with Credence, etc., etc., and I’d like no more leg-ups from Dumbledore, please. I’d like to see Newt succeed because of his brilliance, and really get an actual Hufflepuff action hero.

Andrew: Yeah, that would be great. Justice for Hufflepuff.

Laura: I know.

Eric: Justice for Hufflepuff!

Micah: I think that might actually be a really nice segue. Similarly to how we started off, we’ll mention Helga Hufflepuff; I think that’s a pretty simple one to include. And then next up, we actually have a witch named Bridget Wenlock. So she was listed on Pottermore as being one of the most famous Hufflepuffs through the ages. She was a famous 13th century witch, celebrated for her skills in Arithmancy. Protective of her theorem, she wrote many of her ideas down in invisible ink, making them somewhat easy to misplace. Bridget was the first to discover the magical significance of the number seven.

Andrew: Well, that alone is super cool.

Laura: That’s big.

Eric: Probably due to being patient and taking your time and saying, “Hey, wait a minute. Everybody else is just using the number seven, but I’ve realized that the closer you look at this, there’s something here,” kind of a thing.

Micah: Cedric Diggory, we talked a little bit about him earlier in the episode.

Andrew: [imitating Amos Diggory] “My boy!”

[Eric an Laura laugh]

Micah: Amos, is that you?

Eric: I’ve got to say, when everyone else is upset with Harry for having his name out of the Goblet, and Igor Karkaroff and Madame Maxime are all blaming Dumbledore in the trophy room and Mad-Eye comes in, Cedric, to his credit, is not outraged. He does not say anything like “Surely this was cheating,” because Krum and Fleur absolutely do. But Cedric keeps quiet. He looks bemused. He’s just not gazing at Harry, because I think he thinks that something was amiss, but he’s not going to accuse Harry flat out, and he just stays quiet and waits for the adults to sort it out, and that’s exactly what happens, so bless Cedric.

Micah: He was probably just happy to have somebody along for the ride with him that he knew.

Eric: [laughs] Well, they certainly develop a friendship when it comes to giving each other the leg up on the competition. And I think by the end, when Harry recommends they both go for the cup, by that point, even then Cedric is not expecting that level of affection and friendship and trust, and he grins and then they go for it. A friend to the end.

Micah: Right. Laura, you mentioned Hepzibah Smith earlier, and if we were putting these characters on a spectrum, I think she might be at the far end of one just in terms of her nature. She’s definitely arrogant; she claims to have been one of the direct descendants of Helga Hufflepuff. She treats Hokey not very well. So if in fact she was in Hufflepuff, the traits of that House do not shine brightly through her. [laughs]

Laura: Yeah, she reminds me of Slughorn in some ways. I mean, we don’t get to see very much of her, but I think she just goes to show there are various dimensions that can be represented in each of these Houses. It’s like, there’s no one way to be a Hufflepuff, just like there’s no one way to be a Slytherin.

Eric: Well, and you mentioned the mistreatment of Hokey. A lot of that comes from her lack of self-awareness. She likes the drink, and she is not self-aware to realize that she’s being taken in by Tom Riddle, but then who is? A lot of people fall victim to Tom Riddle, but it’s uncomfortable reading the scene with Hepzibah in the memory when Dumbledore and Harry visit and see that she is a person who, quite easily by Voldemort’s standards, is being taken in and being victimized. Hepzibah Smith is another Hufflepuff victim, the way that Cedric is and the way that Tonks arguably is.

Micah: Right. And she’s certainly enamored with Tom Riddle, taken by him. But even putting that aside, she always gave me the feeling of just having been this upper class elitist type of individual.

Eric: Yeah, I agree.

Micah: So switching gears slightly, let’s talk about the brothers Scamander. Both Newt and Theseus were Hufflepuffs. I did not know this about Theseus until I was doing some research for the show.

Eric: That’s amazing. I like that a lot. I would have assumed Gryffindor for obvious reasons; he basically works as part of the magical defense squad, and he just seems more athletic and competent than his brother. He’s also a bit more headstrong; he’s chosen a side, whereas Newt has not. He’s less of a pacifist, I guess, is what I’m saying. So finding out that Theseus was in Hufflepuff speaks more to, I guess, the hardworking nature; he’s working in government and he’s putting in the hard work to get where he needs to be.

Laura: I think they’re both hardworking but in very different ways.

Andrew: And I mean, Newt by the end of the movie chooses a side.

Laura: Yep. Plot twist, he sides with Grindelwald.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: I’m kidding. I’m kidding.

Eric: Yeah, because killing Leta was something he’s like, “Thank you so much. I’m going to join you now.”

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: “I’ve been trying to do that forever.”

Eric: “One less thing I have to do.”

Micah: This would be another example, though, of J.K. Rowling trying to course correct. I know we’ve talked about it with Newt in the Fantastic Beasts series, but having another character, like Theseus, would certainly speak to that as well.

Andrew: Yeah, because I think we found out with the first movie. We didn’t know prior to that that he was a Hufflepuff, because we see he opens a suitcase and there’s a Hufflepuff scarf. Don’t quote me on that if that was the first time. We may have known before.

Micah: I don’t know that it was widely known. It may be if you looked it up online his House was listed, but good point.

Andrew: Right. Newt is bringing Hufflepuff mainstream with the Fantastic Beasts franchise.

Micah: Exactly. All right, we’ve done an entire episode on her: the Head of Hufflepuff House, Professor Sprout.

Eric: Love her.

Andrew: So see that episode for more.

Eric: Yep.

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Micah: How about Tonks? We talked a little bit about her earlier on in the episode. Surprised that she was in Hufflepuff?

Eric: No, I love it. But the one thing I’ll say… there’s a quote from Order of the Phoenix, page 170, where Tonks reveals why she was never a prefect. She says, “I was never a prefect myself. My Head of House said I lacked certain necessary qualities.” And Ginny bites; she says, “Like what? And Tonks says, “Like the ability to behave myself.”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: So Tonks has no self-restraint. She’s clumsy as all heck. What an addition to Hufflepuff. But then again, she works real hard with her innate gift of Metamorphmagus-ness, and she’s able to become an Auror, so that’s neat.

Andrew: And Tonks, a fan favorite character. She’s definitely given Hufflepuff a good name, I think.

Eric: Yeah. But again, not revealed to be a Hufflepuff. She just says, “My Head of House said I lacked certain qualities,” and it’s not revealed until… it’s actually a chat in December of 2007 with Time Magazine.

Andrew: See, again, this post-book “Oh, yeah, Hufflepuff.”

Eric: In the book, she could have been anything. She could have been Gryffindor. She could have been Slytherin, even. We just don’t know.

Micah: And for those who are wondering, the episode where we talked about Professor Sprout is Episode 513, so not that long ago where we talked about her. And then the last few listed here are some that maybe listeners have heard of; some maybe not. I honestly hadn’t heard of most of these. [laughs] But Hengist of Woodcroft, so this is the founder of Hogsmeade.

Andrew: Hardworking.

Micah: That’s cool enough in and of itself. Harry actually learns about him on the first trip on the Hogwarts Express; it’s on a Chocolate Frog Card.

Eric: Oh!

Laura: That’s cool.

Andrew: Hardworking.

Eric: He built a village, yeah.

Andrew: Welcoming of all, as long as you have a letter from your guardian.

[Eric laughs]

Laura: Yep. I mean, he created the only economy around Hogwarts, right? [laughs]

Micah: Yeah, yeah. And the only wizarding village for what, miles?

Andrew: Miles!

Eric: He probably had a Ravenclaw balance his books, I’m guessing. [laughs] But other than that, great guy.

Micah: So we also have left here two Ministers for Magic. The first is Grogan Stump. He began his duties back in 1811, particularly addressed the nomenclature of beings and beasts. He was an immensely popular Minister, one of probably the most popular Ministers in history. He decreed that a being was “any creature that has sufficient intelligence to understand the laws of the magical community and to bear a part of the responsibility in shaping those laws.” And by doing so, he settled a debate that had been going on in the wizarding world since the 14th century. Stump created the three divisions of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures: Beast, Being, and Spirit Divisions.

Eric: That’s incredibly important, just coming to some agreement, because this involves governing peoples with intelligence that need protection and need… or also to be left alone by the Ministry. That really sets in stone what will happen.

Micah: And worth saying, too, was the longest serving Minister, from 1811 to 1891, so 80 years.

Eric: So probably well-loved.

Micah: Pulling a Michael Bloomberg.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: And finally, we have Artemisia Lufkin. She was the first female Minister for Magic. It’s said that it’s likely that after her appointment, several of the oldest Wizengamot wizards stepped out of their positions in protest. She served as Minister for 13 years, being succeeded in the post by none other than Grogan Stump, who we just talked about.

Eric: Oh!

Andrew: Replaced by a man.

Micah: So back-to-back Hufflepuffs.

Andrew: [laughs] Back-to-back Hufflepuffs.

Laura: Nice.

Eric: I love that. I love that so much. Yeah, she’s a rabble-rouser.

Laura: Yeah, I know; I hear about all of these male Wizengamot members stepping down, I’m like, “Okay, bye.”

[Eric and Micah laugh]

Andrew: So like we did last week, I thought we should say a couple nice things about Hufflepuff House. Laura, I think what you said earlier is probably what you were going to say here, maybe?

Laura: Yeah.

Andrew: Okay, so I can start. So this conversation has definitely been very enlightening, and I appreciate sitting here and looking at this House for an hour. And I definitely gotta admit, I too have fallen into that trap of judging Hufflepuffs for being flimsy, for being a joke, because that’s what you hear online and I’m just going with the flow.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: But this conversation has been enlightening, and I, of course, would never want to judge anybody, except for those times in the past where I have. I haven’t really judged Hufflepuffs.

Eric: Hey, we’re all guilty. I’ve judged Hufflepuffs. It’s cool.

Andrew: Yeah, right. And then you got that Pottermore letter and you were like, “Oh, this is okay, I guess.”

Eric: I know, I know. I’m like, “Ooh, I probably can’t do that anymore. I can’t do that.” That’s cool.

Andrew: But what I was thinking about is that if Hufflepuff House will take the rest, then I’ll go ahead and say they’re as cool as anybody in the Harry Potter fandom. And the Harry Potter fandom is one of the most welcoming places that I’ve ever seen; it’s a group that definitely takes the rest. I mean, we’ve spoken about how the fandom consists of a lot of outcasts. So to me, Hufflepuff kind of is the Harry Potter fandom, and I of course adore the Harry Potter fandom. So my good thing to say about Hufflepuff is Hufflepuff equals Harry Potter fandom, and that makes me want to be a member of Hufflepuff.

Eric: Crushed it. Absolutely crushed it.

Laura: That’s beautiful.

Eric: Micah, do you have a nice thing to say?

Micah: Eric. That’s all I have to say. Just Eric.

Eric: Aw.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: Thank you, I guess.

Micah: It’s hard, between Laura talking about her best friend, and Andrew, this comparison that he just drew. But I would almost say something similar to what I said about Slytherin last week, which is just it’s important to remove the label of the House and just look at the people. And as you said, Andrew, about the community being so welcoming, it is really about fandom at the end of the day. It’s the fandom that really makes these Houses what they are, and I think you can find great people in any of those Houses, great friends. We certainly have.

Eric: Yeah. Well, and on that note, I’ll just say my piece, which is we’ve talked about this, that Hufflepuffs have a lot of good qualities that you would want in a friend. So if you think about a friend of yours that you have – Laura, in your case, it is your best friend – think about why you’re friends with this person, what traits they embody that you like about them, whether they’re reliable, thoughtful, careful… these are Hufflepuff traits. If you have a very good friend, the chances are they have at the very least qualities… you can trust a Hufflepuff, and these are the qualities that everyone needs. You need a friend to support you and encourage you in life, in your life journey, and that is something toward what Hufflepuff’s essence truly is.

Andrew: Well said as well.

Eric: Love it.

Andrew: We also received some feedback from listeners on our social media channels. We said, “What are some good things about Hufflepuffs?” Caroline said, “Hufflepuffs can do everything the other Houses do, they just don’t brag about it.” I like that. “Also, Hufflepuffs value the most important things in their short spectacular life – relationships and community.” She’s saying short lives because of Cedric, or…?

Eric: Probably. Yeah, we’re destined to die, “Kill the spare,” step over our corpse.

Andrew: [laughs] Petra said, “They’re the most welcoming House. Not racist or elitist. Lets kids grow on their own terms without peer pressure and molding them to live up to an antic obsolete standard. Hufflepuff rules and is the most modern House there is.” Carina said, “Tonks. Need I say more?”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: ForeverLana said, “Hufflepuff House is so precious to me. There’s something so healthy about having a Head of House that helps magical plants grow.” That’s beautiful, Lana. “I’m sure Sprout led with kindness and nurturing, but with a realistic viewpoint that isn’t idealized.” Very well said. And then finally, I liked this comment from James too. He said, “Of all the students, the Goblet of Fire chose Cedric, a Hufflepuff, to represent the school in the Triwizard Tournament. Signed, your friendly neighborhood Gryffindor.” [laughs] So thank you, Gryffindor, for coming forward and speaking up for Hufflepuff.

Eric: Yeah, yeah, thank you. [laughs] I feel really good about that discussion, guys.

Andrew: Yeah, so that’s our defense of Hufflepuff. If anybody has any feedback about it, send it on in, MuggleCast@gmail.com, or you can use the contact form on MuggleCast.com. You can also call us, 1-920-3-MUGGLE. That’s 1-920-368-4453. You can also record a voice memo, keep the message about a minute long, and send that to MuggleCast@gmail.com, and we’ll have a Muggle Mail episode in the weeks ahead. And by the way, we’ve been enjoying these House-focused discussions so much that we are going to do Gryffindor and Ravenclaw episodes in the coming weeks. Not next week. Next week, we’re going back to Hogwarts, so we’ve got other stuff to talk about. We’ll have other fun. But then the two episodes after that, the current plan is right now to do Gryffindor and Ravenclaw episodes. So there’ll be some nice symmetry there: two Houses, back to Hogwarts, another two Houses.

Eric: Love it.


Quizzitch


Andrew: Okay, it’s time for Quizzitch.

[Quizzitch music plays]

Eric: Last week’s question, asked so well by Micah in my absence: What living creature are both Marvolo Gaunt and Salazar Slytherin compared to in appearance?

Micah: Tough question.

Eric: Tough question. We heard from listener Morgan, who said, “It’s not a snake, is it? It seems like that would be an obvious answer, but I’m going to go for it anyway. Final answer: snake.”

Micah: Nope. Gotta go for the other Legends of the Hidden Temple emblem.

Eric: [laughs] That’s right, because the shrine of the silver monkey, everybody. The correct answer is monkey, a powerful, aged monkey. Interesting. Don’t know what Jo was going for in that; we’ll save it for another episode. Correct answers were submitted by the Dark Bort; Sherbet Lemon; A lost packet of Droobbles Best Blowing Gum; Petrifyingly Putrid Potter Plot Holes; Baby Yoda, Order of Merlin, first class… [laughs] … Harambe, hero to millions; TTV; Manda; DreamQuaffle; Dutch Harry Potter fan; Newt and Tina forever; and Cassie Sanders, among others.

Micah: Nice.

Eric: Next week’s question: What conceals the entrance to the Hufflepuff common room? You guys knew it was coming, a Hufflepuff question for next week.

Andrew: [laughs] Somebody must submit one of those alternate Hufflepuff translations that Micah brought up earlier as your name next week.

Eric: Yes.

Andrew: Peace and love. Thank you.

Eric: Them’s the rules.

Micah: Hoof-tee-poof.

Andrew: Thanks, everybody for listening to today’s episode. I’m Andrew.

Eric: I’m Eric.

Micah: I’m Micah.

Laura: And I’m Laura.

Andrew: Bye, everyone.

Laura: Bye.

Eric: Keep calm and badger on.

Micah: Where did you say we’re going next week, Andrew?

Andrew: Back to Hogwarts.

Micah: Choo-choo.

[Everyone laughs]

Transcript #526

 

MuggleCast 526 Transcript

 

Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #526, In Defense of Slytherin House


Show Intro


[Show music plays]

Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the wizarding world fandom. I’m Andrew.

[elongated pause]

Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.

Laura Tee: Am I’m Laura.

Andrew: I was like, “Is my Internet already busted?” [laughs]

Laura: Nope, we were waiting for Eric.

Micah: Between last week where I had to be like, “and I’m Micah,” and this week now I have to go second, I’m just all messed up.

[Andrew and Laura]

Andrew: Poor Micah. On today’s episode, we are going to do a deep dive into Slytherin House to discuss its history, legacy, and whether or not we think there can be a defense of Hogwarts’s bad House. This is actually the first half of a two-part series where we defend the Hogwarts Houses who catch the most flak in fandom; you can guess which House we are tackling next week. And to help us with today’s discussion, we’re joined by Tylor Starr. Tylor is a longtime member of the Harry Potter fandom. He is president of the wizarding world-inspired animal rights nonprofit The Protego Foundation, and co-host of The Chickpeeps podcast with actress Evanna Lynch. Hi, Tylor. Welcome to the show.

Tylor Starr: Hey, everyone. So excited to be on my favorite Harry Potter podcast. Let’s do this. Let’s defend the best House. [laughs]

Andrew: Oh my gosh, that is very nice of you. We appeared on The Chickpeeps podcast a few months back; it was an honor and so much fun, and ever since then, we’ve been itching to have Tylor on. Tylor is a huge, huge, huge Harry Potter fan, and as you could tell, a friend of the show as well. And it was so great seeing you today because it’s been a while since we’ve spoken, so we’re so excited to have you here.

Tylor: I know. We’re almost out of this pandemic, hopefully. Maybe. We’ll see. [laughs]

Andrew: Hopefully maybe, yes indeed. And Eric, he was so disgusted with this idea of defending Slytherin House that he wanted to abstain from the episode, so we were like, “Tylor, come on in!”

