Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #338, Quizzitch

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Show Intro

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[Show music plays]

Andrew Sims: This is MuggleCast, the Harry Potter podcast discussing everything about J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world. Welcome to MuggleCast Episode 338. I’m Andrew.

Eric Scull: I’m Eric.

Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.

Andrew: And we have a guest joining us this week, Kyle, who you actually may have heard about in the headlines recently. How’s it going, Kyle?

Kyle Ely: Fantastic, thank you.

Andrew: We’ll explain what I mean in a few minutes. But you’ve also been a longtime listener of the show, right?

Kyle: Yep, I’ve been listening since maybe not Episode 1, but Episode 2, definitely.

Andrew: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Thank you so much. And where do you live?

Kyle: I live in Oregon City, Oregon.

Andrew: Ah, so peaceful up in the northwest. I’m jealous.

[Kyle laughs]

Micah: Well, thanks for getting up early.

Andrew: Oh, yeah!

[Eric laughs]

Micah: It’s not 11:00 a.m. out there right now.

Kyle: No, no, but as a teacher, I’m used to getting up early.

Eric: That’s right.

Andrew: Cool. [laughs] Well, thank you again for getting up early on this Sunday morning. Let’s get your fandom ID, and then Eric and I are going to talk about a Harry Potter trivia night that we went to. Kyle, what’s your favorite Harry Potter book and film?

Kyle: My favorite book is Half-Blood Prince. I love all the history of Voldemort and that kind of stuff. My favorite movie is Sorcerer’s Stone.

Andrew: In relation to our recent discussion, what is your favorite Hogwarts course?

Kyle: I love Transfiguration. It’s the coolest type of magic for me.

Eric: Cool.

Andrew: How about favorite Hogwarts teacher?

Kyle: Lupin, hands down.

Andrew: [laughs] Why hands down?

Kyle: He just is the type of teacher that I try to be with my own students. He shows compassion for his students, and really seems to care about them and lets them know that he cares about them, and I try to do that in my classroom.

Andrew: Aw, that’s sweet. What’s your Patronus?

Kyle: A bay stallion.

Eric: Oooh.

Andrew: A bay stallion. A stallion that hangs out by the bay?

Kyle: I guess so. I’m still a little confused about that one.

Eric: Where the watermelons grow.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Back to my home, I should like to go…

Andrew: I get it.

[Kyle laughs]

Andrew: How about your Hogwarts and Ilvermorny Houses?

Kyle: I’m a proud Hufflepuff.

Eric: Yeah! Badger, represent.

[Andrew and Kyle laugh]

Kyle: And then I’m also a Pukwudgie.

Andrew: Nice. Hufflepuff/Pukwudgie. I feel like that’s the appropriate combo.

Eric: Excuse me. [coughs]

Andrew: What?

Eric: Hufflepuff/Thunderbird over here.

Micah: Well, mistakes are made all the time, Eric.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Eric: Very funny.

Andrew: Anyway, good to have you on, Kyle. We’ll talk about your classroom that you transformed into a…

Eric: Transfigured, let’s say.

Andrew: Transfigured, yes, into a Harry Potter classroom. We’re going to hear about that in a moment.

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Harry Potter trivia in Chicago

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Andrew: Eric, I’m a resident of Chicago now. You’re a longtime resident of Chicago. You invited me to a Harry Potter trivia night earlier this week.

Eric: And you came out! [laughs]

Andrew: Of course! What, do you think I have things to do? No, I came out.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: With a couple of your friends at a bar near Wrigley Field, the ball base field.

Eric: Yep.

Andrew: And it was a fun night. It was my first Harry Potter trivia night, but you’ve been to a few, right?

Eric: I’ve been to a couple, yeah. Probably three or… actually, four, now that I think about it, but… that was the fourth. But it was definitely… I have to say, I was pleased, because the difficulty of questions was high, as it sometimes is, but a lot of the questions were based off the books, and this was the first trivia night that really seemed to focus a lot on questions pulled from the books. And the way that a lot of these work is you get massive groups of really drunk people who used to be Harry Potter fans, who’ve most likely or more often seen the movies out, to ask them a lot of movie questions, and it’s just… it’s a good time, but it’s pub trivia. It doesn’t really challenge the book nerd or the book lover.

Andrew: But this one did.

Eric: This was a stark contrast. In fact, I hated how book-specific these questions were. [laughs]

Andrew: It started with movies. We had to identify actors, which some of them were very easy; some of them were actually pretty difficult. But yeah, the book stuff… so I went into this knowing I probably wasn’t going to do well, because if it’s a very serious Harry Potter trivia night quiz relating to the books, I quite often don’t remember many of the little details. And this one really did go into the details. But luckily, Eric knows this stuff very well, and also your friend who was sitting to your left; she had just read Books 1 and 2, and one of the rounds focused on Books 1 and 2, so she did well there.

Eric: Yeah, that was Kathryn. Kathryn, Jessica, and Lauren. I actually went to college with Lauren, and they’re all sisters, so they were our… those three and then Andrew and I were team Deez Sickles.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Andrew came up with that name.

Micah: What happened to the other name?

Andrew: I did not.

Eric: Oh, you didn’t? Oh. Well, we were going to be Deez Knuts, but I thought it was too blunt. And so actually it was Kathryn who said, “Well, how about Deez Sickles? And they have to think about it.” And I’m like, “Oh, yeah, have to think about it.” We had previously…

Andrew: I wanted our team name to be, “Is Lavender Dead?” It would just be a very inside joke.

Eric: Yeah, which we then were like, “Well, maybe it’s Schrödinger’s Lavender, because she’s sometimes dead and sometimes not.” That would have been my team name suggestion. But anyway, we previously have been out as the Blast-Ended Skanks…

[Micah laughs]

Eric: … so this was a treat for me.

Micah: You should have kept that name.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: That just describes both of you to a T. I mean…

Andrew: Wow.

Eric: The team names are honestly… thank you, Micah. The team names are honestly some of the best reasons to go out of the house, and as the winter months get…

Micah: Well, do you get extra credit?

Andrew: No, not this one.

Micah: You don’t? You don’t get an extra couple points for the best name?

Andrew: No, they didn’t do that.

Eric: No.

Andrew: There was a lot of good ones; I can’t remember them. But getting back to the point of being at a bar with other people who love Harry Potter, that was really cool, because people came in wearing their cool Harry Potter adult merchandise. Just it felt good to be around fellow Harry Potter fans who also wanted to be out on a Tuesday or Wednesday night answering Harry Potter questions.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Eric: Getting their brains teased. There was a Hedwig backpack I had my eye on the whole night. Yeah, it was really, really, really good stuff. Some of the questions, too, just as an example – the ones that I remember – for instance: What is the name of the Muggle woman whom the Muggle Tom Riddle, Sr. is romantically interested in before Merope Gaunt takes him away and gives him the love potion?

Andrew: Anyone know?

Eric: I’ll give you one hint: It’s a Simon & Garfunkel song. It’s Cecilia.

Andrew: [singing] “Cecelia, you’re breaking my heart…”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: So anyway, we did really, really well, no thanks to me. We were first until the final round. We were first by a long shot, by a good ten points, and we were kind of all surprised, because you don’t know how everybody’s ranking while the rounds pass and go on. But then we found out we’re first, and we were like, “Oh, this is crazy.” And then we ended up in second because the bonus round we just didn’t do as well as the second place group.

Eric: Yeah, because the wager put another team up in excess of… essentially in excess of the difference. And there were two places where we failed, Andrew; the first, there was a round which we could have gotten double points. But the question was “Name the ten members who are at Malfoy Manor in the beginning of…” or “Name the ten characters who are present in Chapter 1 of Book 7,” it was, so it was very vague. But it’s the Charity Burbage death scene. And unfortunately, I suggested that Pius Thicknesse was there, and in the books, he is not. In fact, it is Dolohov, which I never would have guessed.

Andrew: Come on, Eric.

Eric: We lost nine or potentially ten points because Pius Thicknesse is there in the movie. So that’s on me, and I take full responsibility.

Andrew: Off this show. Get out of here.

Eric: But then the wager question was… God, what was it? The three characters who…

Andrew: Harry picks to be Chasers?

Eric: Yeah, to be on the Quidditch team in Book 6. See, this is the reason, really short, that I like this trivia guy. He knew exactly where people’s book blind spots are, right? Who really remembers that much about Harry picking Chasers in Book 6 for Quidditch? I barely remembered there was Quidditch in Book 6.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: There isn’t in the movie…

Andrew: There is.

Eric: … but because Book 6 is all about Voldemort, and you’re into the Pensieve or the love, Quidditch is such a blind spot for me. Kyle, would you be able to tell us which three characters Harry picks as Chasers in Book 6, your favorite book?

Kyle: No, not even close.

[Andrew laughs]

Kyle: I’m guessing Ginny?

Eric: Well, thank you. Okay, point proven.

Andrew: One of them was Ginny, yeah.

Eric: Yeah, it was Ginny, it was Angelina… wait, no.

Andrew: Angelina Jolie.

Eric: Katie Bell. No, it was Katie Bell, Ginny, and then Demelza Robins, actually.

Andrew: The third one is the one we got tripped up on. It was some random character who you would never remember.

Eric: Yeah, Demelza Robins. So Dean Thomas is chosen, but as a backup, so that wasn’t the correct answer.

Andrew: Anyway, it was a fun night. If you keep an eye out for local trivia companies hosting Harry Potter trivia nights near you, we’d recommend trying it.

Eric: Yeah, the ones near us was Brain Bash. Brain Bash Trivia. There’s another one; I think Nerds Who Drink maybe does some. Look them up. And you know what? We met fellow Harry Potter podcasters when we were there.

Andrew: We did. They were kind of cohosting the event. Potterotica.

Eric: Potterotica Podcast.

Andrew: They read dirty Harry Potter fanfiction. I’m going to give them mine, “Never Sever Us.”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: But yeah, so it was nice meeting them there. They’ve actually listened to MuggleCast as well, and they’re going to be part of the Chicago Podcast Festival coming up.

Eric: Yeah, definitely.

Andrew: If Micah was out here, we could have done that.

Micah: Yeah, I mean…

Eric: Eh, we’ll see. There’s still time.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Could guest on that show.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah. All right, so that was trivia night.

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Harry Potter in the classroom

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Andrew: So turning back to Kyle here… so Kyle, tell us a little bit about what you do. You’re a teacher.

Kyle: Yeah, so I’m a special education middle school teacher here in Oregon, so I teach math to students who need a little bit more help with math. They’re slightly behind; just need a little extra support. So that’s my job.

Andrew: So then you decided, I guess at some point over the summer, that you were going to decorate your classroom… basically a complete takeover of Harry Potter, right? You kind of decorated it like it would be a Hogwarts classroom?

Kyle: Yeah, so I had done a small… I had a little corner of my classroom last year that had Harry Potter memorabilia up on one of the tables, and we did some House point stuff. But over this summer, I thought, “Why don’t I go just all out to really immerse the students and give them a really awesome classroom that they’ve never experienced before?”

Andrew: Yeah. So what did you do? Describe what it ended up looking like. I remember seeing brick walls in some corners.

Kyle: Yeah, so I found this wallpaper that looks like stone, and I put that up on every inch of all of the walls in the classroom, so essentially transforming the walls from just plain white walls to now they were all made of stone to look like the inside of a castle. I covered the entryway with red brick, and had a little sign for Platform Nine and Three Quarters, so coming through the front door is actually like going through the platform.

Andrew: That’s awesome.

Kyle: I covered all of the ceiling panels, and this took the longest. I bought 150 black garbage bags, cut them out…

Eric: I see this.

Kyle: Yeah, I cut them out into rectangles, and then splatter painted them with white and gold paint, and then stuck them up one by one – there was 137 of them, I think – to make the ceiling look like the night sky in the Great Hall.

Andrew: That is so cool. So how long do you think it took you to do everything from start to finish?

Kyle: Well, if I include from the time that I got into the classroom, it was about five weeks and maybe 70 total hours of work, but there was some preparation that I did in the spring where I was drawing out plans for how I wanted the room to look like; I was looking up supplies on Amazon. So it was a long, long time, but just the work inside the classroom over the summer was about five weeks of my summer vacation.

Andrew: Wow.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: So and then your story gets crazier, because you posted on Facebook photos of your work, and I know you tweeted us. We checked it out, like, “Oh, cool! Cool stuff!” And then somehow websites like BuzzFeed and Good Morning America start picking up your story, and before you know it, it’s viral. I’m looking at this BuzzFeed post; it has… 140,000 people just on Buzzfeed have looked at your classroom.

Eric: Yeah, there’s two million views on Facebook.

Andrew: Yeah, you’re just a superstar. I mean, what was it like, suddenly just going… your classroom going viral? [laughs]

Kyle: Yeah, that was nuts. I was not expecting that at all. I mean, I knew that what I had done was pretty cool and extensive just because I liked it, and so I’m a huge Harry Potter fan; I knew if I liked it, other people might. And that was really why I wanted to share it, was because I thought my friends and family would think it was really cool. And then I shared it to a couple Facebook groups, and I shared it out to you guys, and shared it with Harry Potter circles that I thought might appreciate it. And then it just started to spread on Facebook, and I guess the right people ended up finding out about it that they were in contact with sites like ABC News and Buzzfeed and Huffington Post, and so once they reached out to me and put it up on their sites, then it just really, really spread like wildfire.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah.

Eric: My favorite parts of this room are the House banners that hang above each table. So you have House tables in your classroom?

Kyle: Yep.

Eric: Do you ever have any students that don’t want to sit in the Slytherin table? Is that like the punishment table?

[Andrew laughs]

Kyle: You know what? Actually, so most of my students, unfortunately, they’re not that familiar with Harry Potter…

Eric: Okay.

Kyle: … which is kind of a bummer. But at the same time, it’s also kind of nice, because they don’t have that same stigma against Slytherin, so I haven’t had too many issues of students not wanting to sit at Slytherin. The only issue I’ve had of what House that they got Sorted into was that they wanted to sit next to their friends, and so that was really the only thing.

Eric: Aww, you’ve got a class of Hufflepuffs. I love it.

[Micah laughs]

Eric: But then, of course, your office, which appears to be… is it…? So it’s kind of… they show it in low light in one of these photos, and it looks really creepy, like Snape’s dungeon.

Andrew: That’s my favorite part.

Eric: But it looks like a real awesome, cozy place to get work done.

Kyle: Yes. Yeah, so that was my favorite spot to set up, and it’s also my favorite spot to go to after the students have left.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: You’ve got the owl bookends, you’ve got the lantern, the crest rug – which I have, actually, in my house – hanging behind the chair. It looks amazing.

Andrew: So do other teachers…? This just must stand out so much at your school. So how did the other teachers react?

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Is your classroom the cool one to come hang out in?

Kyle: Yeah, definitely, definitely. Yeah, so the other teachers and my principal, they’ve all been really, really supportive. They’ve come in when we had our in-service week before the start of the school year. I told everybody, I said, “Hey, I’ve done something really cool in my classroom; you’re all welcome to come and check it out sometime this week,” and so they came in throughout the week, and they were all just blown away. They love it.

Andrew: Good.

Kyle: But the big thing is, I teach my students in my classes, but there are hundreds and hundreds of other students around the school that I don’t have in class. Well, when they found out about my classroom, and then when they saw it go viral on the news, now I have almost all the students across the school stopping me at lunchtime saying, “Hey, can we check out your classroom? Can we come in?”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Aww.