Laura: Wow.

Andrew: I’m kidding about Eric. Eric didn’t feel that way.

Laura: Are you sure?

Micah: Not really.

Andrew: It was just a coincidence that he couldn’t make today’s episode.

Micah: Uh-huh.

Laura: Does somebody need to sit out for the Hufflepuff defense, then?

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Yeah, I was going to say, we should have flipped it on him. Actually, Tylor, we’re talking about Hufflepuff today. We didn’t tell Eric, so this is all a ruse.

Andrew: Oh no!

[Laura laughs]

Tylor: Sweet. Nice. Can’t wait.

[Andrew and Tylor laugh]

Andrew: But Tylor, there’s something else I wanted to bring up with you.

Tylor: Yeah, go.

Andrew: Ever since speaking with you I think on The Chickpeeps podcast – maybe that’s where we initially heard this – your favorite character in the Harry Potter series is Lord Voldemort. Please explain.

Tylor: Yeah. [laughs] I don’t know what it is, but I’ve just always been a fan of really well-written villains. And in my humble opinion – I know nothing about writing – but at least for me growing up, I’ve always found Voldemort to be a very compelling and kind of, I don’t know, persuasive villain, somebody who I could be like, “Whoa, okay, I can see why some people would go with him.” But I love Voldemort; I think his entire story, his backstory, how he was conceived, the emotions that he can and cannot feel… I think everything about him is just so well written, and that’s also why Half-Blood Prince is my favorite book, because that’s where we dive into Voldemort’s history and everything about that. But in addition to that, I also find that if the entire Harry Potter series is based on the idea that love really is the most powerful magic we have, Voldemort fills that role as the key antagonist, because his entire story and very existence gives us a peek into what that antithesis to that whole message even is. So I’m a big fan of the T-Riddle, and yeah, always will be.

Andrew: [laughs] Of the T-Riddle! I also have to observe that Tylor brought a wand to today’s recording, and he’s been brandishing it so far. Very nice touch. I think we need to do that. I don’t know why we haven’t.

Tylor: I can’t believe y’all don’t!

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: It seems like a no-brainer for us! What have we been thinking? And also, in case anybody didn’t realize, Tylor is in Slytherin House. That’s another big reason why we wanted to have him here today. So anyway, thank you for explaining that. Thank you for defending your love for T-Riddle, as you call him. [laughs]

Micah: Can we just borrow that and use that moving forward?

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: T-Riddle?

Tylor: Yeah, please. Take it. My small contribution to this wonderful show.

Laura: There you go.


Main Discussion: In defense of Slytherin House


Andrew: So Laura, you’re going to lead us through today’s discussion, actually, on Slytherin.

Laura: That’s right. Feels a little weird because I’m a Ravenclaw, but I like to think that Ravenclaws and Slytherins have quite a bit in common.

Tylor: Yep.

Laura: So I’m hoping that I do Slytherin House justice today. And I first wanted to say that I really love that we got to prime today’s conversation with Tylor’s take on why Voldemort is favorite character-worthy. It’s that level of nuance that I’m hoping we can carry into our main discussion about if we think there can be a defense of Slytherin House, and before we jump in, Micah, I was wondering if you could give us a reading from the Sorting Hat’s song in Book 1.

Micah: “Or perhaps in Slytherin
You’ll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means,
To achieve their ends.”

Laura: Perfect, thank you.

Micah: Minus the British accent. Sorry.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Yeah, that’s all right.

Andrew: You got the deep voice part right.

Laura: That’s the thing. I heard that there was some talk about having Micah maybe do ASMR on another podcast?

Tylor: Nice.

[Andrew laughs]

Tylor: I would subscribe for that.

Laura: I think a lot of people would.

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: But I do have a question for the panel about this passage: Do we feel this verse of the Sorting song sets Slytherins up to seem bad from the outset? Or do we think that our interpretations as readers were already set because of meeting Draco Malfoy before this?

Andrew: Ooh.

Tylor: Good question.

Andrew: I think Draco definitely played a role. There aren’t many opportunities to be told that there’s a lot of good people within Slytherin. In terms of the word “cunning,” too, I think if you look at just this little section right here, possibly the worst word you could find here is “cunning.” And maybe people don’t think too far into it, so they just add up all the pieces and there’s a bad picture being painted here.

Micah: I would say even worse than that are the two words – or three words, actually – “use any means.” That gives you a pretty good insight into who they are going to ultimately become.

Tylor: See, I have a bit of a different reaction when I see this part of the song, and I think the two worst words, or worst-seeming words, in this little passage are “real friends.” It sets up the reader to think, “Oh, Slytherins are surrounded by people who are fake friends, but within their own House they have their real friends, so what are they doing with these fake friends?” And it kind of plays up the idea of using someone, right? That’s how I’ve always read that part of the song as, like, “Ah, real friends; that’s the bad part.” And throughout the entire Harry Potter… well, at least this first book, right? I subscribe to the idea that the author was going through and she was very much like, “Oh, I just have to have a bad House. I have to have the bad guys of the story, because this is going to be a kid’s book, right? There aren’t going to be a lot of deep adult themes, so we just need a bad guy.” But hopefully, as we’ll go through the rest of the books in this discussion… but I think she had to pull back on that idea, and so when we get this song, it’s like, “Oh, I’m setting this up as this is the bad House. These are the bad guys.” And then she walks it back a little bit. And anyway, I think the terms “real friends” are the sketchy ones.

Laura: It’s so interesting you say that because when I read that, I get some of that, but it also makes me think of isolation, and it makes me feel like the Sorting Hat here is setting Slytherin up to be the odd man out, as it were. Like, yeah, these are the good Houses, they all have varying different degrees of quality that you can quibble about amongst yourselves, but this is definitely the one that sticks out. It’s the odd one in the bunch. So I feel like the Sorting Hat is in a way setting Slytherins up to seem like it’s either… it’s a protagonist or antagonist-like type view, depending on what you’re walking into that Sorting ceremony with, what your family’s background is, what information you’ve been provided with about the Hogwarts Houses… so you’re going to read into this exactly what you want to see. I actually think that’s kind of dangerous that the Sorting Hat does this.

[Andrew laughs]

Tylor: What a jerk.

Micah: And going back to what Andrew had said about the cunning part of it, I think that initially when you read it, you’re meant to think that cunning implies they’re tricksters and they’re going to do whatever is necessary in order to achieve their ends. But I think if you look at it after seven books, or even as a little bit older, you can look at it, “Well, they’re a bit more intellectual,” and looking at cunning as a little bit of a different definition than maybe when you read it for the first time.

Laura and Tylor: Yeah.

Laura: Well, and we know that originally the founders were all great friends; the Sorting Hat tells us about this in the Sorting song in Order of the Phoenix, but that Slytherin’s preference for Hogwarts to only accept students from pure-blood wizarding families ultimately drove this particular core four apart. Andrew, I’m wondering if you could read this passage from the Sorting Hat song in Book 5.

Andrew:
“And at last there came a morning
When old Slytherin departed
And though the fighting then died out,
He left us quite downhearted
And never since the founders four
Were whittled down the three
Have the Houses been united
As they once were meant to be.”

Laura: So obviously, the big legacy here for Slytherin that hangs over everything is his preference for only educating pure-blood wizards, and I think oftentimes, it causes discussions about Slytherin House to boil down to: Are they prejudiced or are they not prejudiced? And I’m wondering if there might be a little more nuance in this conversation in thinking about this. I think it goes without saying that there’s no context that justifies prejudice, but I also wonder if there could have been an additional layer in there somewhere that influenced Slytherin beyond his bigotry. So a common theory I’ve heard is that perhaps due to persecution of magical peoples by Muggles during the time, that might explain Slytherin’s preference, but I wanted to get y’all’s thoughts.

Tylor: I love this theory so much because to me, there are certain parts of both Grindelwald and Voldemort that I really do think is right in a certain way. Not dominance or ruling over Muggles and Muggle-born witches and wizards, but this idea that wizards in and of themselves are somewhat an oppressed class of people, right? They are living in shadow on purpose because they had to put in effect the International Statute of Secrecy to go into hiding and defend their people and protect their people from Muggle persecution that was happening. This fear that Muggles have of magic and of this ability that they don’t have has caused an entire class of people to hide within the shadows of our everyday lives, and I do think that there is something to be said about this idea of breaking free as a magical person and living your authentic life not in hiding, right? Why should they be so hidden away because of this fear and this persecution that has plagued the wizarding community for for decades, maybe even centuries? I love the idea that Salazar Slytherin was at one point maybe even a good person and had this idea, but through the retelling of this story, a giant game of telephone, and then with the introduction of the International Statute of Secrecy, that the wizarding community has viewed him as bad and painted him as this bigot. Now, there’s something to be said about whether or not there really are portraits of the Hogwarts founders within Hogwarts and that kind of thing, and whether that does capture who he is, because then you could get a sense of what he does truly believe. But I love this theory, and I wish that we could get a little bit more of that expansion and think about it as in maybe he was at one point really just trying to protect witches, wizards, and magical people.

Laura: Yeah, I think it’s possible, or maybe not, but at the end of the day we just don’t know. And what I find so fascinating about this discussion is if we think about it in a real world context, bigots and racists, they’re not born. You don’t spring into existence that way, right? Those are taught philosophies and ideologies, so presumably Slytherin must have gotten it from somewhere; we just don’t know where it was.

Micah: Yeah, and I wonder, too, how much of his own experience created this mindset? So going off what you were saying, Tylor, did he have any of his own personal experiences in his life with the Muggle community that made him adopt that type of philosophy? I’m also thinking about in the Fantastic Beasts series with Dumbledore, did a lot of his philosophy originate out of the fact that his sister was attacked by Muggles? So it may seem like a layer of protection that they’re trying to implement as opposed… or just something that grows into something that’s a little bit stronger than just the initial protection, right? It becomes this bias, it becomes this prejudice, and that’s when I think we see it as being taken as a step too far. But yeah, I definitely would have never even looked at it that way, so I like the fact that Laura, you and Tylor framed it in that context.

Andrew: Yeah. There’s no doubt that Muggles look down upon the idea of magic, right? So if we know that to be true, and we know to be true that Salazar wanted wizards to live openly, or just simply live and be accepted, then this theory can make sense.

Laura: Absolutely. I mean, people are more complicated than just you were born good or born bad, right? It’s interesting because that tends to be the rabbit hole we go down when we’re talking about Voldemort, like, is Voldemort’s issue nature versus nurture? And that’s a separate line of conversation, but at the same time, I think is one that we will see with some of the prominent Slytherins that we discuss a little bit later. I also wanted to point out, just because I was doing a little bit of reading, and this may be something that’s common knowledge – it wasn’t something I was aware of, or it’s not something I’ve been made aware of recently – but apparently, a distant descendant of Slytherin’s was one of the founders of Ilvermorny.

Andrew: Oh. I don’t know if I was aware of that.

Laura: Isolt…

Micah: Sayre?

Tylor: Oh, right.

Laura: Sayre, yeah, that’s the name. And I just think, again, it’s very interesting to point out that his legacy is not necessarily just his own, that there are other descendants and members of that family that have gone on to do great things.

Andrew: [imitating Ollivander] “Terrible, but great.”

[Micah laughs]

Laura: And she actually married a Pukwudgie.

Andrew: Oh!

Laura: If we’re assuming that Pukwudgies are the American equivalent of Hufflepuffs. There you go.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: More proof.

Tylor: And she was a Parselmouth too.

Laura: Ah, yeah.

Tylor: She was able to speak to that horned serpent. God, I completely forgot about all the Ilvermorny canon. I did want to also bring up how this whole situation is presented to us as the reader when it comes to Muggles, right? In the Harry Potter canon we’re taught the International Statute of Secrecy was brought about because wizard persecution, all these things, so we have this in our heads that “Hey, Muggles really, really, really hated the wizarding community.” And then we get Tales of Beedle the Bard and we get the story of the Wizard and the Hopping Pot, where the local community is literally begging for help. They don’t know that the person who’s helping them is a wizard, of course, but in the story, the son is walking down the street curing ails left and right, freely doing magic, but doing magic for good. And so I always find that that contrast between all the good that the wizarding community has done or could have done for the Muggle community, and the persecution that they face at the hands of the Muggle community, to be a really, really fun and nuanced and really invigorating conversation.

Laura: Well, I wanted to shift focus to… about 50… well, 50% of our panel today are Slytherins, which is great.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Andrew, I know in particular, you’re a Slytherin convert.

Andrew: Yes, I am.

Laura: So I’m wondering if you can tell us about why you switched Houses, and then Tylor, if you have something you’d like to add about your realization of what makes you a Slytherin, we’d love to hear that too.

Andrew: Yeah, so I started as a Gryffindor because it’s where you want to go; you want to be in Harry’s House and the trio’s House, so I think I just went there. And I think Pottermore told me Gryffindor, and I was pleased that Pottermore agreed with what I had thought all these years. But then come 2016; I was coming out of a multi-year relationship, and 2016 was also ending and 2017 – Micah is already laughing, I don’t know why, Micah – [laughs] 2017 was beginning, so I was entering a new year. I was like, “You know, my relationship’s over. New year, new me. You know what? I want to break free of the rules. I want a change of scene. I want to feel bad.” So I joined Slytherin and…

Micah: But bad in a good way. Like, baaad.

Andrew: Bad in a good way. Like, badass.

Tylor: Oh, okay. I was like, “Oh!”

Andrew: Yeah. And then I killed four people.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: No, I wanted to feel like a badass. Slytherin is cool. It feels cool to be a part of. So I just wanted a change of scene. So I literally… I remember the exact moment I decided to change my House. I was at the Wizarding World in Hollywood and I saw that Slytherin crewneck sweater and I was like, [snaps fingers] “That’s cool. I’m in.” [laughs]

Laura: That’s me.

Micah: So it was the sweater that did it.

Andrew: It was the sweater that did it. No, but you start… so that was really it for me. It was kind of just a fun change. But then I started thinking about it more; like we mentioned a few minutes ago, Slytherins are cunning. I feel that way. Slytherins are also described as clever and resourceful and determined. Check, check, check. These are things that I am, and I’m not perfect; trust me, I’m extremely flawed, but I really identify with some of the leading traits of Slytherin, and so… and even the one “a certain disregard for the rules,” as Dumbledore put it, as he heard about Salazar. [laughs]

Micah: Yeah, you’re such a rule breaker, let me tell you.

Andrew: I really can be, though. I really can be. Of course, I’m not about to go into that. I have never broken the law, for the record.

[Micah laughs]

Andrew: But sometimes I step around the rules a little bit to get things done.

Laura: You step around the law.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: So can we expect another change of House post-pandemic when you’re coming out of another big moment?

Andrew: [laughs] Not a breakup, though, right? Is that what you’re…?

Micah: No, no, no. Post-pandemic, like you got through the pandemic; you’re feeling… I don’t know, Hufflepuffy. [laughs]

Tylor: Like you’ve just emerged from your den?

Laura: There you go.

Micah: Got a tray of cookies or something.

Laura: Be like, “Yeah, I just want to bake some goods and make some friends. I think I’ll be a Hufflepuff now.”

Andrew: [laughs] No, yeah, I don’t think… I don’t see myself changing Houses again, unless I run into a really cool new piece of apparel at a Wizarding World theme park. [laughs]

Laura: There we go.

Andrew: Just to close this out, I want to say despite the story about the sweater, I’m very proud to be a part of Slytherin House. I really feel like I am a Slytherin.

Tylor: Good. We’re proud to have you.

Laura: What about you, Tylor?

Tylor: Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always identified as Slytherin. And I think once you get past the idea that we’re experiencing the wizarding world and the story through Harry’s eyes, so we’re not going to get every little bit of what it truly means to be a character in that House, once you get past that and you see Slytherin for what it is, a House that values ambition, determination, cunningness, staying true to the people who are important to you, that I think will start to resonate with a lot more people. Once you get past that hurdle of “Slytherin are the bad guys,” that surface-level understanding of it, you really do see that Slytherin has some really, really great qualities, and I saw that right away when I started. In this fandom back in 2000 was the idea that Slytherin is just ambitious, and that’s always been the one key trait about myself about others that I value the most is ambition, the desire to want to do something, and there’s no House that does it better than Slytherin, so I’ve been a very proud Slytherin ever since the beginning of this fandom.

Laura: That’s awesome. So for you it was more being able to maybe look past some of the greater interpretations about Slytherins and what it meant to be a Slytherin, and you were able to see a positive side of it. Andrew just wanted to be a badass.

Tylor: Yeah, exactly.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: He just wanted the sweater.

Tylor: Andrew wanted the leather jacket.

Andrew: [laughs] But I do see the positives now. I do.

Laura: Yeah, no, I’m just teasing.

Micah: Well, I mean, while we’re on the topic, when I did the Pottermore quiz, I was a Hatstall between Ravenclaw and Slytherin, so…

Tylor: Nice.

Andrew: But you had identified with Ravenclaw prior to taking that quiz, right?

Micah: I did.

Andrew: That’s why you picked it, okay. I wonder what would have happened if it was proposing either like, Gryffindor or Slytherin. Which would you have chosen?

Micah: Hmm. Slytherin.

Laura: Ooh.

Andrew: Oh, you would’ve?

Tylor: Good. There you go.

Laura: I think I would make the same choice, honestly.

Tylor: I always take those Sorting Hat tests that give you the percentage breakdown afterwards, that super, really long one, and for me, Slytherin was like, 98%.

Andrew: Whoa.

Tylor: It was huge. And then I took it another time and it was a little more even, but even between Slytherin and the next House, Ravenclaw, it was a good 40 point difference between the two.

Micah: Wow.