Kyle: And they’re like, “How do I get you as a teacher next year?”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Aw!

Micah: That’s awesome, though. I mean, has that spurred you at all to think about doing an afterschool program, particularly around Potter? Or does something like that already exist?

Kyle: It doesn’t exist, but I have thought about either doing a Harry Potter club, or what I would love to do is a Quidditch team after school.

Micah: That’d be awesome. I mean, obviously it’s huge in college circles, the Quidditch World Cup going on every year. So you just start the next level down, get them… or even middle school, high school… let’s go. That would be awesome.

Kyle: Yeah, yeah. I actually just tried out Quidditch, the Muggle Quidditch, for the first time a couple weeks ago, and it was…

Andrew: How’d that go?

Kyle: It was a lot of fun. It was a lot more intense than I was expecting, and I was sore the next morning. It’s very physical.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Yeah, I remember seeing EMTs standing by at the Quidditch World Cup in New York a few years ago. Like, “Oh, man, this is some serious stuff here.” Do you think …? So will you keep this classroom like this into next year too? Or…

Kyle: Yeah, hopefully, hopefully. I mean, it was a lot, a lot of work, and so I would feel bad if I had to take it all down every year and replace it, or do something like that.

Andrew: Right.

Kyle: So I hope I can keep it up essentially as long as I’m in that room.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah. That’s awesome.

Eric: Couple of comments from our patrons listening live: Nolan Brigman says, “My old high school physics teacher posted your Facebook post to my wall.”

[Kyle laughs]

Andrew: #Viral.

Eric: That’s really cool. James says, “That’s amazing. Well done, Kyle.” And Evelyn says, “Gosh, I wish I had a teacher like that when I was at school.”

Andrew: Yeah, where were our cool teachers?

Eric: I can safely say I feel exactly the same way, sir. Hats off to you.

Kyle: Oh, thank you very much.

Micah: Have you heard from other teachers around the country as a result of this?

Kyle: Yeah, I have. I’ve had tons of teachers, not just in my own building or even in my own district, but yeah, you’re right, all over the country and even over around the world. They’ve contacted me on Facebook or found my email, and they’ve just said, “This is so inspiring; I want to do something like this next year,” and that’s really been… for me as a Hufflepuff, that’s really the most exciting part about this. It was a lot of work for me, but it’s really just a small little thing that I did in my classroom, but the fact that it’s been able to spread this level of positivity and inspire other teachers to really connect with their students as well, that’s the most fulfilling part about all of this.

Andrew: There was… you did get some Laura Mallory types coming at you somewhere. Where were they? In the comments of some articles or something?

Kyle: Oh, yeah. Especially once it went national, that’s when the people who were like, “He’s teaching witchcraft! He should be fired!”

Eric: It’s numbers. I mean, they’re pretty non-denominational.

Andrew: Right. “How dare you teach witchcraft and math together?”

[Kyle laughs]

Andrew: “To hell with you!” [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, pretty secular or whatever the word is I’m looking for. What I love about this story in general is that you really embody, I think, what a teacher should. You’re selfless, you’re looking to share the love, you put in an immense amount of work… it’s a thankless job being a teacher, and you always hear about teachers spending money on supplies outside school because the salary and the school system isn’t quite set up to just do that, and you go all in and take stuff from your own house, your Harry Potter stuff, and more, and really just turn this into a hub, such a welcome environment of peace and acceptance and learning, and create that environment with your bare hands over the course of your vacation, your summer holidays. I mean, I can’t applaud you enough.

Kyle: Thank you very much. I mean, I love what I do; I love the students that I get to work with. They have such energy and such a zest for life that every day I show up, I get another story, another something that makes me laugh or makes me smile, and I really do owe that to my students. They kind of motivate me to get up in the morning and get excited about what I get to do, helping them learn and grow, and so I just want to give everything I can to them.

Andrew: Yeah. You also did say you are working Harry Potter into your lessons, right?

Kyle: Yes, I am, yeah.

Andrew: So give us a couple examples of that that you have listed here. I think they’re pretty interesting.

Kyle: So first and foremost, I Sorted all of my students into their Hogwarts Houses, and I did that by giving them a survey the first week of school.

[Andrew laughs]

Kyle: And I took some of the questions from Pottermore and others that I just created that were kind of school-related. And not only did it help me Sort them, but it was also a way for me to kind of get to know them right at the start of the school year.

Eric: Ah, that’s brilliant.

Kyle: But so I got them Sorted, and then I explained to them once they were Sorted, I said, “We’re going to track House points, so when you are working hard, when you’re helping each other out, listening quietly, doing the things that you’re supposed to be doing in class,” I’ll go over and I’ll say, “Hey, thank you, Sally, for listening quietly. Here’s five points for Ravenclaw.”

Andrew: “Five points for Ravenclaw!” Do you ever take points away?

Kyle: So far I’ve been against that, just because my philosophy is I always want to build students up, so even when they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, I’ll pull them aside and I’ll say, “Hey, I know you can be doing better.” So even when I’m kind of doing the discipline side of things, it’s still about positive reinforcement and building up their self-esteem.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah. “Don’t make me go Snape on you!”

[Eric and Kyle laugh]

Kyle: Yeah, so there’s a weekly House Cup competition; I tally up all the House points at the end of each week, and then on Monday, I let them know, “This House won the House Cup,” and all the students from that House come up and get a little prize. And so that’s just kind of something to motivate them to follow our class expectations.

Eric: Wow.

Andrew: And then what else do you do teaching-wise with Harry Potter?

Kyle: So yesterday was actually the first time I did this, and it was a ton, a ton of fun. Or not yesterday, Friday. I gave them a quiz, but instead of just a normal quiz where it’s a piece of paper and there’s questions on it, I made them sit in their Houses with their teams, and we played Quizzitch.

Andrew: Quizzitch!

Kyle: [laughs] So I just made a PowerPoint presentation, and then they had whiteboards at their table, and I would show a question, it was worth ten points, and whichever House showed me the correct answer first, they got the ten points, like scoring the Quaffle.

Eric: Huh.

Kyle: And so we did a couple rounds of that, and then at the end, there was the Snitch, which was worth 30 points, and so at the final, I told them whoever won would get 20 House points towards the House Cup. So it was a way for them to really be able to compete with each other, but also for me to check in with their skills for the math concept we were working on this week.

Micah: Do you have any Hermiones in the class that were throwing up their hand every time?

[Andrew laughs]

Kyle: I do, yeah. In every class there’s usually one or two, yeah.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Kyle: Some other things, just real quick, that I’m planning to do this year is we do some units on area and perimeter, and so I’m going to go out to our field and string up the outline of Hagrid’s hut and give my students yard sticks and meter sticks, and we’re going to measure Hagrid’s hut for area and perimeter.

Eric: Oh my God.

Andrew: [laughs] It’s kind of like an octagon, isn’t it?

Kyle: It is, yeah. So that’ll be good. They’ll learn how to find the area of polygons that aren’t rectangles and stuff.

Andrew: Perfect. I love it.

Eric: How do you do that? You break it down into triangles and squares, right?

Kyle: Yeah.

Eric: Okay, great. [laughs] My school is coming back to me.

Andrew: I despised geometry as a kid. And math, really. I should have had your Harry Potter lessons. Would have been helpful.

Micah: I just had one more question, though, because you mentioned earlier that maybe a good majority of the students, they’re not as familiar with the Harry Potter series. Because of what you’ve been able to do in creating the classroom, and it seems even creating your own curriculum around Harry Potter, do you see the students becoming more interested in wanting to read the series?