Andrew: Interesting. I need to take one of those.

Micah: Now that you say that, do you think that Ravenclaws would lean more towards being in Slytherin and Hufflepuffs more towards Gryffindor?

Laura: I think so.

Tylor: 100%.

Laura: Yeah, like I said at the top of the episode, I feel like there’s quite a bit of overlap between Ravenclaw and Slytherin in terms of the qualities that make them who they are, make the House what it is anyway. I do want to address the elephant in the room with both of you, though: Neither of you are prejudiced people, but Slytherins are often stereotyped as being blood purists and prejudiced themselves. We do see examples of Slytherins who are not, but I think it’s fair to say the vast majority of the ones that we spend a lot of time with in the books are. So what do you make of this? How do you reconcile not agreeing with that particular ideology but still being Slytherins yourselves?

Andrew: Yeah, when I think of encountering other Harry Potter fans and they tell me what House that they are in, and if they tell me Slytherin, for example, I never think of the bad things. I’m thinking of my House in the scope of the fandom, fellow Harry Potter fans, so I just focus on the good parts of it. Because we in the fandom, we’re deciding on our Hogwarts House to identify for each other’s amusement, to share for each other’s amusement what House we’re a part of. It’s a fun discussion topic. And I put all that aside; I put Salazar’s history aside and some of these other Slytherins aside and all the terrible things, and I’m just talking about it from a positive trait perspective. “I’m in Slytherin because of these reasons.”

Tylor: That’s real good. I take a different route, where when it was revealed that Merlin was a Slytherin, I would tell every single person, because I would tell people “I’m a Slytherin,” and they’re like, “Oh, you’re the bad guy.” I’m like, “No, what? What are you talking about? No, there are good people… let me find them, though.”

[Andrew laughs]

Tylor: And then when it was revealed that the greatest wizard to have ever existed, this great Merlin was a Slytherin, I was like, “Done. Ting. We win.” The best wizard in wizarding history, aside from Dumbledore and whatever, but this wizard who was so strongly revered as being the greatest being a Slytherin showed me that it really was… you could break out of those stereotypes. It isn’t so much that Slytherins are all prejudiced; it’s just that there are a lot of prejudiced people in Slytherin. And that the greatest wizard in wizarding history was a Slytherin, there has to be something more beneath that surface. So that’s what I would always tell people, is “Well, did you know the greatest wizard that ever existed, Merlin, was a Slytherin?” and they’re like, “Whoa!”

Andrew: [laughs] I love that.

Laura: Well, I feel like Slytherin also gets a lot of… I mean, obviously, for Salazar and his prejudices, this is warranted on him. But they get a lot of flack for the overarching theme of anti-Muggle discrimination, but I think what a lot of people forget is that there are people across all four Houses who discriminate on the basis of blood purity, but also your personhood. Like, if you’re a magical creature and not actually a wizard, plenty of people across all four Houses who discriminate on the basis of that, so this is a larger problem in the wizarding world. And I agree that while there are quite a few people in Slytherin who exhibit these tendencies, it’s unfair to say all Slytherins are racist, essentially.

Andrew: Right. Don’t get it twisted.

Tylor: [laughs] Don’t get it twisted.

Micah: One of the things that came to mind – and I think we mentioned this; it may have even been on the last episode – with respect to Slytherin is that all the Houses have some level of inherent bias. If you think about the Sorting Hat and how it’s essentially classifying all of the students within the school, there’s bias just inherently, whether you’re in Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin; it doesn’t really matter. It’s just that with respect to Slytherin, there happens to be essentially one or two wizards who have put a massive stain on the House, and they need to do some work to clean that stain up. But I think if we were to dig in the histories of Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, we would probably find things that may be on the same level, or in some cases even worse than what we saw from some of those that were in Slytherin.

Laura: Yeah, that is such a good call-out because the other three founders bounded together against Slytherin based on his prejudice, which was the right thing to do, but it also means that… history is written by the victors, right? So there probably is a good chunk of history about the other founders that even in the wizarding world people would not be privy to, and chances of us being privy to it are, I would say, slim to none. So yeah, that’s absolutely a good call-out. And with that said, I’m wondering how much of Slytherin’s legacy should be used against current members of Slytherin House, particularly the ones who follow in his footsteps, thinking of the Book 2 Draco Malfoys of the world who are saying, “I’m so excited for the Basilisk to murder all the Mudbloods. I hope Hermione is next.” [laughs]

Micah: But – and people are probably not going to like that I’m going to say this – but Draco at the time is 12.

Laura: Yeah.

Andrew: I agree with that.

Micah: He probably finds it somewhat cool what’s happening and he doesn’t really understand the full impact of what it is that he’s saying. And I also thought about when he’s calling Hermione a Mudblood, does he really understand truly what that represents? And is he just saying it because it’s cool and it’s fun? Because I think if we look back, there are probably things that we’ve said in our younger years that would be offensive to some people, but we just thought it was funny or cool to say it in the moment because it made us look cool, or we thought it made us look cool.

Laura: It’s how he was raised, too.

Micah: Oh, absolutely.

Andrew: Yeah, he doesn’t know any other way. But in terms of the adults, we can compare them to Salazar in certain ways and look down upon them, because they do hold some of the values that he does as well. There’s less room to forgive a Bellatrix or a Lucius or any of these others who are very problematic and are full-grown adults. It would be one thing if Draco didn’t change. Draco did change.

Laura: Well, and I think people will tend to take characters from other Houses on a case by case basis. I mean, look at the Marauders; with the exception of Lupin, they were bullies, and people are willing to forgive that about them because they were kids when they were doing a lot of that. So I think it’s fair to say that someone like Draco Malfoy, who has shown over time that he was able to grow and overcome that ingrained prejudice – or at least work very, very hard to try and do so – I think that deserves recognition, absolutely.

Micah: Right, and don’t forget about Pettigrew either, who’s probably the best example of a Gryffindor turned bad. We tend not to think of Gryffindors as being evil, but certainly, Pettigrew would fit that category.

Laura: And to be honest, I feel like I see some Slytherin in Dumbledore too.

Tylor: Without a doubt. 100%.

Laura: Yeah. Nobody likes to talk about it, but Tylor, I get the sense you do.

[Andrew laughs]

Tylor: Oh, all the time. I always say that Dumbledore was mis-Sorted because he is a Slytherin at heart, 100%. I really do think that in addition to Dumbledore being a Slytherin, I think we should abandon this idea of defining the Houses based on the characters who are put in them, because I always like to bring up “Hey, if we’re going to do that, don’t forget Gilderoy Lockhart was a Ravenclaw.” Like, “Wow, what an awful dude that guy was.” And when we get down to what the actual traits are for each of the Houses, that’s what we should focus on, not “x person was in x House so therefore x House is bad” or anything like that. And I think it would have been a little bit of a credibility boost to have Dumbledore in Slytherin, but we can’t have everything.

Micah: You have Merlin.

Laura: You do have Merlin. That’s a pretty big one.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Tylor: That’s right. That’s right!

Andrew: Well, and this also goes back to the point of “Hogwarts Sorts too soon.” Yeah, Lockhart was a Ravenclaw when he was 11; he turned into a different person. We all change from when we were 11. We’ve no idea the type of person we are at 11.

Micah: I mean, you could make the argument, though, because intellect is often associated with Ravenclaws, you have to be a pretty smart person to do what he did and to hoodwink all of those people. That’s why I think there’s a scale for a lot of these Houses.

Andrew: Right, right.

Micah: Except Hufflepuff.

[Laura and Tylor laugh]

Laura: You’re just really teeing it up for the Hufflepuff discussion.

Micah: [laughs] For next week.

Tylor: Poor Eric.

Laura: Well, Micah, you put together a pretty comprehensive list of notable members of Slytherin House, and we’ve also broken some of those folks down based on some quotes to help define where they are if we’re thinking about Slytherin as a spectrum and we’re thinking about one end of it being the extreme Salazar Slytherin super prejudiced blood purist, to the other end of the spectrum, where it’s like, no, this is just a normal person who just so happens to be in Slytherin. So if you’d like to run us through the list, we can jump in with thoughts.

Micah: Yeah, should we start with Salazar Slytherin?

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: Who?

Laura: I think we’ve covered him pretty well.

Micah: I think we know what end of the spectrum he is on.

Laura: Yes, I think so too. [laughs]

Micah: It’s hard to put Merlin on the spectrum, but let’s see just based on the information that we do have on him from Pottermore. Says that he was Sorted into Slytherin when he was at Hogwarts, and he went on to become one of the most famous wizards in history. The Order of Merlin, named to commemorate him, has been awarded since the 15th century, and legend has it the first Order of Merlin’s green ribbon reflects his Hogwarts House. So you don’t get a whole lot of information there on what kind of a person he was, but I’m open to suggestions here.

Laura: I don’t know a whole lot about Merlin as a figure, apart from obviously he’s not just a Harry Potter canonical character, right? But it definitely carries a good deal of weight to think about someone like Merlin being a representative of that House. Tylor, do you have any other insights on Merlin? It seemed like you had some thoughts on him earlier.

Tylor: Yeah, I think the fact that we have so many colloquialisms or little sayings, right? Little phrases that are thrown into everyday wizarding vernacular. “Merlin’s pants!” All those… “Merlin’s beard!” All that kind of stuff.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Tylor: It seems to imply that Merlin at least was regarded as somebody positive, right? You don’t throw around “Salazar Slytherin’s beard!” Stuff like that.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: It’s more of a goatee, isn’t it?

Tylor: Yeah, exactly. If Salazar Slytherin is our bad guy and we don’t see any fun phrases or sayings with his name, but we see a bunch with Merlin, I think that says something in the fact that we do know that Merlin was at least in some kind of positive regard in the wizarding community. Same with the fact that we have these Order of Merlins, these awards that are talked about in such high regard, like, “Oh my God, Order of Merlin first class. Wow.” That has to… we don’t see an Order of Salazar or an Order of Slytherin, right? So I think, at least to me, it feels as though Merlin is a positive person in the wizarding community.

Andrew: That’s a good way to think about it.

Laura: I think so too.

Andrew: It’s like what we do with Batman in the wizarding world. Or sorry, in the Muggle world.

Laura: [laughs] Batman in the wizarding world.

Andrew: We’re like, “Holy bleep, Batman!” [laughs]

Tylor: Sure.

Andrew: And Batman is a good guy.

Laura: What House would Batman be in?

Micah: Hufflepuff.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Micah: And I’m just thinking, too, I just wrapped up watching Merlin, the series, and going back to what you were talking about earlier, Tylor, he has to live in secrecy literally – spoiler alert – the entire series. It’s not until literally the very last episode that he reveals himself to Arthur and to others in the community. And so I think that if we’re keeping in line with the thought of why Salazar wouldn’t want to allow anybody other than pure-bloods into Hogwarts, that’s a perfect example why, because you have somebody who’s literally doing good the entire time, but is forced to live in secrecy because of who he is. Not dissimilar from the Wizard and the Hopping Pot.

Tylor: Absolutely.

Micah: All right, next one on the list is Severus Snape, the first half-blood in Slytherin that we’re going to talk about.

Laura: Yeah. And I find this so interesting, considering the number of half-bloods that we know of in Slytherin House, and I just thought it was a bit odd, just given the fact that we know about Slytherin’s preference. But we also know… there’s a quote from Voldemort, I think from Book 7, where he’s humiliating Narcissa and Bellatrix by talking about their sister marrying a Muggle and having a half-blood child, and he’s really giving them a hard time and humiliating them in front of all the other Death Eaters, and then he sort of waves it away and he’s like, “Oh, even the purest among us have had some decay in our family trees,” and it makes me wonder if that is how some pure-blood members of Slytherin House might feel about this, about the increase in half-blood members of the House. And Snape, I think he’s a great example of someone who turns the reputation of Slytherin on its head, right? I mean, he ultimately sacrifices himself to to prevent Voldemort from ascending to power that second time.

Micah: Did Voldemort know that Snape was half-blood? Did any of the Death Eaters? Or did they just assume that he was a pure-blood?

Laura and Tylor: I don’t know.

Micah: Because I’m just thinking about it now; I feel like that would be a point of contention for somebody like Bellatrix.

Andrew: But does it matter if Voldemort still respects Snape?

Micah: Well, no, Voldemort is half-blood, too, so he probably doesn’t care really.

Andrew: My point just is that if Voldemort is okay with it, then Bellatrix doesn’t have any reason to complain, or won’t be allowed to complain. I don’t know.

Tylor: I don’t think so.

Laura: Yeah, I don’t know. She really hates Snape, so I feel like if she knew, she would probably use this against him. But at the same time, I kind of… I don’t know. I feel like with Voldemort and the Death Eaters, it’s a little bit like “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and if you’re willing to team up with us and you can show your loyalty, if you can prove that, then you’re in.” As long as you’re not a Muggle-born. To my knowledge, no Muggle-borns fought with the Death Eaters. [laughs]

Micah: All right, well, keeping on track with Death Eaters who were in Slytherin and betrayed Voldemort, let’s talk about Regulus Black.

Tylor: What a hero.

Laura: Right?

Tylor: Love this guy.

Andrew: [laughs] He’s a good one. We approve of him.

Tylor: Yeah, I think he’s towards the spectrum of normal person, right? Just a ambitious cunning dude.

Laura: And he kind of always struck me as someone who may have changed over time. Sirius always got the impression that Regulus was totally gung-ho with the Dark Lord’s mission and wanted to be his servant, but something changed. Somewhere along the line, something changed; either that, or this guy was way ahead of the game and was a double agent from the very start, which seems doubtful to me. It seems more likely that he probably evolved in his thinking over the course of serving Voldemort.

Andrew: I think it was when he was looking at what Voldemort was doing, he decided to tap out, so I can respect that.

Tylor: Although, I have read a really fun fan theory that Regulus did everything that he did because he wanted to be the next Dark Lord. That was just a fun little thing that I was like, “Ooh, I like that.”

Laura: Oooh.

Andrew: And he would compete against Voldemort?

Tylor: Yeah, he would go after the Horcruxes, destroy all the Horcruxes, destroy Voldemort, and then take over. It was a fun little thing.

Laura: Honestly, I love stuff like that that delves into all the little nooks and crannies of what could have been in this story. And it’s interesting to think when Regulus is writing that note about “Hopefully when you meet your match, you’ll be mortal again,” he was referring to himself. [laughs]

Tylor: Yeah, right?

Laura: That’s great.

Micah: I always struggle with the fact that Sirius never really knew Regulus’s true allegiance before he died. I feel like that would have been really just important for him to have learned. But sticking with that family, Phineas Nigellus Black. I’m wondering is he better in portrait form than maybe when he was around as a real person? [laughs] But he seems to have softened a bit in his portrait form and is certainly ready, willing, and able to help as needed. I mean, he comes in clutch many times throughout the series, so maybe he’s a little bit tired of the pure-blood mania.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Yeah. I also wonder, too, if he’s just holding his duty to help the Headmasters of Hogwarts as something very sacred.

Andrew: Yeah. It’s his school.

Laura: Yeah, I mean, do portraits have motivations?

Tylor: I would say so.

Laura: Yeah. I mean, beyond what’s assigned to them, I guess. If you’re intended to be a messenger, is there any other…?

Micah: Well, he’s there to advise the other Headmasters, right? He was a former Headmaster himself. It’s noted that he didn’t really like students, [laughs] so I don’t understand how he ended up being a Headmaster.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Micah: But he seems to do pretty good when he is tasked with certain responsibilities, so I give him a thumbs up.

Tylor: Me too.

Andrew: Yeah. And maybe all that hanging around Dumbledore inspired some change in him.

Laura and Micah: Yeah.

Andrew: And that’s why he became a little softer.

Laura: Very likely.

Micah: Next up…

Laura: I was going to say, I think we can skip the next one.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Oh, I was going to say, unless Tylor wants to take on T-Riddle.

Laura: Well, that’s true.

[Everyone laughs]

Tylor: No, my boy is very much on that Salazar Slytherin spectrum of… towards the end.

Laura: Yeah, he is.

Micah: Okay.

[Andrew laughs]

Tylor: He’s down there, so we can definitely skip him. [laughs]

Micah: How about Horace Slughorn? He’s an interesting one. While I’m not sure he’s a pure-blood maniac, he certainly has a problem with collecting people, and I don’t know that that’s a really valuable trait to have. It seems like that’s ultimately what fuels him as a person, to surround himself with celebrity and those who have really done great things, and of course, they all usually are students that he himself has taught, so I’m sure he takes some level of credit for their success. But we do see him really kind of round the corner towards the end of Half-Blood Prince with the memory, but certainly in Deathly Hallows in coming to the Battle of Hogwarts and even at a point, I believe, dueling Voldemort, so that should speak for itself to have the Head of Slytherin House dueling the Dark Lord.

Andrew: Yeah, that is pretty cool. You mentioned collecting, though; he only came back to Hogwarts because he wanted to collect Harry. That’s how Dumbledore lured him there, so his intentions in coming back to the school weren’t very good and were extremely shallow. So I guess in terms of the scale, I would put him somewhere in the middle.

Tylor: Really? I’m very much… if Salazar is one end, Horace Slughorn to me is the exact opposite end, right? I see Slughorn as Jo trying to fix her mistake that she made in earlier books where she’s just attributing Slytherin as always bad, always bad, always bad. And in Half-Blood Prince, she has to introduce a character who’s in Slytherin and who has a strong affinity for Slytherin and becomes the Head of Slytherin but isn’t bad in and of himself, kind of what Micah was saying; the fact that he duels Voldemort at the end I think really does show that Horace is not a bad guy because he’s in Slytherin. We can have that conversation about him being bad in regards to wanting to collect students, but I don’t think that part in and of itself is related to Slytherin, right? If we’re just talking about the Slytherin attributes, and whether or not Salazar’s influence on him determines how these characters are, I don’t think the collecting part plays into it. I think it’s purely him just wanting to be this great networker and collector of famous people. So if we were to boil him down just to the bad Slytherin traits that we know, if we were to put him on the spectrum, I think he’s on that far left side. I don’t think he’s a bad guy. I think he really is the epitome of what it means to be a true non-bigoted Slytherin.

Laura: Yeah, I tend to agree that he’s closer to the opposite end of the spectrum, but I think that he’s a good representative. And I’m sure we all know someone like this in real life of someone who would never wish harm on another person ever, but still tokenizes Muggle-borns a bit. I pulled this passage from Half-Blood Prince where Harry says, “One of my best friends is Muggle-born, and she’s the best in our year,” and Slughorn says, “Funny how sometimes that happens, isn’t it?” And Harry is like, “No, not really, you weirdo,” and Slughorn immediately launches into this “You mustn’t think I’m prejudiced! No, no, no! Haven’t I just said your mother was one of my all-time favorite students?” And then he starts name-dropping other Muggle-borns that he’s been impressed with. So he still has that ingrained sense that somehow makes different blood statuses very distinct to him, and that doesn’t mean that he’s a bad person, it doesn’t mean that he would wish harm on any of these people, but he’s definitely not seeing everyone as equal, at least at this point in the series. Who knows? After the Battle of Hogwarts, he might completely change his tune.

Micah: Definitely.

Andrew: This line just… “Funny how that sometimes happens, isn’t it?” [laughs] Like, “Can you believe somebody intelligent is a Muggle-born? Funny how that happens sometimes!”

Laura: Unfortunately, people in the real world have made similar comments about groups of people that they can’t believe could possibly have the kind of intellect that they do, so I feel like he’s reminiscent of perhaps some people’s grandparents a little bit. [laughs] That’s what he reminds me of somewhat.

Micah: Definitely. And just a note that Bag Boy pointed out in the Discord that Phineas Nigellus was not always an enthusiastic helper…

Laura: That is true.

Micah: … and mentioning Order of the Phoenix when Arthur Weasley gets attacked. Look, everybody has a bad day at the office, okay?

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: But generally, he’s helpful. All right, let’s talk about Leta Lestrange, and then we could talk about Bellatrix, Narcissa, and Andromeda, the three sisters. But with Leta, I don’t think we know enough about her yet, but I would say going back to the point that was made about Jo trying to correct things towards the end of the Harry Potter series with Slughorn, I feel like that’s also going on now with Leta in the Fantastic Beasts series. I don’t know, Tylor, what you think about that.

Tylor: Yeah, I 100% agree with that as well. We see Leta as this kind of outcast, this very vulnerable young woman who’s by herself. She’s not around… when we think of Slytherin we think about connected, and you’re walking around with your “real friends.” But when it comes to Leta, here she is all by herself, totally alone, and I don’t know, she doesn’t feel like she fits in, and I think that’s showing a more vulnerable side of Slytherin. What happens when you enter a House that is supposed to be the most connected House with your fellow Housemates, and you feel like the outcast? And I think that writing and setting her up in that way with Newt Scamander is a really fun way to see Slytherin that we don’t see Slytherin that often. But I do think, yeah, again, Leta is not prejudiced herself, at least that we know of. I want to say that she’s not. But yeah, I think she’s a really good new representation of what it really means to be a Slytherin.

Laura: I think so, too, particularly with how wracked she is with guilt over what she thinks her role was in Corvus’s death, right? And she’s lived her life determined to turn over a new leaf. And she’s working in some kind of official capacity with the Ministry now; I forget what it is. It’s Magical Law Enforcement, I think it is.

Tylor: Yeah. I think she’s an Auror.

Laura: So she’s trying to be very lawful. And she also sacrificed herself, spoiler alert. [laughs]

Tylor: Maybe.

Laura: Maybe.

Micah: Perhaps.

Tylor: I’ve read a really fun theory, yeah, so we’ll see.

Laura: What’s your theory?

Tylor: The theory that came about was that the Protego Diabolica doesn’t actually kill you; it actually just takes you to a special cell in Nurmengard. I don’t know, but I really, really doubt that Leta Lestrange is going to be introduced and then taken away in one film like that. I think we’re going to be seeing her again.

Laura: I agree, definitely. We have “sacrificed” here in the doc with quotation marks because that’s an outstanding question. But still, one way or another, she performed some kind of sacrifice in an attempt to distract Grindelwald from what he was doing in that moment.

Micah: Definitely.

Laura: So yeah, definitely a very… I would say maybe Leta is the other end of the Slytherin spectrum.

Tylor: I could see that too, yeah.

Laura: Maybe it’s her.

Andrew: And she was friends with a Hufflepuff. You’ve got to give her credit for that.

Tylor: That’s right.

Micah: You do. Don’t tell Eric I agreed with you.

[Laura and Tylor laugh]

Micah: But we’re talking about Slytherins on a spectrum, and I don’t think there’s probably any better representation of that than Narcissa, Bellatrix, and Andromeda, and opening it up just to discuss, but I would say Bellatrix would probably be on the Salazar end, Narcissa would be somewhere in the middle, and Andromeda would be on the Slughorn/Leta side of things.

Laura: I agree.

Andrew: I like that.

Tylor: That’s exactly where I’d put them too.

Micah: Especially marrying a Muggle.

Laura: I agree with that, yeah. Although, I was refreshing myself on Narcissa a little bit ahead of this discussion because I feel like when we talk about her, we only touch on her in the context of how her character arc rounded out in that it was a mother’s love once again that saved the day, but she’s not the greatest outside of that. There’s this one scene where the trio comes across Draco and Narcissa in Madam Malkin’s; Draco is getting fitted for his robes. This is after Lucius has gone to Azkaban, and at one point Draco has a fit and just throws his robes to the ground and decides they’re going to go somewhere else, and Narcissa says, “‘You’re right Draco,’ said Narcissa, with a contemptuous glance at Hermione, ‘now that I know the kind of scum that shops here… we’ll do better at Twilfitt and Tatting’s.'”

Andrew: Oh my gosh.

Tylor: Yuck.

Laura: So yeah, she’s definitely… maybe middle, but erring closer to the Bellatrix side of things, at least at this point in the series. But that tells me that she’s an opportunist, because the second that this ideology was not going to work out well for her family, she’s like, “Oh no, whatever. I don’t care. Voldemort who?” [laughs]

Tylor: Yeah, exactly. The whole Malfoy family is trash.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Well, I don’t think we can talk about Slytherin House without talking about its House ghost. So the Bloody Baron… he killed somebody, so I don’t know what end of the spectrum that warrants him receiving. Whether he did it out of love or any other justification, it’s still murder at the end of the day. [laughs]

Laura: I wonder if that was selfishness.

Andrew: Yeah?

Laura: I mean, we hear about crimes of passion and people doing things out of love, but it’s like, if you kill somebody because they won’t have you, [laughs] that’s not love. That’s just selfishness.

Tylor: That’s some real Snape energy.

Laura: Yeah, it’s like Snape if you turned him up to an 11, basically.

Andrew: [laughs] Snape plus.

[Laura and Tylor laugh]

Laura: Snape plus. Snape max.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: That’s actually… I like that.

Andrew: To interact with the Bloody Baron is only $9.99 a month.

Tylor: You get ESPN and Hulu with it.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Now, there are a few Slytherins we notably omitted here, but Laura, you noted how a few of them are still down with the founder’s pure-blood mania, and two of them are Malfoys and one of them is our good friend of the show, Dolores Umbridge.

Laura: Yep. Punching pillow, patent pending.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Laura: But I mean, you don’t really need to go much further than Book 7. Of course, we could dig way back through Book 5 and find a ton of substantiating evidence, but when Harry comes across her office in the Ministry in Book 7, she has a plaque on there that says “Senior Undersecretary to the Minister,” and below that a slightly shinier new plaque that reads “Head of the Muggle-born Registration Commission.” She’s kept detailed notes on anyone that she deems to be undesirable, their blood statuses as well as their perceptions of Muggles and Muggle-borns, and will refer to pure-blooded wizards as “blood traitors” if they’re friendly to Muggles and Muggle-borns. So it’s a pretty easy one. She’s Salazar Slytherin end of the spectrum for sure.

Micah: And she’s another half-blood too. We should just call attention.

Laura: Yeah, anytime there’s a character like this, it feels like their whole approach is that they feel like there’s something deficient in themselves because they’re not pure-blood, so they’re having to make up for it.

Andrew: Double down on the evil.

Laura: By being maniacs.

Micah: Well, and if I’m remembering correctly, it was something about how her father wasn’t rising enough within the Ministry and she considered him a disappointment, and then she had a sibling who was a Squib. So it’s just like she wanted to basically purge herself of that and pass herself off, essentially, as a pure-blood.

Laura: Yeah, exactly.

Micah: What about father and son Malfoy?

Laura: So Lucius is definitely another very obvious example. I pulled a quote that I had actually forgotten about from Chamber of Secrets, and I know this is earlier in the series, but I think Lucius holds pretty true to this line of thought throughout the whole series. When he comes to inform Dumbledore that the school governors have all signed a petition asking him to resign, and he literally ends this statement by being like, “Two more attacks this afternoon, wasn’t it? At this rate, there’ll be no Muggle-borns left at Hogwarts, and we all know what an awful loss that would be to the school.” Doesn’t even try to hide it.

Andrew: And again, the thing with Lucius is that he is an adult.

Laura: Yep.

Andrew: He is set in his ways. He’s not going to change at this point. With very few exceptions, in my opinion, very few people do change at this point in their adulthood, especially in these deeply rooted issues that are ingrained in them from the start. So yeah, he’s towards the Salazar side for sure.

Laura: Oh, for sure. What’s interesting about Lucius, though, is we know that after the first wizarding war, he denied everything. He claimed to have seen the light, and I think he also claimed to be under some kind of spell that was causing him to participate in all of Voldemort’s nefarious acts, so he’s also a creature of opportunity. I mean, we see this at the end of Deathly Hallows too; he’s just trying to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Tylor: Yep.

Laura: I felt like it was one of the portrayals they did really well in the movie, actually, was showing the Malfoy family nope-ing out. [laughs]

Tylor: Literally running.

Laura: Just being like, “Bye!”

Tylor: [laughs] See ya!

Micah: And Draco?

Laura: Yeah, and Draco… I think Andrew really summed this up beautifully earlier in the episode just by speaking about the fact that Draco, much of when we see him in the books, he’s a child. And I think looking at Chamber of Secrets and Half-Blood Prince are really interesting use cases, because thinking about ring theory, of course, Books 2 and 6 are connected. And in Book 2, Draco was so boastful about wanting to know who the Heir of Slytherin is, he wants to help with the Basilisk, he wants to help rid the school of Mudbloods, and then in Book 6, when he finally gets his chance to serve Voldemort, he’s like, “Oh, snap, I didn’t realize it was going to be this serious.”

[Laura and Tylor laugh]

Laura: And he’s incredibly overwhelmed and starts to falter in some of those deeply ingrained ideologies, so I think he is an example of somebody who evolved in his thinking over time.

Andrew: Definitely.

Micah: You also have this interesting note here, too, about how he had thought about attending Durmstrang versus Hogwarts, and we learn later really the importance of saying something like this because of Grindelwald.

Laura: Yeah, originally Draco was boasting that Lucius wanted him to go to Durmstrang because they actually taught the Dark Arts there. Not Defense Against the Dark Arts, but the Dark Arts themselves. The only reason he didn’t go is because Narcissa didn’t like the idea of him being so far away from home, so again, another example of her choosing convenience and the safety of her family over her purported ideologies.

Tylor: Is Durmstrang just one big school for Slytherins?

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Tylor: You know what I mean? If we were to follow that surface level thinking of “Slytherin is bad, Dark Arts, blah,” is Durmstrang really just a school of only Slytherins? Slash if that’s not the case, where does that fall? Would the equivalent of Slytherin be Gryffindors, and then is there an even worse House at Durmstrang? Like a super Dark Arts? Like a super Slytherin?

Andrew: Slytherin plus.

Tylor: Yeah, there you go.

Andrew: [laughs] Maybe. I don’t know if we know much.

Laura: It’s kind of hard to compare, because Krum goes to Durmstrang, right?

Andrew and Tylor: Yeah.

Laura: And he does not strike me as a Slytherin at all.

Tylor: He’s up on Hermione.

Andrew: And Hermione likes it.

Tylor: True.

Micah: Though, I mean, I was going to make the point that its headmaster is a former Death Eater, but I feel like we have former Death Eaters in positions at Hogwarts, too, so not sure that’s the best argument. All right, just to wrap up: One other Slytherin that we do know about is Albus Severus Potter.

Andrew: He’s a good one! He’s a good egg! We know this. Sure, he’s made some mistakes in the Cursed Child, but he’s a kid. Those things happen. Temptation got to him.

Laura: I think it’s really telling that first of all, that Harry in his adulthood was able to see past his own prejudice from his childhood and tell his son, “Hey, if you’re Sorted into Slytherin, then Slytherin just got a great wizard,” right?

Tylor: That’s right.

Laura: And the fact that I mean, I have to imagine that Albus Severus would have been aware of the childhood rivalry between his father and Draco, who’s the father of his best friend, and he’s able to see past that and be friends with someone who comes from a long line of people who, up until very recently, were adversaries of his family. I think that’s one of the greatest traits anyone could have, Slytherin or otherwise.

Andrew: I think…

Micah: And Laura… oh, sorry. Go ahead, Andrew.

Andrew: Well, I was just going to say on the point of Harry being supportive of Albus being Sorted here, that’s part of being a parent, a good parent, saying, “Hey, you were Sorted into Slytherin? That’s okay.” And I think that moment also illustrates Harry’s profound growth over the books.

Laura: I think so too. Harry could have been a good Slytherin too.

Andrew: Right, yeah.

Tylor: Yes, he could.

Andrew: And of course, like I think what was said earlier, the Hat was considering putting him in there, so that’s kind of a full circle moment as well.

Laura: Yeah. I would like to see an alternate telling of the Harry Potter books where Harry is Sorted into Slytherin. I think that would be fascinating.

Tylor: So good.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Tylor can write it. [laughs]

Laura: Tylor, do you write fanfiction?

Tylor: No, but I’m down for that. Could you imagine Harry finding the not prejudiced Slytherins? The ones in the background that we don’t get to experience? The ones who were like, “Man, that Draco Malfoy really sucks”? I’m sure that they’re there, and I’m sure Harry would find them.

Laura: Yeah, they’ve got to be there, right? Because I mean, we see Gryffindors who suck. I mean, think about Cormac McLaggen. Everybody hates him, but he’s in the good House.

Tylor: It’s true. I think if Harry was in Slytherin and had made those connections, we would have had some Slytherins stay behind for the Battle of Hogwarts.

Laura: Ooh, that is interesting. I always thought it was a bit odd that none of them stayed, with the exception of Draco and company. It just seemed… it felt… to me, it was a little disappointing because it felt like so much work had been done to make the portrayal of Slytherins more nuanced, and then in the end, it was like, “Eh, no, they all dipped.” [laughs]

Andrew: Yeah. And that was Rowling’s last chance to kind of be like, “Look, there’s a lot of good Slytherins out there.” Oh well.

Micah: Enter Leta.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Micah: Pretty much.

Laura: Exactly. Leta is the answer to everything.

Tylor: And the author kind of doubles down on that, too, by having Pansy Parkinson be like, “Well, there he is! Grab him!”

Laura: I know.

Tylor: It’s like, ugh, come on.

Laura: I know, and I think doesn’t McGonagall in the film encourage Filch to take Slytherins to the dungeons? That’s not what happens in the book, right? They just leave.

Micah: Except Slughorn. He’s there.

Laura: Yeah. It felt like they were attempting to do fan service in that moment, but it makes me wonder if they understood the fandom’s perceptions about Houses.

Micah: McGonagall fan service? When does that ever happen?

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: Only like twice in that 20 minute span of time in that movie.

Andrew: And they’re both very good, in my opinion.

Micah: Well, no, I was talking about Crimes of Grindelwald.

Andrew: Oh.

Laura: Oh, yeah.

Micah: But anyway.

Tylor: I got you, Micah.

Micah: Thank you, Tylor.

Laura: Poor McGonagall. They’re just messing with her timeline and everything. Well, I’ve really appreciated the conversation. I’ve liked how we’ve been able to explore that in Slytherin House, just like any other House or any other group of people, there’s good and bad there, right? It’s like Sirius said in Order of the Phoenix, “The world is not split up into good people and Death Eaters.” It’s a lot more complicated than that. So hopefully, that’s something that we were all able to take away from this. Andrew, it looks like you want us to say one or two nice things about Slytherins, right?

Andrew: I do. I do, Laura, because I see this episode and next week’s episode as a resource for people who are looking to be able to defend Slytherin, whether that’s because they’re in the House or they feel like they want to defend this House. They just want to see it differently than it’s joked about in fandom. So I can start; I just want to say, getting back to my conversion earlier in the episode, again, revisiting these traits, being clever, being resourceful, being determined… I am someone, personally – I’ll toot my own horn for a moment – who is self made and it’s because of my Slytherin traits. So if you are Slytherin, you can know you are somebody who can go at it on your own. You can be streetsmart instead of booksmart; even though Slytherins can be booksmart too. You are a very intelligent person who is capable of taking on anything, and I applaud all the clever ways that you take on life. And please share them with me because I admire that type of thing very much.

Tylor: Snap, snap, snap.

Andrew: Just don’t admit to breaking any laws. Tylor, what do you have to say about Slytherin?