Kyle: Yes, that’s been really cool to see. Just in a very short amount of time, this school year, I’ve had three students so far. I have a class set of 20 of the first book, and I’ve already seen three of my students pick it up. When they finish their work early, they pick it up and they’re starting to read it. I had another student come up to me the other day, saying, “Hey, I went home this weekend and I watched the first two movies,” and he had never seen them before. So I am seeing some of my students who are getting interested in reading, or at least watching the movies, and I just think that’s great, whether you read or watch the movies, because as we all know, the messages and the themes around Harry Potter are so great for young people to learn about integrity and acceptance and tolerance and that kind of stuff. So yeah, if they’re getting exposed to those things, I’m really happy about that.

Andrew: Yeah. Well, you seem like a really good person, Kyle, and a really good teacher as well. So we salute you spreading the good word with Harry’s lessons.

Kyle: Thank you very much.

Andrew: I’m sure J.K. Rowling would be proud of you too.

Eric: Is the Hufflepuff chair as comfortable as it looks in the back of the room?

Kyle: It is, actually. So our in-service week before the students came is a really, really busy week for teachers, and on the last day of that week, I went in there with my laptop, thinking I’m going to answer emails, and I sat in that chair, and I woke up 30 minutes later because I had taken a nap.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Andrew: That’s funny.

Micah: A well-deserved nap.

Andrew: Yeah. Micah loves sitting in chairs like that.

Eric: Who doesn’t?

Andrew: I think you should try it out some time, Micah.

Micah: I go to sleep for 30 minutes during this podcast, too, so it’s all good.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Wow. Wow.

Eric: Welcome back, Micah. Welcome back. [laughs]

Andrew: Gonna make you the news man again so you don’t fall asleep.

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Sorcerer’s Stone Narrator

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Andrew: Anyway, so Kyle, you actually had a question you wanted to bring up with us, because you haven’t had anybody to discuss it with, so you wanted to talk about it here. This is an interesting question. Go ahead.

Kyle: Yeah, so I’ve noticed ever since… for ten years now – or maybe even longer – every time I go back and read the first book, very early on I get stuck on one particular line. And it’s on page two of Sorcerer’s Stone; it says, “When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country.” And I always get hung up on the little part of it that says “our story starts,” because it’s referencing the narrator themselves, and it even has this meta reference to the fact that we’re reading a story as well, which I’m always curious about. Okay, this means that somebody is telling us the story of Harry Potter. It’s not just this omniscient, God-like character, or it could be, but if it is, I’m curious who that character is. Who is the person who is telling us this story of Harry Potter?

Andrew: So my first reaction to when I read your question here was that maybe J.K. Rowling, when she did start writing, had the intention of having this narrator and maybe using words like “our” a little more often, but then, as she started writing further, she changed her mind, but kept that beginning part in just to keep some of her early thinking in the book? But we could come up with wild theories about, “Oh my gosh, maybe there was a narrator this whole time. Who was it? Maybe it was Dumbledore!”

Eric: You guys, I think we’re thinking about this too hard. I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s a Niffler wearing a monocle…

[Andrew and Kyle laugh]

Eric: … is the narrator of the entire Harry Potter series. I just get that picture when I think of the narrator of the books. It’s interesting; I’ve noticed this before, and honestly, there’s a couple other places where it feels to me in the book that we are being narrated to. This may be in Book 1, or perhaps it’s Book 3, but there is a sentence that begins “In years to come, Harry would never quite know how he made it through the studying for the exams of that year” or something. And that’s the sentence. It’s like, “In years to come, Harry would never be able to remember back how he did this.”

Andrew: It feels like a narrator.

Eric: It feels… yeah, because Harry is not telling us the story himself at this point. He’s like, “Man, years from now, I’m never going to be able to really remember how I did this, am doing this studying right now,” and it’s like, well, that’s a weird perspective shift, because Harry… we’ve seen firsthand the events of at least the next six years of Harry’s life, and there’s no point where he has time to reflect on what he did for exams in year one. There’s just never going to be a point where that…

Micah: Well, and if I’m not mistaken, I think in most of the intro chapters to these books, we are taken through the events that occur previously. Particularly early on, I remember it would be J.K. Rowling recounting the events and telling us about Harry and what happened to his parents and why he’s in the situation he’s in now, and that also has a very strong narrative feel to it. So I wonder if it is not just J.K. Rowling, aside from, Eric, you mentioning a Niffler with a monocle sitting in a very comfortable Hufflepuff chair, by the way.

Eric: By the fireplace, yes.

[Kyle laughs]

Micah: So it is a really interesting question, the fact that you can go back and look at that and wonder, early on was it her intent to provide us with a narrator? And at the end of the series, we get a reveal into who, in fact, is telling us the story.

Andrew: Yeah. Do you have any guesses to who it could be, Kyle? Did you ever just put a particular person inside your head while rereading?

Kyle: I haven’t really. I thought there are parts of the story where it seems like we are kind of being told this story through Harry’s mind, and it’s almost like he’s just reminiscing, so I thought that he could be the narrator. But then there’s other parts where that doesn’t seem like it fits either. And I’ve just always been curious, who’s this person telling us this story? Because I would be very curious to know more about that character.

Eric: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Andrew: In hindsight, I do think it’s very interesting, because this person or whatever is introducing us to one of the greatest stories of all time. So to look back on it and see this little just different way of writing at the very beginning, I think, is special and speaks to the enormity of what is to come.

Micah: Right.

Andrew: But I do also feel like whenever I start reading a Harry Potter book at the beginning, they always do read a little differently in the first few paragraphs.

Micah: Yeah, they definitely do. And I was also thinking, if it was… not that it’s not important, but if it was for us to know that there was, in fact, a narrator, Sorcerer’s Stone the movie probably would have opened up with some sort of voiceover.

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Eric: I mean, it does very much appear to be a useful book technique, especially for a children’s novel, to have somebody with the voice. There are a couple other examples I’m failing to remember in Book 1, where as a result of there being a narrator, there are jokes that are able to be made, or somehow the writing is funny because there’s a narrator telling us that story. I’ll have to go back and reread. But I think that it’s probably just a good narrative device that she used. The tense or the point of view of the Harry Potter books, if I’m getting this right, is third-person omniscient or third-person limited. I think it fluctuates a little bit, because she’s able to deep dive down Harry’s head and explain what he’s thinking and feeling at all times, but is also able to… I don’t know. She doesn’t quite always stay with what Harry notices or remembers. Maybe it’s first-person omniscient, but he’s not speaking. It’s very difficult to pin down, but I think it fluctuates a little bit.

Andrew: Well, anyway.

Eric: Yeah, anyway.

Andrew: Kyle, hopefully we helped a little bit. [laughs]

Kyle: Honestly, just being able to talk to somebody about this, because I haven’t really had… as big of a fan as I am, I haven’t had a lot of connection with other Harry Potter fans in my personal life, so it’s nice to just get this out there.

Eric: Somebody get this guy some Harry Potter friends! Come on, everybody in Oregon City, Oregon.

[Kyle laughs]

Andrew: Well, no, no, don’t. This is why people like MuggleCast, because we’re their Harry Potter friends.

Eric: We’re their friends? [laughs]

Andrew: We need to keep it that way.

Kyle: That’s absolutely true.

Andrew: If you guys make friends, then you don’t want to listen to us anymore, so let’s not do that. [laughs]

Eric: Oh, man.

---

Disability accommodations at Hogwarts

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Kyle: So if you guys have time, real quick, I did have another… because I am a special education teacher, I have always thought about how Hogwarts does not accommodate for students with disabilities at Hogwarts; a.k.a. in the wizarding world, that would be Squibs. And I always thought that there should be a place for Squibs in Hogwarts, because there are some subjects that they could learn about, like Herbology, like Muggle Studies and Ancient Runes and History of Magic. There’s tons and tons of subjects that they could learn about, but for some reason, they’re not allowed.

Eric: Do you listen to the other MuggleNet Harry Potter podcast besides SpeakBeasty, Alohomora?

Kyle: I do, yeah.

Eric: So Episode 206 of Alohomora was specifically on illness special needs in the wizarding world, and how they’re pretty much nonexistent, and it was, I believe, a three-hour podcast on exactly that topic. I would just love to recommend listening to that specifically, tangential to what any of us have thoughts on, because I know that that episode was particularly well done and well planned out, as all of those episodes are, to deep dive into subjects like this, which with people who are teachers who are more capable of giving an informed opinion.

Micah: One thing about that that’s interesting, though, is that if you look at Squibs in the series, you have Filch, who’s kind of a comical relief character, but then you contrast that with somebody like Mrs. Figg, who is honestly tasked with one of the more important roles in the entire series, and that’s really keeping Harry safe at Privet Drive, indirectly, right? She’s passing along information.

Eric: Right.

Eric: And I’m sure there’s others that are mentioned that I’m forgetting, but it’s interesting how they’re portrayed, even though they have limited to no magical ability whatsoever.

Eric: It’s true. And there are only those two examples. And there seems to be some sort of cliffhanger with Mrs. Figg, as to whether or not she can really see the Dementors that she’s testifying about. I don’t know; it just seems like thinking of it that way, or viewed through this lens, Harry Potter the series is often about the haves and the have-nots. If you have, you’re a wizard; you’re in the story. If you have not, you’re basically not in the story. And the characters that are told in this story that they can’t do something, it’s just not… I don’t think the story lends itself to being very supportive or inclusive or thinking of ways to overcome that. Harry is told he can’t act up in class and defeat the Dark Lord, both of which he does. But I don’t know that that’s particularly redeeming or inspiring. Am I off base?

Kyle: No, I agree with that. Like I said, I think that… and we even see this in the Fantastic Beasts movie with a Muggle actually taking care of magical creatures, and so why couldn’t Squibs go to Hogwarts and take Care of Magical Creatures? There might be some creatures that they aren’t equipped to take care of, but they could learn some things in that class. They could learn some things in Herbology, and even Potions.

Eric: Yeah. Well, and there’s something to… a silver lining to which is that J.K. Rowling is getting very much better at maybe giving us that. You mentioned Fantastic Beasts; I think that’s a great way to start, by having a Muggle main character, a character who cannot do magic, who’s very much the heart and soul of that movie, as we’ve stated before on this show.

Micah: Of course. That said, though, there is the scene with Graves and Credence where, obviously it’s Grindelwald saying it, but that he could smell the fact that he was a Squib the second that he met him. So it does have a very derogatory kind of connotation to it in the wizarding world.

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Episode 337 Rewind: Hogwarts Courses

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Andrew: So we’re glad that Kyle is on this week, because we were just talking about the courses of Hogwarts, and we wanted to talk about it more this week. We had more to talk about last episode, but we just ran out of time. So we discussed last week, just to briefly remind everybody, a bunch of courses: Astronomy, Care of Magical Creatures, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Divination, Flying, Herbology, History of Magic, Muggle Studies, Potions, and Transfiguration. So that’s 11.

Micah: But Kyle is probably upset that we left out one of the more important courses that I think he would be interested in.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Kyle: Yes.

Andrew: Transfiguration?

Micah: No, Arithmancy.

Andrew: Oh, yes. Sorry. Sorry about that. Well, see, I was under the impression that these were the only courses being taught at Hogwarts.

Micah: Well, there’s Ancient Runes as well, but they don’t play really any role in the series whatsoever.

Eric: Hermione takes them; maybe they help her with something. But yeah, there’s definitely other courses at Hogwarts.

Andrew: Okay.

Eric: And there’s also clubs like Gobstones and things like that.

Andrew: Right, yeah. So smaller classes, right, that just don’t play as big of a role. But then, if you do look at Pottermore… I don’t know, they don’t mention them at all, which is kind of weird. But anyway, so with these courses in mind that we spoke about last week, which course would we be playing hooky from the most? Which would we ditch the most? I wanted to ask. Because we all have courses that we take in high school or college, and we’re like, “Ugh, not again.”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: “No, no, I’m missing it. I’m totally skipping.” And then you hope the quizzes are open note, or really easy.

Micah: It probably depends on the professor, because I would definitely put Potions at the top of the list there.

Andrew: Really? Just because of Snape?

Micah: Yeah, I would… although, he probably is a good professor at the end of the day; just depends what kind of mood he’s in. History of Magic, I could say, is probably another contender, but you could probably play hooky in class, given that Professor Binns is just so boring.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: That’s a good point. I’m trying to think what classes I actually did ditch in high school, me myself, when I was in high school.

Andrew: You didn’t. You’re a good student.

Eric: I don’t remember…. yeah, I didn’t. But no, there was a couple classes where it’d be like, if I had a study hall, I’d wander, or maybe I’d wander over to study hall from a… you ever take an extended bathroom break? You get a hall pass, and then you’re just sort of wandering around and lingering. I guess they probably prevent that now with sign-in sheets and all sorts of other junk. But anyway, it was a good time to be alive in 2004. But I remember learning astronomy sort of in school. Just real quick, Kyle, do they still have this class? Or do you know anything about this? Where it’s sort of in a portable lab. It’s like one of those parachutes, one of those giant parachutes that the kids play with, but it’s like a tent, and they set it up in our gymnasium in junior high, and there’s sort of a projector, and you go in on the inside of this tent, but it’s huge and circular, and they can put star charts…

Andrew: I’ve seen that. I think we did that, yeah.

Eric: Okay, yeah. I learned some constellations and stuff just based on a day of… God, I don’t know what class it was. Maybe it was science class. And I really liked it, so I don’t want to knock Astronomy. And Andrew, in the last episode, you said it’d be awesome to go out in the school at midnight. I agree. If I had to pick one I’d skip, it’d probably be Divination, maybe. Unless I was particularly gifted and had some insight into it, that class just doesn’t seem like it’d be comfortable being up there and being so hot all of the time.

Andrew: It’s so hard for me to answer, because I want to say, for example, Herbology, but then I’m like, “Oh, but it’d be nice to work with your hands and work with plants and stuff like that.” And then you also think about cool moments in the book for any of these classes, and then you really don’t want to skip them. But I would probably say History of Magic. I’ve never really liked learning history; I just remember so many boring lessons in school over the years, and I don’t even think if the subject is magic that that would particularly make it any more interesting. [laughs] So I think History of Magic.

Micah: Poor Professor Binns. Well, and I actually asked a question on Twitter earlier this week, coming off of our discussion on the last episode, which was: Is there a chance – and I don’t know what role he would play whatsoever in Fantastic Beasts – but could you see a living, breathing Professor Binns in future Fantastic Beasts movies?

Eric: You blew my damn mind when you tweeted that, Micah. I just want you to know.

Andrew: [laughs] His damn mind. Well, he could make some sort of minor cameo in the second Fantastic Beasts movie, I guess, right?

Eric: What if his death wasn’t of natural causes? [laughs]

Micah: Oh, now we’re really speculating. Now we’re opening up…

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Well, no theory is safe.

Micah: It’s true. Though as far as playing hooky, I don’t see a real equivalent here, but when I was in high school, people cut gym all the time, or Phys. Ed.

[Eric laughs]

Micah: I feel like that is… Flying is probably the closest equivalent, but do they really have a Phys. Ed. type of course at Hogwarts?

Andrew: I don’t think so, unless it’s…

Eric: They’re too busy running from actual trolls and all the goings-on at magic school. [laughs]

Andrew: Unless it’s Flying. That’s the most physical activity you would get, but even that wouldn’t be physical.

Eric: But I guess Flying is only… isn’t it only year one, too, with Flying?