Tylor: If somebody ever comes to you and says, “Slytherin is bad because of x character,” bring up some of the characters that we’ve talked about who were in other Houses who are just equally as bad. That in and of itself will destroy your opponent’s argument. And then remind them of the good people who are in Slytherin: Regulus Black, Merlin, Horace Slughorn… these other characters who are good and who value ambition. I think that that will really help with your argument, right? And tell them, “What is it that makes somebody a Slytherin? It’s their ambition. It’s their cunningness.” And that’s all that really, I think, people need to know about what it means to be a Slytherin and why people should be proud to be a Slytherin.

Andrew: Love it.

Laura: I’m coming at defending Slytherin ultimately because my partner is a Slytherin, and he’s the best person I know.

Andrew: Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Everyone laughs]

Tylor: I ship it.

Andrew: Joking!

Laura: No, it’s fine. I ship it too.

[Andrew and Tylor laugh]

Laura: No, but genuinely speaking, he’s so smart, and I see so many of those attributes in how hardworking he is. I think that Slytherins don’t get enough credit for how hardworking they are.

Andrew: Damn right.

Laura: I know hardworking is supposed to be a Hufflepuff trait, and I very much think that it is, but just like you’re not born any one thing… you’re not born cunning, right? That’s a skill that you have to develop over time, and it requires a lot of focus and a lot of effort in order to get there, and I just don’t think that Slytherins get enough credit for that. So I just look at anyone I know who – like Andrew, you said you run your own business, or anyone who just creates anything – and I very much see that as a Slytherin trait, a very positive one. So don’t let the past define what you allow your House to stand for in the future, is what I would say.

Andrew: Heck yeah. Amen.

Micah: I think you all made great points.

Andrew: You’re not going to…? Come on.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Name one good thing.

Micah: I said plenty of good things when we were discussing all these characters. But I wouldn’t necessarily label individuals based upon the story. I think this is something that Tylor had brought up earlier; look at the qualities of the House. And if you were to just take away Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and just look at the qualities themselves, I think those are qualities you’d probably want within yourself, a lot of which have already been touched on, like ambition and cunning. And so I think if that was any advice that I could give, that was what I would have to say. Remove the labels and just look at the characteristics of the House and you’d find that you probably might have some things in common with your Slytherin counterparts.

Laura: Yep, I definitely do.

Andrew: Definitely. So on our social media channels, we also asked listeners to send in their things, their supportive messages about Slytherins, and we got a bunch. If you have any defenses of Hufflepuff, or Slytherin, by the way, feel free to reply to our posts that we made on social media, and we’ll try to include those in a future Muggle Mail episode or maybe on the Hufflepuff discussion next week. KoolBerries said, “I’m a Slytherin and my sister is a Hufflepuff and we are great travel buddies because I have all the street smarts that come from having more cunning, and she has all the friendliness that helps us get into places.” [laughs] That’s good.

Laura: That’s smart.

Andrew: LunaLeClaire said, “I think Slytherins are very perceptive about the people, places, and events around them and can read whether or not to engage with the situation. The Slytherins I have met can easily read emotions and behaviors and know how to help those they are loyal to. They also appear able to influence a situation to turn in their favor or their group’s favor more easily than some of the other Houses. Manipulation of a situation is not necessarily a bad thing and can help deescalate or improve whatever is happening. I might not always see that from the books, but I definitely see that in my personal life and in fandom.”

Laura: Oh, that’s so true.

Andrew: Yeah. Getting back to my point earlier, it’s about your role in the fandom. It’s about who you are in real life. Sophia says, “Everyone says that Slytherins run away because they’re scared. They quit things or get other people to do them because they’re just lazy or scared. I say it’s because Slytherins are smart enough to know when it’s not worth doing anymore, and we stop because it’s the right thing to do, not out of fear.” You like that, Tylor?

Tylor: Oh, I’m here for that.

[Laura laughs]

Micah: Except the Battle of Hogwarts. You might’ve wanted to stay for that.

Andrew: We know when to quit. We know when to move on. [laughs] Molaliec – hopefully we’re pronouncing your name right.

Laura: Please let us know if we didn’t. That’s a pet peeve of mine.

Andrew: “I think all the non-racist Slytherins got killed off or forced into hiding (like Slughorn) during the first Voldy war and that’s why we don’t see any in Harry’s generation.” I like that. “Or ambition enough to be worrying about other things and cunning enough to hide away and help in ways we can’t see.”

Laura: Like Snape?

Andrew: Yes. [laughs] 100%. MeganMoon said, “As a Slytherin, I pride myself on being clever and tend to be able to work myself out of any sticky situation.”

Laura: Rose says, “Slytherin is a proud House; we strive to achieve greatness. Slytherins can be unstoppable forces when pursuing our ambitions. Slytherins don’t always play by the rules because we’re goal-oriented, but generally we strive for improvement and progress, and the pride that comes with it. Rules that get in the way of our objective are like roadblocks to us, but we’re resourceful and cunning to find ways around them. Of course Slytherins are proud to have magical blood, because magical abilities facilitate us greatly. However, a true Slytherin shouldn’t discount non-magical folk, because anyone with vision and determination can lead a prosperous and affluent life.”

Andrew: Well said. That is our defense and analysis of the Slytherin House. If you have any feedback today, you can email MuggleCast@gmail.com, or use the contact form on MuggleCast.com. You can also call us, 1-920-3-MUGGLE; that’s 1-920-368-4453. You can also record a voice memo on your phone and send that to MuggleCast@gmail.com; just try to keep your message about a minute long, please, and we may include that on a future Muggle Mail episode, probably coming up in two or three weeks.


Quizzitch


Andrew: All right, well, Eric is not here. Like I said, he abstained because he can’t stand Slytherins.

[Micah laughs]

Andrew: But it is still time for Quizzitch.

[Quizzitch music plays]

Micah: Last week’s Quizzitch question was: As of the late 20th century, Tina Goldstein lived with her husband Newt Scamander in Dorset with their pet Kneazles. What were their pets’ names? And the correct answer to that question was Hoppy, Milly, and Mauler. Last week’s winners included Newt and Tina Forever; Snitch101LauraFan…

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Okay.

Micah: … Amazing Autism; The Real Slim Shady; Countess Vermicelli; MaKayla; Aberforth’s Second Favorite Goat; and The Toy Car You Lost Under Your Bed When You Were 6 Wants to Order an Extra Large Firewhiskey.

Tylor: Cool.

Laura: Wow.

Andrew: I know, right, Tylor? Right? We need to put a character limit on this form. [laughs]

Laura: No, no, I love it. We get some real winners in here.

Micah: Yeah, we do.

Laura: I’m disappointed no Count Ravioli this week.

Tylor: Aww.

Andrew: They got it wrong.

Laura: Where you at?

Micah: Countess Fettuccine?

Laura: Yeah, where’s Countess Fettuccine? [laughs]

Andrew: Countess Vermicelli is in here. What more do you want?

Tylor: True.

Laura: That’s true.

Micah: All right, next week’s question: What living creature are both Marvolo Gaunt and Salazar Slytherin compared to in appearance? So very appropriate for our defense of Slytherin episode.

Andrew: Good job, Micah. A couple closing reminders before we wrap up the show: Don’t forget to join our community of MuggleCast fans today at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. Sign up now before September 1 and you will be eligible to receive this year’s physical gift, whichever you choose. By the way, y’all, I received a couple samples of the socks a couple of days ago and they turned out perfect.

Laura: They look so good.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I’ve been meaning to post a picture on social media. I had my sister model the socks on her legs because my legs and my brother’s legs… a little too hairy for a leg model, you know? So anyway, you’ll see those pictures soon. [laughs] Check out my sister’s legs on our social media.

[Laura and Tylor laugh]

Micah: Nobody’s going to believe that it’s your sister now. We’re all going to think it’s you.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: There’s nothing wrong with hairy legs, Andrew.

Andrew: No, I just… I don’t know; it grosses me out a little bit.

Laura: [laughs] It shouldn’t.

Andrew: And I’m talking about my own. [laughs] So anyway, you’ll see the socks on the social media channels. And we also have the car as well, so two options this year to choose from. If you pledge at the Slug Club level, you can pick either/or, or both. You will also receive instant access to years of bonus MuggleCast installments, our exclusive Facebook group where fellow Harry Potter fans hang out; that group is awesome. You will receive a personalized video thank you message, all kinds of things. Patreon.com/MuggleCast. Thank you, everybody, for your support. Be sure to sign up before September 1 in order to be eligible for that gift – that’s very important – and you have to fill out that form. Finally, make sure you are following the show for free in whatever app you use to listen to podcasts, and if they have a review feature, please do take a moment to review us. We would really appreciate that. And last but not least, do follow us on social media. We are @MuggleCast on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Tylor, thanks so much for joining us today. You are awesome. I am so glad we had you on the show.

Laura: Same.

Andrew: You can check Tylor out at the Protego Foundation and also The Chickpeeps podcast, which is in between seasons right now, but coming back at some point. I don’t think we want to make any promises at this point that it might be coming back. [laughs]

Tylor: Right.

Andrew: But it will return! I think that’s safe to say.

Tylor: Yeah. Thanks for having me. Loved it.

Andrew: Awesome. And Tylor has been holding that wand the entire podcast, folks!

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: I love it. I need to try that now. I gotta know how that helps with my hosting. I’m sure it’ll help a little bit.

Tylor: It’s so nice.

[Andrew and Tylor laugh]

Andrew: Whose wand is that, by the way?

Tylor: It’s Voldemort’s.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Of course!

Tylor: I found it to be apropos of our conversation today.

Andrew: I should’ve known. I didn’t see the handle because you were gripping it. Wow. Love it.

Laura: Man, you came prepared. I love it. [laughs]

Tylor: What can I say? I really like the V.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: That works. That works.

Micah: And on that note…

Laura: I love it.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.

Micah: I’m Micah.

Laura: I’m Laura.

Tylor: And I’m Tylor.

Andrew: Bye, everyone.

Transcript #523

 

MuggleCast 523 Transcript

 

Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #523, What If Neville Longbottom Was ‘The Chosen One’?


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: I’ll also observe, this is Episode 523. It’s kind of my birthday episode because I was born on 5/23.

Laura: Ohh.

Eric: Hey!

Andrew: This will only happen once in our lifetime, so I have to acknowledge it.

Laura: [laughs] Well, no pressure. We’ll just have to make the most out of this episode.

Micah: I have to wait until 817; that’s really not fair.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: We’re not hitting that.

Eric: We’re going to make it.

Laura: Yeah, I have to make it to 1219.

Andrew: Oh, that’s definitely not happening.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Wow. Yeah, no. Sorry, Laura.

Andrew: We missed Eric’s 100 episodes ago.

Eric: I know. I enjoyed it silently, I think.

Andrew: We’ll have to see if you… it’d be funny if you weren’t on that episode. Now we’ve got to look and see what was happening on that episode.

Eric: [laughs] I was just gone.

Andrew: Anyway, on this episode, we are going to celebrate my – wait, no – Neville’s birthday by doing a deep dive character discussion on the alternate Chosen One. And we’re going to have a discussion about what if Neville was the Chosen One after all? And ever since we decided to discuss this, my mind’s been racing with ideas. It’s a fun thing to think about, so we’ll talk about that.

Laura: Can you imagine all of those book titles? Neville Longbottom and the Philosopher’s Stone.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Eric: I can say with almost absolute certainty that I never would have gotten into this series if they were called “Longbottom.”

Andrew: Wow. I mean, Potter is not the most exciting name either.

Eric: No, yeah. Potter is a little cheesy, I guess, if you think, “Oh, Harry Potter,” but Longbottom? Yeah, absolutely not. I was way too self-conscious to read a book with “bottom” on the title.

Andrew: By the way, Eric’s birthday episode was our Wizards Unite review. That’s fun.

Eric: Oh, yeah, I remember that.


Main Discussion: Neville Longbottom


Laura: Well, I was going to say we’re doing this discussion to coincide with Neville’s birthday, which is July 30. He was actually born before Harry, so I guess we can say in that regard he was first, whereas throughout the rest of the series, he tends to feel second to Harry. So he won that one; he won the birthday contest. But I thought that since Neville and Harry’s birthdays plays such a role in marking them as the potential Chosen One, we should start by refreshing ourselves on the prophecy that marked these two characters, and I believe, if I’m not mistaken, that Sybill Trelawney has joined us to give us a rendition of the prophecy.

Andrew: [imitating Trelawney] “Yes, hello, Laura. Hello. I am here for Andrew’s birthday episode.”

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: “I will now recite my prophecy.”

[Echoey effect happens]

Andrew: “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as a seventh month dies… and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as a seventh month dies…”

[Echoey effect stops]

Laura: And Andrew’s voice has now died. [laughs]

Andrew: Do we get healthcare on this show? I just ruined my voice and now I need to see a doctor.

[Eric laughs]

Laura: No, this is…

Micah: Yeah, man, do you need some water? Some cough drops?

Laura: This is America, Andrew. You’re not guaranteed healthcare. Come on, now.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: There must be podcasters’ insurance, voice insurance for podcasters. That must be a thing you can pay for.

Andrew: Yeah, let’s look into that.

Laura: There should be.

Andrew: I’m going to a podcasting conference in a couple of weeks. I’ll investigate. [laughs]

Laura: So to kick us off, I thought that we could dig a little bit into the notion that Voldemort could have chosen Neville. I mean, really, what this prophecy came down to was Voldemort’s choice. It didn’t more substantially make Harry the Chosen One any more than Neville; it really came down to Voldemort seeing himself in Harry as a half-blood, right? But what if he had chosen Neville? Do we think that a similar situation would have played out, specifically with regard to Alice sacrificing herself to save her son? And what could Neville’s power the Dark Lord knows not of have been? Harry’s was his mother’s love; would it have been the same for Neville?

Andrew: You would hope it would be the same.

Eric: Yeah, I tend to… when I do this in my head, it’s basically that Frank and Alice then die, because nothing short of that would allow Voldemort to have attacked Neville or marked him, and then Bellatrix and Barty Crouch, Jr. and all of them would have been sent to the Potters. So if you do that switcheroo, it may end up that Lily and James are the ones who are in St. Mungo’s then, that Neville discovers Harry’s tragic past in year five. The other thing that’s interesting is Frank and Alice were Aurors. Lily and James were not. So Frank and Alice were, I guess, more officially anti-Dark wizard catchers, and I find it so sad that they’ve lost that encounter and Neville had to grow up not really being able to speak with them.

Micah: I think Alice would have sacrificed herself, though. We see just how close their relationship is in St. Mungo’s with her giving Neville the gum wrappers sort of as a sign of affection. And of course, there were loads of theories back in the day that Alice was in fact giving Neville clues but he wasn’t really reading into it the way that he should have, but that got debunked by J.K. Rowling. But I think given the fact that they were tortured the way that they were, there’s no reason to think that they wouldn’t have sacrificed themselves. Frank also; he was tortured into insanity. And both of them, many would argue, suffered a fate worse than death in the fact that they’re now both insane and can’t even recognize, really, their own son.

Eric and Laura: Yeah.

Laura: And I think it also raises the question, who has it worse, Neville or Harry? Neither of them ever really got to know their parents because Harry’s are dead and Neville’s have been driven to insanity. But at least Harry doesn’t have to watch them live out their days in a hospital.

Andrew: Right.

Eric: I hesitate to make an argument either way of who had it worse, because they both get sort of a short straw. But I will say, Neville did have his extended family to remind him of what he was, or what he wasn’t. And Harry also just never really had that because his relations, the Muggle Dursleys, never embrace this magical side of him. So I would hope that things would be different with Harry, but he still would have been just as neglected with the Dursleys; he just wouldn’t have been as famous or as special to the wizards. And when you… it’s exciting to analyze this from a Neville perspective, but it’s kind of depressing to think about what Harry’s life would have been without being the Chosen One.

Andrew: I wonder if the predictions of the prophecy could have been fulfilled if Voldemort tortured Neville’s parents into insanity, like what happened in the Harry Potter books, and then they were still hospitalized, like they were in the Harry Potter books. And then we see Neville throughout the series, [laughs] and this is getting into our discussion later already, but we see Neville throughout the series constantly going back to his parents, and you would just see these scenes in which he wants to, A, communicate with them and just go through all that, but also, B, just be like, “I will avenge you, Mom and Dad. I will right this wrong.” Do we think if they were tortured and not killed, the prophecy still would have been fulfilled? I don’t know.

Eric: I think absolutely to the prophecy, because he still would have… I tend to think that the marking him as his equal is less about Lily’s love and more about the accidental Horcrux scenario.

Laura: Yes. Lily’s love was the part that Voldemort was, well, he had too much hubris to even imagine that something like that could exist. And I think it also plays into Voldemort’s hubris that he didn’t just try to kill both Harry and Neville when they were both…

Andrew: He was so sure who it was.

Laura: Yeah, they were both identified as options. And not that I’m a Dark wizard or anything, but I’m like, if you’re really that threatened by these infants, why would you just pick one? It’s such a reflection of Voldemort’s arrogance, I guess. Arrogance, ignorance.

Eric: Well, I mean, didn’t he send Bellatrix to take care of the Longbottoms with the understanding that the kid would die? Because they weren’t taking any chances? It’s just that he didn’t do it himself, right?

Laura: I don’t know if we even know that the Longbottoms were with Neville, because it’s always struck me as odd that the Longbottoms got tortured in this way but that Neville apparently didn’t. So I don’t know if he was with his grandmother at the time and they were off on a Ministry mission…

Eric: I always thought he did get tortured as a kid because that’s why he’s so forgetful.

Laura: Have we had that confirmed? Or is it…?

Micah: Uhh…

Eric: Yeah, probably not. But that was definitely my thought process, was that he was present when they were there.

Micah: I think we may talk a little bit more about this later, but I think for Neville, his forgetfulness may be in large part due to how he was raised by his grandmother and his great uncle, and it’s not all that dissimilar from how Petunia and Vernon raised Harry, to be honest with you. We can make a lot of comparisons there.

Laura: For sure.

Micah: Both of them in effect are orphans, right? Neville is orphaned because of the state of his parents’ condition, Harry is obviously orphaned with Voldemort killing James and Lily, and then they’re both raised in very similar types of situations. We may not look at it that way because we view Augusta and the family of the Longbottoms to be more on the good side, but just because they’re on the good side doesn’t mean they did a good job raising Neville.

Laura: Yeah, and perhaps we give Augusta a little bit of a pass as readers because ultimately, she does come around, right? But we never really get to see that from the Dursleys. I mean, we heard about it after the fact through interviews with the author, where she confirmed that Harry and Dudley would send polite Christmas cards, but that’s all we got, so there wasn’t really much redemption there as much as there was for Augusta. Something I thought was interesting – looking into signs – Neville is a Leo. I know that we bring this up with all the birthday discussions. I know we have some critics on the panel, myself included; I don’t take this stuff super seriously.

Micah: Hey, I’m a Leo.

Eric: I love these.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Laura: But I think these stories were written and plotted very intentionally, and I don’t think that anyone was given a birthday by accident, just like a lot of names are not done by accident in these books. And I was reading about Leos, and it said, “Leo is ruled by the sun, the dazzling celestial body that governs life and vitality. The sun never goes retrograde, and likewise, Leos are renowned for their stability, loyalty, and consistency.” So I thought it was interesting that the two main Leos, Neville and Harry, are effectively named in the prophecy before they were born, kind of showing that neither of them really has a choice about their destiny, and I’m wondering if assigning them as Leos was an additional literary allusion to neither of them ever really getting a break?

Eric: Oh, I like that a lot.

Laura: Poor guys.

Eric: Not to mention they’re both Gryffindors, the Leo house, the lion house.

Micah: Yeah. And loyalty is definitely one of Neville’s stronger characteristics, I would argue. We see it even as early as Sorcerer’s Stone.

Eric: Right.

Laura: Well, we know that he, after the core books, went on to marry Hannah Abbott, who is someone who we’ve heard mentioned in the books, but we haven’t gotten too-too much exposition on her. But we know that she’s a Hufflepuff, she joined Dumbledore’s Army, she also served as a prefect, and she fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, so I think that she’s pretty in line with Neville’s values. Something that I noted while doing research for this episode is that Hannah, while she was struggling with stress related to her OWL exams in year five, broke down crying during a Herbology lesson and was sobbing that she was too stupid to take exams and wanted to leave school now. Definitely been there, so I feel you, Hannah. But in my headcanon, I like to imagine that Neville saw Hannah struggling and attempted to help her in some way, which led to their eventual romance.

Andrew: That is a nice little tie-in with Herbology.

Laura: Yeah. I think the fact that it was in Herbology feels to me like, again, it was very intentional, because that’s Neville’s best subject.

Andrew: Right.

Laura: I’m wondering, do we think that it would have been a positive addition to the books to see more representation of Hannah?

Eric: Yeah, absolutely. I feel that way about all the female characters in Harry Potter. I think they should have gotten more to do or we should have seen them more.

Andrew: In terms of Hannah, I guess it would have contributed to Neville’s growth. If we saw Neville and Hannah together in the books, maybe that would have given us the opportunity to see some confidence grow within Neville, because you would think that if someone who’s insecure, clumsy, etc. enters a healthy relationship, he’d see that people can view him as a good and talented person. It would change how he feels about himself.

Eric: It actually would have been really funny because it was during year five, towards the end of the year. Harry just had his unsuccessful romance with Cho. To then see Neville actually succeed at starting to date and stuff in the years between five and six before Harry does, to see him dating… and then we also would have gotten a lot of more things about inter-House unity. Hannah and Neville would have started hanging out and maybe the trio would have been invited to a mixer of some sort.

Micah: [laughs] Get that Hufflepuff representation, Er’.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: I know. Gotta have more of that. I’m all for it.

Micah: Neville, though. I mean, he’s a man ahead of his time, though. You’re comparing him to Harry, but he actually is the one who dips his toe in the water a little bit when it comes to asking out people for the Yule Ball.

Eric: Yep.

Laura: Yes, he does. Yeah, he asks Hermione, right? And I admire that about him. He saw a smart female friend of his who he really admired, and he shot his shot with her. And she politely turned him down, but I think in an alternate reality, Neville and Hermione could be a really good pairing, actually.

Andrew: Yeah, we all know how much courage it takes to ask somebody out to a dance on a date for the first time.

Laura: Yeah. Harry could barely do it.

Andrew: Right.

Micah: Yeah, Andrew, you turned me down.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Laura: That was for the show.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Oh.

Laura: We couldn’t…

Andrew: I think one of Laura’s lessons today, too, is that if you ever see a crush struggling with Herbology, swoop in and help out.

Laura: Yep, that’s the time.

Micah: Laura, how much Neville/Hermione fanfiction exists?

Laura: I don’t know of any prominent ones, but it definitely does exist. It’s absolutely a pairing that you can find categories for on most major fanfiction sites.

Eric: Heville or Nermione? What is it called?

Andrew: I would vote Heville.

Laura: I like Nermione.

Andrew: Oh, really? [laughs]

Eric: Grongbottom?

Andrew: Nermione? But it reminds me of “nerd.”

Eric: Langer?

Laura: Yeah, but that sounds lame. [laughs]

Eric: Warrants further…

Andrew: Is any ship name not lame? Heville is bad too.

Eric: Drarry rolls off the… well, not the tongue.

Laura: It does. That’s because I think, depending on the writer, it can be well done. So thinking about the fact that we know that some of the major relationships in the books were planned pretty much for the entirety of the story arc – we know Ron and Hermione were intended from a writing perspective to end up together – do we think that it was the plan all along that Hannah and Neville would end up together? Or did the idea just evolve as the series neared its end? It was convenient, they were two single characters, Hannah hadn’t had very much character exposition, so she was an easy character to pair off with somebody, or do you think there might have been a little more intentionality behind that?

Eric: Well, we find these other remnants of factoids about Hannah Abbott’s character, and also in by what’s been revealed that she does after Hogwarts. She becomes the landlady of the Leaky Cauldron.

Laura: That’s right.

Eric: And she and Neville actually live above the Leaky Cauldron. Just the random idea that these various smatterings of facts exist and have been put out into the world of somebody who I don’t think really has even a line in the Harry Potter books shows that there was some – probably in a dropped plot – a lot more to do with Hannah specifically. So I would err on the side of it was planned.

Laura: Yeah, I think that’s pretty solid.

Micah: I do think, though – and I know we’re about to talk about this as it relates to the movies – but for moviegoers, it probably did make more sense to pair up Luna and Neville, because they were actually getting the screen time.

Andrew: Right.

Micah: Versus Hannah, we may have gotten her once or twice throughout the course of the entire series, and so it just wouldn’t have made sense. Not that it was even needed, to be honest with you. I don’t think that it really did much for Deathly Hallows – Part 2, but it makes sense.

Andrew: No, but it gives Luna a little bit of resolution for moviegoers.

Laura: I don’t know. I will say, to me, my jury’s kind of out about Neville’s romantic history and how much of it was intentional in the books, but in the movie, it straight up came across to me as convenience. We have these two primary characters, or secondary characters that we see a lot. Neither of them is paired off. Let’s do it in a last ditch effort to tie up all of the loose ends, or what we perceive to be loose ends in the story. And there really hadn’t been anything done in the movies to build up an idea of Neville and Luna. If they had decided they wanted to go that direction and they had actually built that relationship up as a movie-ism, I think I would have been okay with it, but it just felt random, the way they threw it into Deathly Hallows.

Micah: It was. It was a bit random. I think if it would have been… it made sense, to your point. I mean, you had these other two members of Dumbledore’s Army that really weren’t paired up, and they were really the core members of Dumbledore’s Army, right? They’re part of the contingent that go to the Ministry of Magic in Order of the Phoenix, and so they’re obviously spending a lot of time with each other. They would have been together at Hogwarts, at least for the second half of the seventh year when Harry, Ron, and Hermione aren’t there, so it makes sense. They’re also kind of the outsiders of the group in a lot of ways, so…

Eric: Yeah, it really resonates what Luna says about the DA being like they had friends. I think people often see both Neville and Luna as not having so much going on outside of the DA.

Laura: Well, they’re both seen as outcasts, right?

Micah: Exactly.

Laura: So I feel like from a filming perspective, that was treated as a convenience.

Eric: And it’s even in the Goblet of Fire movie – I had to look this up – but Neville takes Ginny to the Yule Ball. They could have started shipping… and Ginny goes to the Department of Mysteries too.

Micah: Hermione, Ginny, Luna, Hannah… Neville, man.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Neville is a player, apparently.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Yeah, we’ve discovered the untouched secret. The original plan was polyamory for Neville.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Laura: Can you imagine?

Micah: Professor Sprout…

Andrew: He’s just a player. [laughs] Professor Sprout.

Laura: And also, just to wrap up this high level overview of what we know about Neville, he did briefly serve as an Auror after Hogwarts prior to accepting the Professor of Herbology post.

Eric: That’s cool. That feels right. To become an Auror, you can’t just waltz in and apply for the job. You need tests. Tonks talks about this; there’s extensive tests. And it’s nice to know that Neville, with all the confidence he has coming out of year seven, would pass all those tests and then decide, “Eh, you know, it’s not for me.”

Laura: I like the idea of him trying to fill his father’s shoes, and then realizing he doesn’t have to.

Andrew: Aw, yeah.

Laura: That’s my happiest imagined outcome for Neville.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: That is really sweet. All right, so we’re going to talk about Neville’s upbringing in a second, but first, this week’s episode of MuggleCast helps people look as cool as Neville Longbottom defeating Nagini.

[Ad break]

Laura: Awesome, thanks for that. So we’re going to continue this discussion by digging in on the impact of Neville’s upbringing, something we alluded to a few moments ago. But we know that because Frank and Alice Longbottom were not equipped to raise a child, he was raised by his paternal grandmother, Augusta Longbottom. And we’ve definitely discussed before on the show how Augusta constantly comparing Neville to Frank really stunted Neville’s growth and competence, so we don’t have to spend a ton of time on that today because I found some other examples of things that Neville experienced as a child that happened with other family members than Augusta that also had an impact, so we can really dig in on these.

Eric: [laughs] The remaining family members for Neville all kind of suck, actually.

Laura: Yeah! Right? I was reading this and I was like, “Oh my God, these people are terrible.”

Eric: They’re all really bad, yeah.

Laura: So speaking of which, Eric, I’m wondering if you can see this first quote under point A. This happened in Sorcerer’s Stone when the kids are all sitting in the Great Hall and they’re sharing their family histories.

Eric: Yes, Neville says, “The family thought I was all-Muggle for ages. My Great Uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off my guard and force some magic out of me – he pushed me off the end of Blackpool Pier once, I nearly drowned – but nothing happened until I was eight. Great Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. But I bounced – all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased. Gran was crying, she was so happy.”

Laura: Can you imagine being happy about that? The child who is under your care being dangled out a window?

Eric: Can you imagine being offered a meringue and then just being so excited that you let go?

Laura: [laughs] Dropping the child.

[Eric laughs]

Laura: Yeah. It’s so bizarre. And I mean, Great Uncle Algie sucks. I agree with that.

Micah: I was going to say, he is not the cool uncle that everybody likes.

[Eric laughs]

Laura: No, not at all. Can you imagine being nearly drowned?

Eric: Well, and what kind of…? As a kid, you just have no control. There’s nothing Neville could have done to have prevented that. It’s just kind of, you’re always being hunted by your uncle. Every time the uncle comes over, you’re either drowned or thrown out a window.

Micah: And I wonder, though, it doesn’t seem like Neville was really nurtured in the way that a child should be. And there are so many examples out there, obviously, of grandparents or aunts and uncles raising children and doing so in a loving and a caring way, and this just does not seem like it. I wonder how early was the expectation level set for Neville to start showing signs of magic and doing the things that Augusta wanted him to do? It just seems unfair, in a way. And undoubtedly, that frustration probably comes from what happened to Frank, but it just seems unfair to Neville.

Laura: Yeah. And I wonder if the pressure was even more intense because Neville was an only child. Frank and Alice, we don’t know if they would have had other children, but they did not maintain their sanity long enough to have the choice to do so. I don’t think any of us are single children, but I have friends who are only children, and the stress that comes with that, of sort of being the one person carrying on the family legacy if that’s something that your family cares a lot about, has to be really intense. And it’s amplified in this case because Neville had these amazing, accomplished parents who lost all of that, and he’s the one remaining possibility for the Longbottom family to achieve anything notable, right? So I think that’s where a lot of this comes from. They were so desperate for him to be special.

Eric: He was just never allowed to find his own path or forge his own way. He was not his entire childhood.

Andrew: But he does in the end, so at least there’s that.

Laura: Even if we flip the script and we assume that Augusta is a very nurturing grandmother and Neville’s family is very embracing of him, do we think that he might have still been doomed to feeling second best to Harry?

Eric: Do we ever…? I mean, I don’t think he ever really takes it out on Harry that he feels second best to Harry.

Laura: He doesn’t. And that’s a testament to his character, because Ron definitely takes it out on Harry. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, that’s true. Well, I mean, just Neville most of the time is so busy being tortured by Draco Malfoy. I’ll re-say that: Neville is just so busy being taunted by Draco Malfoy most of the time, and Harry, actually, to his credit, steps in a lot of the time. So I always felt more of like, there’s just a good friendship, versus… there’s not really any rivalry between Harry and Neville, and a lot of that, I think, has to do with the fact that I don’t think Neville was ever told why his parents were targeted. I don’t think that he knows about the prophecy, and that’s on Dumbledore. I think Dumbledore didn’t tell anyone else.

Laura: Does he ever find out? Do we ever get any confirmation one way or the other on that?

Eric: I doubt it.

Andrew: Does he listen to this podcast? Because if so, he just heard the prophecy a half hour ago.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: I’m googling it right now.

Micah: Andrew, can to do a retake of that?

Andrew: [laughs] No, nope.

Micah: Just in case he’s listening right now?

Andrew: Once a month.

Eric: But that actually raises an interesting question to me, because we know that the Potters were well protected behind a Fidelius Charm, and Dumbledore himself offered to be the Secret Keeper. Were the Longbottoms so heavily shielded? Because just a punk teenager and two more Death Eaters can find them and get to them. And even though Frank and Alice were, like I said, official Aurors, they I don’t think were nearly half as protected, and Dumbledore had no way of knowing which kid Voldemort would go for.

Laura: Yeah, the only thing I can think is that Dumbledore diverted resources to the Potters because he had confirmation from Snape that Voldemort was going to go after the Potters. But again, I’m still wrestling with this idea of people being like, “Yep, okay, there’s two choices, and I think it’s this one, so we’re going to focus all resources on this one and not to the other.” It strikes me as very odd that Dumbledore wouldn’t do something for the Longbottoms.

Eric: Especially because both teams thrice defied Voldemort; that’s not an easy thing to do. So many people… Voldemort personally has to kill certain people, we find out about in the later books, and they end up taking a lot of other people with them. So to have these Aurors in Frank and Alice that also thrice defied Voldemort, as Dumbledore, the head of the Order of the Phoenix, you’re going to want to protect Frank and Alice. Even if they’re not chosen, you want them in your circle, because they’re helping you defeat evil.

Laura: Yeah, I mean, they’re members of Order of the Phoenix.

Eric: Yeah, so he kind of hung them out to dry, I think. Weird kind of Dumbledore discussion, but yeah, I think he didn’t do enough.

Micah: Shocker.

Laura: Yeah, it just still strikes me as odd. [laughs] Yeah. “Old age.”

[Eric laughs]

Laura: But I mean, we know – and some folks have brought this up in the Discord – we know that ultimately, Bellatrix and the Death Eaters went and tortured Frank and Alice to try and find out if they knew anything about Voldemort’s whereabouts after he vanished post his infant baby ass-whooping that he got, which goes to show that I think the Death Eaters were under the illusion that the Potters and the Longbottoms – or the Order of the Phoenix more largely – were all interconnected in such a way that they would have that information. So it’s just strange to me. They kind of got treated like collateral damage, in a way, and it had such an impact.

Micah: But can you imagine the…? [laughs] Well, we already know how crazy Bellatrix is. But can you imagine the state of mind of somebody like Bellatrix after Voldemort has fallen? She’s probably just completely insane, and is willing to do anything to get information and is probably not even listening to what Frank and Alice are saying; she’s just completely off her rocker. So yeah, it’s unfortunate.

Laura: Yeah. And with regard to Voldemort, we actually have another quote here that I pulled from the book. This is post Voldemort altercation, and I thought, Micah, you could read this for us. It’s a Neville quote.

Micah: “We didn’t face him, though. You did. You should hear my gran talk about you. ‘That Harry Potter’s got more backbone than the whole Ministry of Magic put together!’ She’d give anything to have you as a grandson…”

Laura: That hurts to read.

Andrew and Micah: Yeah.

Andrew: How affected is Neville by that? I guess I would need to read the whole passage, or just refresh myself on this area of the story. But if Neville is willing to say that to Harry, how affected is he by it? Because sometimes if something really bothers you, you don’t want to mention it, because then you’re acknowledging it. You’re validating it.

Laura: I feel like at this point, he’s what, 15? 16? And he’s spent his whole life being made to feel like he’s not enough, so he’s probably numb to it.

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Micah: I always saw that, though, as a moment… I think, Andrew, this might have been what you were alluding to. Neville is just giving props to Harry and almost showing that there’s other people out there that would love to have Harry as part of their family, knowing probably what he’s been through; the fact that he’s lost his parents, the fact that he lives with the Dursleys. So I always saw that as a nice moment between the two of them.

Andrew and Laura: Yeah.