Andrew: Oh, right. Yeah. After that, they don’t care about your health. Maybe because it’s England…

Micah: And at that age you’re too scared; you’re not going to cut courses in your first year. You at least need to be fifth or sixth year to try that stuff out.

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Eric: And they give them enough free periods. I don’t know. It’s interesting; there is sort of a blind spot there where they eat all this junk food and don’t have gym class.

Andrew: How about on the flip side – and we’ll start with Kyle, since you are the teacher – which course would you most like to teach?

Eric: Yes.

Kyle: Well, I mean, I love Transfiguration, but I don’t know if I would want to teach that. I think… I’m a huge, huge fan of animals, so I would love to teach Care of Magical Creatures. And as far as getting Physical Education, Flying is great, but you’re really not doing them a lot. I think trying to wrangle up creatures would give you a lot more physical exertion in that class.

Eric: I would love to teach Charms. Isn’t magic great, everybody?

Andrew: [laughs] Then I would play hooky from your class if you’re teaching.

Eric: [laughs] Thanks, Andrew.

[Kyle laughs]

Eric: I mean, if attending a class, I would love to attend Professor Lupin’s DADA, but…

Andrew: Yeah, I was going to say, I think I would like to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. That seems like a very fun, hands on… it’s probably easy to keep the class engaged.

Micah: I agree; that would be my choice. And here’s the greatest part of it, is you only have to do it for one year, you get your pension, and then you can go and take vacation.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Or you die.

Micah: Oh, yeah. So there’s… look, you’ve got to weigh the costs and benefits with…

Andrew: Pros and cons. Yeah, of course.

Micah: … pros and cons with Defense Against the Dark Arts. But if it was a long term tenure, I agree; I would like to teach that. I think it’s a cool course.

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Question of the Week

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Andrew: Let’s move on to this Patreon question. Micah, what did we ask our supporters?

Micah: So I think, Eric, you actually put the question out there: If you were asked to prepare and teach an entirely new course at Hogwarts, what would it be? And it can involve the wizarding world or the Muggle world, so you can mix and match here. The most important rule that we posed was that there must be a good reason to teach it at Hogwarts. So I’ll start off here; we had, I think, over 50 people comment on this, so we got a lot of good ideas, a lot of good responses. And to start off with Christina Hernández, who said,

“Healing with Magic. Basic first aid (like the kind of things we learn in school) that can be done with spells, simple potions, and herbs. I’ve always been curious why they didn’t have a class like this, especially for those interested in careers that could benefit from those skills.”

Eric: Definitely. We learned CPR in health class, and there was such a thing as health class, so why wouldn’t there be healing with magic? I think that would be really useful.

Micah: Did you have to pair up with somebody, or was it a dummy?

Eric: It was sort of… yeah, it was a dummy.

Micah: I was hoping to get a good story here, but…

Eric: And it was a class of 12 that all took turns, I don’t know, whatever, when the test came.

Micah: Okay. Matthew Jordan said,

“‘Uncovering Magical History.’ This would be an archeological-type class that would be for seventh years looking to be into a deep studies career on discovering magical history, lost relics, and uncovering what’s thought to be lost. This would be a great way to discover the castle and finally uncover mysteries that they somehow don’t know about, like the Chamber of Secrets. They can also adventure into the Forbidden Forest to learn about different species’ historical grounds. There could even be field trips to different countries; whether it’s high in the mountains or the edges of the seas, they can uncover some of the most heralded tales.”

Andrew: I like it, but as somebody who just poo-pooed History of Magic, I can’t really support it.

[Eric laughs]

Micah: But you could go on field trips.

Andrew: Yeah, I guess that would make it more interesting. Would Binns lead them?

Micah: I don’t know.

Andrew: I guess Matthew would.

Micah: Yeah, Matt.

Andrew: Matthew, are you fun? Are you as boring as Professor Binns?

Micah: [laughs] Let Andrew know. @Sims on Twitter.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: I genuinely like the idea of embracing the age of the castle around us, and if we were at Hogwarts, just being able to spend extensive amounts of times… I don’t know, even looking at the statues, wondering where they all came from, and learning that practical “This castle and you” type class where you’re going around, even to the Chamber of Secrets, where you may happen upon a highly cursed, Dark magical item from Slytherin that nobody else has found if you lift up a loose cobblestone or something. The possibilities are endless, and I would be endlessly fascinated in going on these field trips. So I love this class.

Micah: All right. Shannon Spicer… I like this one:

“Journalism! There doesn’t seem to be a ton of journalistic integrity in the wizarding world, so a class on writing for print and ethics would be cool. This would also help get more witches and wizards interested in working for new entities, and maybe prevent a resurgence of Rita Skeeters.”

Eric: [laughs] There you go.

Andrew: Any relation to Sean Spicer? Your name is Shannon Spicer, and you want a class on journalism?

Eric: Probably not. Let’s move on.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: No, I’m not getting political, but I do want to say that I think it’s a good idea, because how do people learn to write for the Daily Prophet, etc.?

Eric: Well, yeah, you just get people who are ambitious enough to apply, and that’s about it.

Andrew: But Eric, let’s talk about Sean Spicer.

Eric: [laughs] Save it for Millennial.

Micah: Moving on. Okay, Adam has kind of a similar response to Matthew from earlier; maybe they could work together on a course.

“Magical Artifacts: Understanding their use, creation, and destruction. Students must learn to combine principles of Transfiguration, Charms, runes and elemental properties to understand the creation and destruction of magical artifacts. While other classes may have touched upon these subjects, focusing on how these disciplines overlap could lead to further discoveries in the vein of the Sorcerer’s Stone, the Sword of Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff’s cup, Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem, the Sorting Hat, and other important artifacts.”

Eric: This strikes me as being sort of like a NEWT independent study level class of the likes which certain professors are shown or mentioned as having holding. I don’t know. Maybe we see Snape’s Potions NEWT class? But a lot of the independent study or closed group where the teacher isn’t necessarily leading, but is only there to support the students’ intuition. Seems like that would be what this class would be best suited to do.

Micah: Yep.

Eric: You have students like the Marauders who were Animagi when they were, what, 15? I mean, it’s ridiculous; they’re insanely gifted. So to somehow combine the classes that they’re learning, the disciplines, and figure out how they all fit together, that’s very much an advanced concept.

Micah: Thesis type of project.

Eric: Yeah, exactly.

Micah: So like you said, a NEWT independent study.

Eric: Yeah, so it speaks more to college, or I was even thinking Auror study, like the type of stuff that Harry and Ron would have learned when they become Aurors, is how to mesh Charms and DADA and Transfiguration into sort of a more wholly useful, well-rounded discipline. It’s pretty advanced.

Micah: Okay, Jennifer Ellerbe, [pronounces it Ellerby] or Ellerbe, [pronounces it Ellerb] but I like Ellerbe [pronounces it Ellerby] better, so even if that is your last… [laughs] I don’t know.

Eric: I’m pretty sure it’s Ellerbe, [pronounces it Ellerb] yeah.

Micah: Okay. Anyway,

“A History of House-Elves: In light of SPEW and how prevalent they are in the wizarding world, there are likely many elves that were present at key points in history and probably helped to shape the outcome of events (think even the few we know – Dobby, Kreacher, Winky, etc.) This course would cover how house-elves have been in the wizarding community in different ways – homes, Hogwarts, and freed ones and their influence on events.”

Eric: I like that.

Andrew: Yes, yes. I want to read Goblet of Fire again, just for all the SPEW stuff.

Eric: It’s a good point.

Andrew: I miss the SPEW stuff so much. I think I may have mentioned this a while ago; I used to have my own Harry Potter fansite, and I launched my own SPEW club on it.

Eric: Aw.