Andrew: I think you can look at it both ways.

Laura: And I think that it could be a case of multiple truths, right? He has this acknowledgment that he’s not quite living up to expectations in his grandmother’s view, but at the same time, he recognizes that this might be a heartwarming thing for Harry to hear that somebody else would consider him family.

Eric: Yeah, for sure.

Laura: Well, Augusta definitely gets hers a little bit later. So we find out in Book 6 when Professor McGonagall is handing out class schedules, based on whether or not people passed OWLs in various subjects the previous year, that Neville was not going to be able to take Transfiguration because he only achieved an Acceptable on his Transfiguration OWL. And Professor McGonagall says, “No, you wouldn’t be able to handle the course load. Why are you trying to take Transfiguration, anyway? You don’t like it.” And Neville muttered something about “Well, my grandmother wants me to,” and Professor McGonagall says, “It’s high time your grandmother learned to be proud of the grandson she’s got, rather than the one she thinks she ought to have – particularly after what happened at the Ministry.”

Andrew: Yeah, I love that.

Laura: I love it, because not only does she say it to Neville, mind, she’s saying it in front of the whole table of Gryffindors, because [laughs] – this is a weird thing, too – she’s going around and assigning them schedules based on what their OWL exam grades were, so she’s openly talking about what OWLs people passed and failed in front of everyone.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: Euhh, yeah. Is it made up for by the fact that Minerva is being maternal right now? [laughs]

Laura: Yeah, I think that she has the best intentions, but this also just strikes me as a very old school educational approach that does not create a psychologically safe environment for the students. [laughs]

Eric: That’s fair. That’s fair. Keep in mind, though, they do all attend the same classes, and a lot of the classes are like, “Make this potion,” and so everyone knows that Neville is not going to be doing great at Potions. They all kind of guess each other’s grades.

Micah: This reminds me, though, was there never a time when you were back in school where teachers used to post your grades up on a board and you would go…? Maybe they did it by student ID as opposed to your actual name.

Eric: It had a number, yeah.

Andrew: This line, though, was a great line that a lot of parents can probably remember. They’re very hard on their kids, and they need to learn to love them just as they are and not worry about the things that they don’t like about them.

Eric: Absolutely.

Laura: And later in the same passage, McGonagall notes that Neville achieved an Exceeds Expectations in Charms, which would allow him to continue on to NEWT level Charms in years six and seven. And I’m wondering, Andrew, if you could read this passage from McGonagall. It’s so good.

Andrew: I’m laughing reading it.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: “‘Take Charms,’ said Professor McGonagall, ‘and I shall drop Augusta a line reminding her that just because she failed her Charms OWL, the subject is not necessarily worthless.’ Smiling slightly at the look of delighted incredulity on Neville’s face, Professor McGonagall tapped a blank schedule with the tip of her wand and handed it, now carrying details of his new classes, to Neville.”

Laura: So did Minerva and Augusta attend Hogwarts together?

Eric: Yeah, they were probably roommates and they cannot stand one another.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Micah: That fanfiction.

Laura: Well, we know that Minerva and Professor Sprout were there at the same time.

Eric: Oh, right.

Laura: We’ve had that confirmed. And I was looking at Augusta’s wiki page; it said she was born in 1947. Does that add up with the canon timeline? Not the Fantastic Beasts timeline.

[Andrew and Micah groan]

Eric: I was going to say, because Minerva was already a teacher for 20 years then.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Laura: Book timeline. Book timeline.

Eric: I just believe it because she’s a generation removed from all of the other Gryffindors’ parents, right? So at the time when Frank and Alice would have been at school is the same time that the Marauders and Harry’s parents and Snape and all that, but Minerva is one more generation above, so that’s when Augusta, Neville’s gran, would have been there, and Hagrid and Voldemort and Lucius and all that.

Micah: Right. Yeah, I mean, I’ve always looked at that quote as thinking that she’s saying that as one of the professors to have been at the school when Augusta was taking the exams, but she just as easily could have been her classmate and learned about what she got on her OWL. And plus, the fanfiction that I read going episodes back.

Laura: There you go.

Micah: They were roommates.

Laura: That’s right. That’s right.

Eric: I didn’t pull that from thin air. Darn.

Andrew: It’s fanfic canon.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: Love it.

Laura: But it makes sense.

Micah: Same as Cursed Child.

Laura: Hey, at least the fanfic hasn’t been cut down by two hours, so it’s got that going for it.

Andrew: Ooooh. Talking about that next week.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Laura: Was it too soon? Too soon? I’m sorry. But I like this idea that Minerva is very aware of her students’ home situations. I mean, this quote does not come provoked based on Neville saying one thing; I have to think that she’s been aware of Augusta’s treatment of Neville for quite some time to say something like this.

Eric: Yeah, and Minerva has reason to not like Neville; I mean, he’s the one who left the list of passwords hanging around so that Sirius Black could get into Gryffindor dormitory and kill students. So she’s had her moments with Neville, but this rare showing of a maternal support goes to show that McGonagall does get it, and she knows that at least half of what’s going on with Neville is because of the unrealistic expectations put on by a very domineering gran.

Laura: Well, this takes us into a short discussion about Neville and the theme of belonging. It really seems as long as we’ve known Neville in the series that he really just longs to fit somewhere. We know that he had a silent argument with the Sorting Hat to put him in Hufflepuff, even though presumably, he comes from a long line of Gryffindor. So maybe he didn’t think that he could live up to the mantle of being a Gryffindor; maybe it felt like too much pressure. But do we think that Neville felt like he would be a better fit in Hufflepuff due to low self-esteem, for example? We know how Hufflepuff is portrayed early on in the books.

Eric: Bunch o’ duffers.

Laura: Yeah, exactly.

Eric: Yeah, I think so. Because he thought he was nonmagical for a very long time, probably learned about Hogwarts from the lens of “You’ll never attend because you’re a Squib,” and then finds out he has magic. But I bet by then his confidence and self-esteem is so low that he knows already he’s not going to be the warrior his parents both were, and so “They were Gryffindors? Great. I’m going to try for a House that has more of an accepting kind of reputation, and that’s Hufflepuff.” It’s like, “I’ll just go to school, but I just want to be in a House that’ll have me. I’m not trying to be bold, daring, dashing, none of that.” And so I can see why Hufflepuff would appeal to Neville more than Gryffindor. Because Gryffindor comes with sort of a sentence of “You’ve got to live up to this,” whereas Hufflepuff surely wouldn’t have.

Micah: He just wants to be with Hannah.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Well, I was going to say, actually… I mean, I really like this theory that Laura and Eric presented, but you could also maybe take it as a bit of foreshadowing, replacing the Herbology teacher eventually, the Head of Hufflepuff. I think you could make an argument like that.

Eric: That’s true.

Laura: Yeah. Well, and we have to remember, Dumbledore says in Book 7, “Sometimes I think we Sort too young.” So maybe if given the opportunity to be Sorted as an adult, Neville would end up in Hufflepuff.

Micah: It is interesting, though, how early the tone is set on Hufflepuff: It’s the House that you don’t want to be Sorted into, even though Neville wants to be there. And it’s like you were saying, Laura; it’s like a safety net for him, essentially, to go there, because then there’s really no expectation level, right? If he goes into Hufflepuff.

Andrew: People like to blame the fans for that negative Hufflepuff image because it is kind of running joke…

Laura: And it’s not.

Andrew: Right, exactly. It’s not after all, when you’re reminded of moments like this.

Eric: No, in Madam Malkin’s when Harry first meets Draco, Draco says, “I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?” [laughs] If he’s Sorted into Hufflepuff. Unbelievable.

Andrew: We need a whole discussion on this. “In Defense of Hufflepuff.” Just a whole episode dedicated to it.

Eric: I’m on it, Andrew.

Laura: I know. Well, thankfully, I think the fandom has evolved the conversation about Hufflepuffs to the point where there’s a lot more prominence.

Andrew: Yes.

Laura: There’s a lot more regard for them. But it would be really hard to argue that the books did not set a tone for Hufflepuff being treated like the safety school option.

Eric: Absolutely. But I think a Hufflepuff perspective would take pride in that, too; they’re not so elitist.

Laura: Well, it’s ultimately, I think… if we read over the original Sorting song, Hufflepuff said that she would take the rest and teach them all the same. I think that’s the best quality of…

Eric: Yeah, no gatekeeping.

Laura: Yeah, exactly. Definitely fits in in the 2021 world. [laughs]

Andrew: Yes.

Laura: And just for some evidence about Neville’s self-worth, his self-confidence, we knew that he was worried about being a Squib. Even after he exhibited magical abilities at the age of eight, his family was still afraid that he wasn’t magical enough to get into Hogwarts. And he also expressed concern in Chamber of Secrets that the Basilisk might attack him because of his own perceived low magical abilities.

[Eric laughs]

Laura: Can you imagine that? Being like, “I suck so much, this thing that’s not even after me based on blood status is going to kill me because I suck.”

Andrew: [laughs] “He just eats people who suck.” That sounds like a good rumor that would go around school.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Laura: It does. It’s terrible. Awful. Well, I thought to relate to this theme of belonging, I’m wondering if any of us have ever had the experience of feeling like we don’t belong somewhere, or that others belong more than us.

Andrew: Yeah, definitely. And actually, this ties into earlier when we were talking about Neville feeling like he’s second best. I think we all go through that where we’re in situations, be it professional or personal. Maybe it’s a party, maybe it’s a particular meeting at the office, and we feel like we don’t belong, because maybe these people are more experienced than we are, or they’re just perceived in social circles as cooler than we are. So yeah, I’ve definitely… I don’t have a specific… I mean, the classic example is the lunch table, right? You don’t feel like you belong in one lunch table. Everybody else is cool. I felt that, though, very much.

Eric: For sure. I think in third grade, I joined the Chess Club, and I was very enthusiastic about playing chess, but I knew that I was not at all… I wasn’t strategic at it. And still to this day, I love playing it, but I’m constantly surprised when a piece is taken, because I don’t think enough moves ahead. And I was very happy to draw… I think we did a chess fair or something and I drew the border, the banner for it, on paper. I had a lot of fun time being in the Chess Club, and fortunately, my skills didn’t really have to be tested because it was really just… I don’t know if it was after school, but it was just a way for kids to have fun. But I very much felt kind of like an imposter even there. I felt like everyone around me was better at chess than I was, but I did just want to belong.

Laura: Yeah, I remember I always struggled with math as a child; it was not my preferred subject. And when I was in fifth grade, we took a standardized test. We took a practice test and then we took the actual real thing, and I failed both of them. And not only did I fail both of them, I failed them both with the exact same score. And I remember my teacher… he was great. He showed me the scores and he was like, “Do you see a difference between these?” And I was like, “Nope.” And he ran an advanced math class after school club, and his answer to that was to encourage me to join this club. And I was like, “No way, I suck at this; why would I join an advanced club?” And his thought was that it would push me because I would want to rise to the occasion to perform alongside the other kids in there, and it actually worked.

Eric: Whoa.

Laura: I don’t think it would work for everyone, but I think he felt pretty confident that it would work for me and my particular learning style. But yeah, the imposter syndrome I felt when I walked into that classroom the first day. [laughs] I was like, “I shouldn’t be here. I don’t belong here. These kids are way better than me. They’re way smarter.” But in the end, I’m really glad that it worked out the way it did.

Micah: Nice. Yeah, I remember at my current job when I had first started out… this goes with what Andrew was saying earlier about maybe you’re in meetings that you don’t really feel like you should be in because the other people in the room are just more senior to you. I remember going into the meeting and it was a small group of people – it wasn’t big or anything like that – and I happened to look over at the person sitting next to me, and they were holding their phone and somebody from across the table had actually texted or messaged that person – I think back at the time we were using Blackberries – and they said, “Why is Micah in this meeting?”

Andrew: [gasps] Oh!

Laura: Oh my God!

Micah: So it completely justified everything that I was thinking. And I remember going back later to talk to the person who I reported into and I relayed the story – it was probably weeks or months after the fact – and similar to what you said earlier, Laura, they were just like, “Who cares whether or not they think you should be in the meeting? It shouldn’t stop you from saying anything or speaking up. I wanted you in the meeting as the person who reports into me, and that should be enough.”

Andrew: Damn.

Laura: Holy cow, that person sucks. Those people suck, whoever did that.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Micah: It’s amazing, though. People think they’re so slick. It’s so much easier to get away with now, being in this virtual environment where you can message people on the side when you’re in meetings. But when you’re physically in a meeting with somebody, you can’t get away with that stuff. I’m sorry.

Andrew: [laughs] Right.

Eric: I’m always asking why Micah is on the meeting.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: “Why are you here recording today?”

[Eric laughs]

Laura: Ugh, professional gatekeeping is just the worst. I won’t have it.

Andrew: I always think of this quote – and I think this relates – from Michelle Obama. I think about it all the time. “I’ve been at every powerful table you can think of; they are not that smart.” That’s a short sample of the quote. I took that to mean nobody is any better than you are. People may seem intimidating at first, but everyone has their flaws, and that makes you just as good as anyone else, so just remember that when you’re feeling intimidated. We’re all human, and you may be surprised by what even the most successful people in life actually lack. It’s probably a lot.

Laura: Well, it sounds like we’re moving into a speech about propping Neville up, trying to motivate him, trying to give him confidence, and that’s perfectly timed because we do have some notable moments of development that Neville saw throughout the books.

Andrew: Yeah, I always think back to standing up to the trio when they wanted to sneak out in Sorcerer’s Stone. And of course, this wasn’t the first time that Neville had stood up to fellow students, but as Dumbledore says, he stood up to his friends and that takes a lot of courage, and you deserve House points for that. So I really admire that moment. Because we all know that it can be hard to stand up to friends, absolutely. You’re close to somebody; you don’t want to tell them certain things. Sometimes you have to, and Neville did that time. He did more than I would at 11/12 years old.

Laura: And he got petrified and was laying there stiff as a board for God knows how many hours.

Andrew: Yeah, Miss Angel Hermione did it too.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Micah: And he still asked her out later on.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: See, he doesn’t hold grudges. Just another thing to like about him.

Micah: There you go.

Eric: Hufflepuff trait.

Micah: She was preparing him for Chamber of Secrets in case the Basilisk got him.

Laura: [laughs] Oh no.

Andrew: In case the Basilisk did attack stupid people.

Laura: That is ironic that the following year she’s the one who gets Petrified.

Andrew: Karma is a “bleep.”

Micah: Another really big moment of development for Neville was definitely in Order of the Phoenix. We talked about this during our Chapter by Chapter discussion of “Beyond the Veil,” but just what did we refer to it as? A glow-up for Neville?

Eric and Laura: Yep.

Laura: It really was.

Micah: He just comes through as such a fierce ally. He’s possibly the most Gryffindor of the bunch during this particular series of events in the Ministry. He just has these really great moments where you don’t always have to use magic, right? He took his wand and he jammed it in a Death Eater’s eye to save Harry. I mean, sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. Sorry, Macnair.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: “That was for Buckbeak.”

Eric: Not sorry, Macnair.

Laura: Yeah, who cares about the method as long as you achieve the desired outcome?

Micah: And we talked a little bit about this during that episode, but do we feel like J.K. Rowling intentionally took out the rest of the crew that was there in the Ministry? At least for a period of time, right? We talked about how Hermione, Ginny, Luna, all kind of get sidelined – Ron, obviously – to kind of push Neville to the forefront? Because for a while there, it is Neville and Harry who are doing most of the battling.

Laura: I think so. I think from a writing perspective, she knew that very shortly, it was going to be revealed to Harry and to the reader that Neville could have potentially been the Chosen One.

Eric: Oh, right.

Laura: So it gave readers an opportunity to see them both at the forefront.

Eric: I just wish it wasn’t all comic relief, the way he’s got a bloody nose but is still talking through it. “Dubble-dore, Dubble-dore!”

Laura: Yeah, that got kind of annoying. [laughs]

Eric: That was really annoying to read, actually. It was like, “Neville? Ew, he sucks.”

Micah: But probably one of the most important things that he does in this chapter is he faces the individual who was responsible for the torture of his parents, in Bellatrix. I mean, he does get the Cruciatus Curse for his efforts, so he experiences the same curse that his parents did, but he still perseveres through it. He gets hit with a number of different spells. He finally loses his father’s wand, which is probably a good thing, one good thing that comes out of this chapter. But yeah, I mean, he’s really just at the forefront defending everybody and not backing down, and I don’t think that’s something that we’ve seen from him previously.

Laura: Yeah, and I really think that moment where he loses his father’s wand is a literary device to sort of represent him becoming his own person. It’s the first time he gets to, whether willingly or unwillingly, kind of thrust the expectations that are placed upon him away.

Micah: Yeah, that’s a really great point. And then one of the other moments was in Deathly Hallows, confronting Voldemort after Harry has been supposedly killed, and he’s staring down the Dark Lord. And if we’re going back to our conversation earlier, it could have just as easily been him in Hagrid’s arms. But in that moment, he chooses to stand up to scream “Dumbledore’s Army,” and again, he pays the price, right? Just like with Bellatrix, Voldemort makes an example of him. He calls the Sorting Hat out, puts it on top of his head, and lights it on fire. And it’s another defining moment for Neville, before he finally destroys the last Horcrux, and again, that’s also something that I think is worth mentioning, because he ultimately opens the door for Harry to defeat Voldemort.

Laura: Yep, he sets Harry up for the win.

Micah: Exactly.

Laura: I like the imagery, too, of Neville’s – we can assume – final interaction with the Sorting Hat being this, because in Book 1, when he gets Sorted, he’s so nervous that he literally runs away with the Sorting Hat still on, and then has to run back up to deliver the Sorting Hat to the stool in front of everyone laughing at him. So the fact that he’s… it really, I think, is reminiscent of his development arc that he went from being highly nervous, not having very much confidence, to literally having this thing put on his head and burned because he stood up to the Darkest wizard of their age.

Andrew: That’s a beautiful bookend, yeah. All right, we’ll talk about his movie portrayal in a moment, but first, it’s time for a word from this week’s sponsor.

[Ad break]

Laura: All right, we’re going to dig into Neville’s movie portrayal now. He’s portrayed in the films by Matthew Lewis all the way through, so I feel like this is…

Andrew: Speaking of glow-up.

Laura: Yeah, he did. [laughs] I feel like this is another achievement for the films, that they were able to largely keep the child cast from Movie 1 all the way through Movie 8.

Andrew: Absolutely.

Laura: And I thought, though… we don’t need to… we’re not here to critique Matthew Lewis; I think that he did a fine job as Neville. But there are some notable changes in Neville’s film portrayal; we talked about one a little bit earlier with the film showing him having a romantic interest in Luna, but there are also some things that had a pretty significant impact on the plot points in the books. So we know in Book 1, Neville snuck out to try and warn Harry and Hermione that Draco was trying to get them caught while they smuggled Norbert out, and he actually is the one who got in trouble, something we don’t get to see. We also see that Neville was in the train compartment during the Dementor introduction in Prisoner of Azkaban. The film makes it out as though it’s just the trio and Lupin; it is not. Unfortunately, Neville in talking about his experience in that compartment is the reason that Draco finds out that Harry collapsed and thus starts teasing Harry, but it’s completely unintentional. Again, we also know he asked Hermione to the Yule Ball in Goblet of Fire. In the movies, though, I think there were some notable things that were absent, including those prior book items. So no Frank and Alice, or St. Mungo’s shown in the films, and it feels like this was such a missed opportunity.

Micah: It was, I totally agree. And I think there’s actually an article out there where Matt Lewis talks about really wanting to have filmed this scene. And both him and – it was either Yates or Heyman; I’m forgetting which David – they had talked about it and they agreed after the fact that it was a huge miss, and obviously, would have been a great scene for Matt to film as Neville with his parents. And it also would have just, I think… not that people didn’t like Neville to begin with, right? I think they’re all… most people are drawn to Neville’s character. But I think it would have really just been a great onscreen moment for him.

Andrew: I do wonder – because the fifth movie came out the same year, the same month, as Book 7 – if they knew what was going to happen in Book 7, would that have changed this? Would they have put a scene like this in? Because I think it would have added a lot to Neville’s character leading up to defeating Nagini.

Laura: I feel like the movies made the very conscious choice to omit a lot of Neville’s storyline. I mean, in the movies we don’t learn that Neville could have been the Chosen One, right? I don’t think that’s a nuance that ever got discussed.

Andrew: Yeah, I guess not.

Micah: I don’t think so, actually. You’re right.

Laura: So I wonder if with that decision, a lot of Neville’s character development got scrapped.

Andrew: Yeah. Again, I think maybe if they knew where it was going, maybe they would have included a lot of that character development. Because they couldn’t change who killed Nagini; it had to be Neville in the movie.

Eric and Laura: Right.

Laura: But the significance of him killing Nagini is completely lost if you don’t have that context.

Andrew and Micah: Right.

Andrew: And that’s what I’m saying; if they knew what was going to happen in Book 7, maybe they would have added more of Neville’s story in.

Laura: Yeah, I feel like they had also set him up to just be comic relief in the films, unfortunately.

Andrew: Definitely.

Laura: And we can get into that by remembering when Neville worked as a butler to get into Slughorn’s Christmas party in the Half-Blood Prince film.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Oh, right! Yeah.

Laura: Hated this. [laughs] I hated it so much.

Andrew: The TV show will fix these problems.

Laura: I hope so.

Andrew: We’ll get Neville’s story and no butler Neville.

Micah: And just to go back for a second to the whole Frank and Alice, how it plays out in the movies… I’m even remembering how Bellatrix first meets Neville. She’s like, “How’s Mum and Dad?” It’s almost played off like it’s a joke. And I feel like if they would have set it up better earlier on in the movie, you would have realized just how painful of a moment that was for Neville. I mean, I know he’s got the moment with Harry in the Room of Requirement with the photo of the Order and that’s how he explains it – I think it’s not long after Bellatrix breaks out of Azkaban – and it works for the movie, but I feel like it would have been a much better scene inside of St. Mungo’s. We never go to St. Mungo’s, do we?

Andrew and Laura: No.

Micah: Budget? Pacing? Yates?

Laura: [laughs] Yeah. Well, we could definitely dig through all kinds of examples of Neville’s portrayal in the book versus the movies, but I wanted to just get a quick take from the panel. Do we think that the films position Neville’s character to be the same character that we know and love from the books?

Andrew: That’s complicated.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: They captured some elements of Neville for sure, just not the best ones. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah. I don’t know; I’m of two minds, because I think coming to the movies first, I found that having him be acted – and by Matt Lewis – really softened some of the Neville moments I would normally feel annoyed by, because I’m like, “Oh, Neville. This guy. Come on.” So there’s that. But I do think that all of the characters by the end of the movie series are worse for the fact that it’s been adapted into the movies that they were making. If you’re not the trio, your arc – and maybe various fundamental character moments or character bits about you – were sacrificed for pacing or time.

Micah: I mean, Neville gets a fair amount of screen time in most of the films, right? If you’re thinking outside of the trio, he’s probably one that gets a fair amount. But I often just feel like he was played off as being a bit of a doofus, even more comic relief at times than Ron is. I’m thinking of the Goblet of Fire scene in the second task, like, “Oh my God, I killed Harry Potter!”

Eric: [laughs] Well, in that same film, though…

Micah: When in the book, he’s not even the one who gives him the Gillyweed in the book.

Eric: In that film, he does inspire my favorite piece of musical score, though: “Neville’s Waltz.”

Andrew: Ah, yeah.

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Laura: And of course they give him a waltz.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: They’re like, “Here’s the lame character; we’re giving him a waltz.”

Eric: What? Waltzes are hard to learn.

Laura: Yeah, but he’s also a teenager.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s not sexy.

Laura: Can you imagine being a teenager? Would you want…? Yeah, exactly. Would you want someone to tell you, “I’ve composed a waltz for you”?

Andrew: “Wanna waltz with me?”

Laura: To bring us home today, I thought we could revisit this “What if?” point that we surfaced briefly at the beginning of the show: What if Neville was the Chosen One? Let’s assume all the circumstances are the same. He’s at home with Frank and Alice, Voldemort breaks into their home, kills his parents, Alice sacrifices herself to save Neville, spell rebounds. Neville’s got the scar – or something – on his forehead. What would that mean for Neville’s upbringing? And how would it impact the series?

Eric: I know we talked a lot about how the Longbottoms kind of all suck to Neville…

[Laura laughs]

Eric: … and suck at him and suck to him. But I really think that if he had been the Chosen One, and it’s due to Neville as an infant that Voldemort’s power was broken, and the house was destroyed, his family that we know as being very hard on him would have immediately… or would have been different people. Because although he would have presumably been delayed in showing his magical talent to roughly the same period of time either way, the difference is he would have done something, right? The difference is Voldemort would have been defeated because of this boy. And so I think his family would have immediately gone into the more almost covering-up-for-him mode, if it turned… because the expectations are high. He’s in a wizarding family; everybody’s going to want to see him age six do some remarkable feat of magic around the reunion table or something. I feel like his family would have immediately gone in to protect him, because their honor is on the line, right? And so instead, he would have been encouraged much sooner to follow the path that made the most sense for him. And I think somebody like Augusta would have actually learned what kind of a person he was first, instead of forcing him to be somebody else, because they’d have that victory, that initial victory against Voldemort.

Andrew: I like that.

Micah: But can somebody like Augusta even exist? If we’re saying all things equal, I don’t think Augusta or Great Uncle Algie or any of them can exist. Neville has to be raised in some other fashion, no?

Eric: Well, why?

Andrew: Yeah, I don’t think so.

Eric: Because it’s really just that… the question is if Voldemort chose…

Micah: Well, Harry doesn’t have anybody but his aunt.

Eric: Right, but let’s just say if Voldemort chose to go after the Longbottom boy instead of the Potter boy, Augusta, Algie, are all still there.

Andrew: Yeah, it doesn’t matter who the family is around him.

Laura: Yeah, I mean, they would have been his closest living kin.

Andrew: I think also, Eric, to your point, Augusta would have a newfound appreciation for Neville, too, having almost lost him.

Eric: Mm, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

Andrew: Right. Or almost killed by the Dark Lord.

Laura: Do you feel like it could have almost been a different kind of pressure, though? I mean…

Andrew: [laughs] “Now you have to defeat Voldemort, kid.”

[Eric laughs]

Laura: Yeah, like, “You defeated Voldemort as an infant, so now we really are expecting great things from you.”

Andrew: Right. “You have to do it twice in one lifetime.” [laughs] Maybe. But then also, just this whole scenario raises so many questions, like who would Neville’s friends have been? Would he have had two very close friends with him throughout the series? Can we jump to my point? What would Dumbledore’s relationship be like with him? That’s a huge question.

Eric: Well, I want to know what Dumbledore’s relationship with Harry would be like.

Andrew: Nothing.

Eric: If he treats him just like he treats Neville, like, non-existent relationship. Can you imagine?

Andrew: Yeah, just like any other… he’d be any other student.

Eric: He’d be any other student, yeah.

Laura: Actually, Stephanie in the Discord is raising a point that I think supports what you were alluding to earlier, Micah, which is that if all things are equal, and it’s a mother’s love that saved Neville, he would need the blood magic from the maternal side of his family. Augusta is his paternal side of the family, so Dumbledore would have had to ensure that he go to one of Alice’s relatives, I think. Is that what you were saying, Micah?

Micah: Sure, yes.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Micah: No, in part. In a way, yes, but I think Stephanie makes the point a lot clearer.

Eric: Yeah. I wonder what Alice’s family is like. I wonder who they are; how they feel about Neville… but I think Dumbledore just would have had to do a different kind of protection. Bits and bobs here and there.

Andrew: Who’s the Aunt Marge on Neville side?

[Laura laughs]

Eric: Probably Uncle Algie. That dude sucks.

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: Yeah, that guy really sucks.

Andrew: Yeah, actually. There you go.

Laura: Imagine Snape teaching Neville Occlumency.

Eric: I can’t.

Andrew: Well, and you also wonder – because I was wondering that, too – would Neville be stubborn in terms of his lessons? Or would he actually go with it and really work to close his mind out to Voldemort? I think he would.

Eric: Well, we don’t hear about Frank Longbottom and Snape having beef, so maybe he would have gotten a quality education from Snape, Neville would.

Andrew: Oh, that’s a very important factor as well. Everything changes.

Micah: Or is Snape even a factor here anymore?

Andrew: Oh.

Eric: That’s true.

Andrew: Everything changes!

Laura: I mean, imagine if it was James and Lily in St. Mungo’s and Snape was pining after Lily still while she’s in a mental hospital.

Eric: Snape would have been working for Mungo’s as a Healer of some sort instead.

Micah: There you go.

Andrew: It’s Sprout who’s in love with Frank. [laughs] “You have his eyes.”

Eric: Sprout is the Snape allegory. I love that. That’s crazy.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: I think what this tells us is we need a Longbottom family tree. Do we have that? [laughs]

Micah: Somewhere, probably.

Andrew: I don’t know. There has to be fanfiction with this idea, right? If Neville is the Chosen One?

Micah: Oh, I’m sure there is.

Eric: Definitely.

Andrew: Because now I want to read all of that. We spoke about what Harry Potter spinoffs could be, and we spoke about Stephenie Meyer Life and Death. This should be the alternate universe Harry Potter series that is written: What if Neville was the Chosen One?

Laura and Micah: Yeah.

Micah: I agree. I’m still just trying to wrap my head around what it does to the perception of the Longbottom family in the wizarding world, right? They’re a pure-blood family that would have taken down Voldemort. How does that all play itself out?

Eric: Oh. That can make it worse for race relations, or pure-blood, half-blood, all that other stuff.

Laura: Either that or it’s a signal that a very prominent pure-blood family has taken a strong stance against Voldemort and his terror of blood purity that he’s reigning down upon the world.

Eric: Oh, wait, yeah. Neville is pure-blood, which means Alice’s parents are witches and wizards, so they’re a wizarding family. How do we never hear about Alice’s side? That’s crazy.

Laura: It is so odd. And then Andrew, I think you have a note here about Neville’s scar. [laughs]

Andrew: What would Neville’s scar have been? [laughs] Would it have been a lightning bolt? Would it have been a leaf?

Laura: It would have been a Mimbus mimbletonia.

Andrew: There you go.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: A leaf. Definitely a leaf.

Andrew: A burning Sorting Hat. The sword of Gryffindor. A snake.

Micah: A toad.

Eric: A pipe.

Andrew: So many options.

Laura: I would really love this. And honestly, this is why… again, I know I harp on this point, but I love the idea of other creators being able to get into this space and produce other kinds of content. I mean, I’m a big MCU fan; I don’t think this is a surprise to anyone, but I’m so looking forward to the Disney+ “What If?” show that’s coming out here in August showing all of these alternate realities. Like, what if T’Challa had been abducted and he became Star Lord instead of the King of Wakanda? I love all of these different alternate takes. And I feel like if the executives at WB would allow it to be so, there could just be endless storytelling for the wizarding world. It really lends itself to that. I would watch this show. I would read this book. [laughs]

Andrew: Definitely. And listeners, if you have any feedback about any of this, do let us know. @MuggleCast on social media, MuggleCast@gmail.com, the contact form on MuggleCast.com… all the ways. I guess we’re going to wrap it up, then?

Laura: Yep, we can raise a glass to Neville Longbottom, the Boy Who Lived.

Andrew: The Boy Who Lived!

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: The Other Boy Who Lived. The Second Best Boy Who Lived. No, I can’t say that. All right, that was a lot of fun. Great discussion. Like I said, numerous ways to contact us, so please do if you have any feedback about today’s episode. And next week’s episode will be a Muggle Mail episode, so get your feedback in now. It’s time for Quizzitch!


Quizzitch


[Quizzitch music plays]

Eric: Last week’s question: Five years after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, the franchise was continued with the first Fantastic Beasts film. What is the first spoken sentence of Fantastic Beasts? The correct answer – and I have my copy of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them script book here – is “Dougal, you settle down now, please,” and some people added, “It won’t be long.” Correct answers were submitted to us by – oh boy, here we go – Aslaniarmus; HufflePuffle; Lord Lasagna; Bubotuber Pus; Tuesday Addams; Just Amanda; Hulami Bayzoo; Peace and Love; I am the carrot you grew in sixth grade and I am coming to avenge my eaten friends; Dumbledore’s sock knitter; Must Be a Weasley; and one very long one I’ll trouble us all by reading: Humanity has only one option. Start a potato war. Both sides rally, collecting potato guns. Starch destroyers. Tune in next week for the winner.

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Eric: I’m scared of potatoes now. Jury’s out on whether we’ll put a stop to all those long names, right? We ask that every week.

Andrew: I’m going to stop acknowledging these names because to acknowledge them is to encourage them.

Eric: Ahh, yeah.

Andrew: With peace and love, peace and love.

Laura: I encourage them. I feel like half the fun of this segment are the names.

Micah: Yeah. Lord Lasagna.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: I just hope these are unique people and not one person submitting ten different names with the same answer.

Eric: Oh, you know what? Maybe I should make the form be that you have to sign in, so we can prevent that.

Andrew: Maybe.

Laura: Eh, is it that serious?

Micah: No, no, no.

Andrew: “No, no, no”? We’re sitting here reading the same person ten times, potentially! [laughs]

Micah: Tuesday Addams.

Laura: Yeah, but what we don’t know doesn’t hurt us.

Andrew: It takes up time, though.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: It does take up precious, precious time.

Andrew: Precious time!

Eric: Are we ready for next week’s question?

Andrew: Yes.

Eric: Right after impersonating Neville Longbottom during his ride on the Knight Bus, Harry bumps into the real Neville outside Flourish and Blotts. What is Neville looking for in this moment? And that’s from Prisoner of Azkaban.

Micah: His confidence.

Andrew: I mentioned written ways you can get in touch with us, but if you call 1-920-3-MUGGLE, that’s 1-920-368-4453, you can call us. You can also record a voice memo on your phone and send that to MuggleCast@gmail.com. No matter how you call us, just try to keep your message about a minute long and record in a quieter environment, please. And like I said, next week’s episode, Muggle Mail episode, so get that feedback in now, please. Also, couple other reminders: We would love your support at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. You get bonus MuggleCast, you get a new physical gift every year, you get our planning docs, you get our livestreams, you get ad-free MuggleCast, you get all kinds of things, personalized video thank you message… that benefit should really lead, because it’s one of our favorite benefits. It’s just such a cool benefit, we think. So again, that’s Patreon.com/MuggleCast. We would also appreciate if you followed MuggleCast for free in whatever app you use to listen to the show, so you never miss an episode. Speaking of your podcasting app, if they have a review system, we would appreciate if you left a little review to help new listeners learn about us. And again, @MuggleCast on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. By the way, Facebook is adding a podcast feature. If you want to spend more time in Facebook, you can now listen to MuggleCast within the Facebook app, and you hit play and it’ll still play as you browse Facebook and as you switch apps, too, so something to let people know about. I don’t know. We’ll see if it takes off.

Micah: They’re a little late to the party, aren’t they?

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Little late to the party. Better late than never. I would like to see people be able to share clips and stuff; hopefully they add something like that. Thanks, everybody, for listening to today’s episode. I’m Andrew.

Eric: I’m Eric.

Micah: I’m Micah.

Laura: And I’m Laura.

Andrew: Bye, everyone.

Laura: Bye, y’all.