Andrew: And I asked people to sign up, and they applied with a form, a little web form. And so I got their form, and then I got their submission, and then once a week, I would go through the latest submissions and I’d manually email every single person and thank them for joining SPEW.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: I had it down by heart. I didn’t copy and paste these emails; I typed each one out, and then I added them to the website, the people who signed up for SPEW. Anyway, all this to say, I used to love SPEW and house-elves.

Micah: So you would take this course.

Andrew: I would, yes. Good idea, Jennifer.

Micah: You would teach this course, potentially.

Andrew: I’ll handle sign-ups. I’m good at sign-ups, related to house-elves.

Micah: All right.

Eric: Jennifer Ellerbe. I wonder if any relation to Linda Ellerbee?

Micah: Okay.

Eric: Used to do Nick News. Remember Nick News, everybody? They did the topical…?

Andrew: Yes.

Eric: I’m showing my age.

Andrew: But that is very biased and political, so we’re not going to talk about that either.

[Eric and Kyle laugh]

Micah: Ashley Grigg raises, I think, a subject that probably all of us would be interested in, and that’s “Music, because it’s ‘a magic far beyond all we do here.'”

Andrew: That’s a great one.

Micah: “But not that weird choir toad thing from the movies.”

[Eric laughs]

Micah: “Obviously the wizarding world has its own bands and solo artists (The Weird Sisters, Celestina Warbeck), but where did they practice and hone their craft? A music class where you could manipulate music with magic would be so interesting.”

Eric: Agreed. Wonder what the spell for a metronome is.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: “Metronomus!”

Micah: Sean McKee: “Magic of Other Cultures,” and this was a popular one over on Patreon.

“This class would examine the magic tradition of various indigenous cultures around the world (Native American, African, Asian, South and Latin American, etc.), both from an educational perspective to understand B.B. it…”

I think he’s trying to say Bathilda Bagshot? I don’t know what B.B. would otherwise stand for.

“… but also how to use magic in ways that emulate these cultural uses to make your own style of magic more unique. It would be especially useful for Aurors, I think, when tracking Dark wizards, because it would give them different styles of magic to use, which would give the Auror an advantage in a fight.”

Eric: Definitely this. So this started out as being sort of an anthropological kind of cultural history type thing, and then evolved into a class where you’re finding your own unique style. I see two classes there where both would be very useful.

Micah: Yeah, it reminded me a lot of Goblet of Fire when Durmstrang and Beauxbatons comes to Hogwarts. I think there’s that angle you could take on it as well, and even doing a study abroad program to help understand the different magical cultures that exist. And we know there’s other schools beyond that that were mentioned on Pottermore, so I really like that idea for a course. And finally, from Nada Atabani:

“I would teach a Magical Beings Philosophy class, a course that focuses on intelligent magical beings like centaurs, goblins, house-elves, giants, trolls (obviously not intelligent, but, you know, they can be in the syllabus), as well as wizards versus Muggles, specifically focusing on acceptance and teaching witches and wizards from a young age to accept them as part of the magical and nonmagical world. I think that there is far too much prejudice in the magical community, and too many wizards grow up thinking they are superior to Muggles and other magical creatures, instead of accepting that they may just be skilled in different areas.”

Andrew: I like it. I didn’t like philosophy in college, but I’ll take this one.

Micah: Yeah, and I think it’s kind of a spinoff of both Care of Magical Creatures and Muggle studies.

Eric: It really would create a more patient and understanding group; again, less self-concerned group of humans than we seem to have in wizarding government.

Micah: True.

Eric: People just don’t understand… and this is the problem with Binns’s History of Magic. We don’t know much about Binns, but this is his failing as a teacher. He fails to connect it to relevance, right? He fails to establish…

Andrew: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What did Binns do to you?

Eric: No, I mean… Kyle would agree with me, right? You almost have to find a human, personal connection that… these kids are not engaged. You have to explain to them why the 1813 or 1517 Goblin Rebellions are worth anything, why they matter. You have to try and make a little effort in that front, right?

Kyle: Yeah, you have to connect it to what’s relevant and important to the students. That doesn’t mean that everything has to be about what they want, but somehow get them to care about it, and the way that I do that is to show them that I care about them.

Eric: Oh, such a Hufflepuff teacher.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: But yeah, it absolutely… being more culturally sensitive of other creatures. Hmm, that’s a great idea.

Micah: And I’ll conclude here with an honorable mention; I thought it was too funny not to include. Hailey White said that they should introduce a course called “Time-Turners 101: How to not screw up a timeline and create an ‘eighth book.'”

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Bless you, Hailey. Bless you.

Andrew: I could see McGonagall adding that to the curriculum at Hogwarts in light of everything that happened in Cursed Child. I mean, she is very concerned.

Eric: If only to prevent somebody like Harry from talking to her the way that he did in that eighth book.

Andrew: Boom!

Micah: So a lot of great ideas.

Andrew: Yes, thanks to everybody on Patreon who submitted answers there.

Eric: Oh my God. Jennifer Ellerbe, who’s listening live, says yes, Linda Ellerby is a distant aunt of hers.

[Eric and Kyle laugh]

Andrew: Oh, wow!

Eric: But I’m looking up for Shannon Spicer. I wonder if she…

Micah: She’s not going to admit to the relation, so… or maybe she will. Who knows?

Eric: Huh.

Andrew: Distant aunt.

Kyle: Micah, you mentioned Arithmancy and math, and I was thinking about that, and honestly, I’m not entirely sure why wizards need to learn anything more than basic math. We use advanced mathematics to create cures for diseases and predict weather patterns and do space travel, all these really important things, but all of that stuff in the wizarding world can really be accomplished with magic. So aside from just knowing adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, I’m not entirely sure why they teach wizards more advanced math than that.

Micah: It’s a good question.

Andrew: Plus, we’ve all got calculators these days. Come on.

[Eric and Kyle laugh]

Kyle: “Hey, Siri.”

Andrew: Yeah, right, exactly. “Hey, Siri, how many sides does Hagrid’s hut have?”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: “Hey, Siri, what’s the area and perimeter of Hagrid’s hut?” All right, enough math “jokes.”

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Quizzitch

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Andrew: It’s time for our pop quiz question of the week; we started this segment last week. The question was: How many courses are first years required to take? The answer is seven.

Micah: Of course it is.

Andrew: Course it is! Everything is seven. Seven or twelve.

Micah: Andrew, can I make a suggestion for this segment?

Andrew: Sure.

Micah: If Kyle will let us, can we rename it Quizzitch?

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: I was thinking that too when he mentioned that.

Eric: We should name this episode Quizzitch. I think it’s pretty perfect.

Andrew: Yeah. Kyle, do we have your permission to change this to Quizzitch instead of pop quiz of the week?

Kyle: That’s totally fine.

Andrew: Yes!

Eric: Amazing.

Andrew: Eric, I was wondering for this week’s question – you were taking pictures of the questions at our trivia night – could you give us one of those to see what hell we were put through? All the listeners can see the…

Eric: I’ll do you one better: There was a time when I was 15 years old and obsessed with Harry Potter, if y’all can believe that, and I went through the first three Harry Potter books and scoured them for every fact or statement that was listed, and I developed my own trivia questions based off those. So I’m looking at a document where I have the first three books, and I assigned each question a difficulty. I basically formed trivia questions based off what it exactly, specifically says in the books. So we have Quizzitch questions for the rest of eternity, but just from Books 1 through 3. Pick a book and I’ll figure out what our question should be.

Andrew: 2.

Eric: Book 2, okay. What difficulty? There’s easy, normal, hard, or sleuth.

Andrew: Hard.

Eric: What is the only book that Harry is assigned that isn’t by Gilderoy Lockhart on his school shopping list in Book 2? The only book Harry is assigned that isn’t by Gilderoy Lockhart.

Andrew: Okay, that’s a good one. That totally would have been at trivia night that we went to. [laughs] All right, so we will reveal the answer to that question next week.

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Listener Feedback

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Andrew: To wrap up today’s show, we have a couple of emails now. This first one is from Kelly. She says,

Hey MuggleCast, I am a more recent listener and have finally caught up with all your podcasts. Why did I never find out about your podcast until now, I’ll never know.”

Well, welcome, Kelly.

“I listened to the episode where Newt’s hollow wand was brought up in discussion, and I have a theory about this. My theory is that Newt switches out his core depending on what he needs from his case of beasts. The magical creatures give him hairs and strings or whatever magical object is needed for wands as a payment of sorts for Newt protecting, rescuing, and rehabilitating them. This theory makes sense to me in that Newt was expelled from Hogwarts, and maybe his original wand was snapped, but he is a smart wizard that could make his own wand that takes whatever core he feels is necessary for the occasion. Anyways, that’s my food for thought today. Thank you guys for keeping this podcast going. I enjoy listening to it while I’m at work!”

Eric: Huh.

Andrew: Thank you, Kelly, again. I like this theory. Get a hair from a Niffler, and then Newt is good at stealing things. I don’t know. Shiny things.

Eric: I think, yeah, it’s really interesting. We’ve never seen what a sort of hollow – or I think it was described at one point as a vegan – wand will do.

Andrew: Well, and for anyone who forgets, this is getting back to when we saw Newt’s wand, the one that they’re selling. The core area does seem hollow, and the guess, like Kelly mentioned, was being expelled, if he was expelled – or at least there was an attempt at expelling him – his wand was snapped, or the core was removed. But I’m hopeful that this will somehow play into future movies.

Eric: Absolutely.

Andrew: The core mystery.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: This question is good. Kyle, maybe… well, you said your students don’t read the books yet, but you might be able to relate to this in the future. This is from Michael, who’s a teacher, and the subject line of his email was, “What is happening?” He said,

“Hey guys, I just have to share this crazy story that happened to me this week at work. I’m a first grade teacher, and while I was greeting my kids in the morning, a fifth grade girl walked by my line of students clutching a copy of the Cursed Child script book. Of course I stopped her to ask if she was a big Harry Potter fan and what she thought of the play, as her bookmark was almost near the end. She enthusiastically started talking about how much she loved Harry Potter, which of course is great, BUT then she went on a whole rant about how the Cursed Child is her FAVORITE Harry Potter book ever. She said she loves the story and how ‘scary’ it is. I know she’s only 9, but I was so taken aback that kids reading Potter have such high praises for the play and don’t even realize it’s not written by Rowling. She even said some of the ‘old’ books were too long and had some boring parts. Daggers to my heart. I personally blame this response on the iPad-driven, low attention span culture that kids are subjected to nowadays. It makes me wonder how many other kiddos out there place such value on the piece of toilet paper that is the Cursed Child and what fandom will look like, say, 20 years in the future.”

Eric: Whoa! I’m going to say this once, and I’m going to say it for all time: There’s nothing wrong with you if you think that you like Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

Andrew: Well…

Eric: If you like it for its… it’s designed to be a crowd pleasing, bam… what is it? Slam-bang-tang excitement, scariness. I agree. Some books, some Harry Potter books – the fifth one – are too long. I get it. fine. There’s nothing wrong with you if you like Cursed Child.

Andrew: Well, hold on. Hold on, though. It is still shocking that somebody would say it’s her favorite Harry Potter book ever. Now, she is only 9, and I think Michael mentioned the low attention span. I think it might also have to do with the fact that a script is probably a lot easier to read for a 9-year-old than Book 5, 6, or 7.

Eric: I think 9 is probably too young to be reading Harry Potter. I would read that to children, but… well, you know what? No. I hate what I just said.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Children should pick up any book at all under any circumstances when they feel that they can read it and understand it. That’s my opinion.

Andrew: Kyle, do you let your students know that the Cursed Child exists?

Kyle: I have it on my desk in my office, but I don’t draw attention to it. And admittedly, I couldn’t finish it. I couldn’t even get through half of it.

Andrew: Oh.

Eric: You know, some interesting stuff happens in the third act.

Kyle: I do. I listened to the spoiler episode of MuggleCast.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Oh, okay. Thank you. All right, all right. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Kyle: But yeah, I could not finish it.

Andrew: You’re getting it in the Micah and Eric context of reading the Tumblr spoilers.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: No, look, but we’ve said on the podcast before: I’m sure if you go and you see Cursed Child in person, it’s a much different experience. But if you’re just reading the script, the story itself is questionable. And I’m being nice.

Eric: People are really tired of us even saying that… yeah, even saying that people are really tired of hearing it. [laughs] I agree with it. But some people genuinely like the story, period. The story, period.

Andrew: Yeah, let’s not get into this whole discussion again.

Kyle: But I do agree with you, Eric, that anytime a kid is going to read, whatever it is, that’s good.

Eric: Yeah, if they’re passionate about reading, it’s great.

Andrew: I do think that Michael has a point here, and I just thought it was funny that the subject line of the email was just, “What is happening?” [in an old man voice] Kids these days, they don’t know… they can’t appreciate a good book when they see it.

Eric: [in an old man voice] They don’t know what’s good.

Andrew: [in an old man voice] Back in my day, we had to read a book a normal way, without a script. Back in my day, Micah was the news man, no iPads…

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: All right. Micah, read us the next email.

Micah: All right, it’s from Robyn, and she says,

“I have a theory to run by you: Do you think a wizard could put a Horcrux in an Obscurus? We know humans and beasts can co-exist with Horcruxes, i.e. Harry and Nagini. Voldemort could not control Harry, but if a Dark wizard created a Horcrux and put it in an Obscurus, I think it would be more like the Nagini Horcrux, and the wizard would be able to control the Obscurus and force it to destroy whatever they wanted to. Ezra Miller described an Obscurus as the ‘spirit’ of the Obscurial, which also makes me wonder if an Obscurus is already a kind of Horcrux, since it splits a person’s magical and non-magical selves. As far as we know, Horcruxes weren’t something that Grindelwald showed interest in, so it’s unlikely that this would ever come up in the movies, but I still find myself wondering. J.K. Rowling seems kind of obsessed with the idea of wizards dividing their souls, so I don’t think I’m alone in wondering how these two Dark magics connect.

P.S. One of the best things about this show is the multiple generations of fans. I’m 22, and last summer my boss’s daughter Ella mentioned that she had started listening to a cool Harry Potter podcast. Sure enough, it was you guys. If you could give a shout-out to Ella, and all the other young fans who listen to MuggleCast, that would be totally awesome. They may not have been there from the beginning, but they’re the future of the Harry Potter fandom, and they totally deserve celebrating.”

Micah: So there you go. Shout-out to Ella.

Andrew: No shout-outs, sorry. Oh, yes, shout-out.

Eric: I’m playing the… [laughs]

Andrew: No, that’s awesome. And I love, love seeing new listeners, whether… no matter your age, new listeners coming on to the show, because I think that really inspires us, knowing that new people are still coming on board. And as part of Kyle coming on to today’s show, he promised he’s going to introduce his students to MuggleCast. So thank you, Kyle. We really appreciate that.

Eric: Thank you, Kyle. Try and pick an episode where we don’t swear.

[Andrew and Kyle laugh]

Andrew: I’m kidding; I just threw that on him right now.

Eric: I don’t want these people’s parents coming after us.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: I don’t think that an Obscurial can have a Horcrux. An Obscurial is already an offshoot of a wizard’s persona; it’s a parasitic life form which affects almost exclusively children. I just don’t think that the magic is necessarily compatible. It’s both dark, but… I don’t know. It’s like pouring Coke and Pepsi in a glass together. What would you even get? They’d probably stay separate. You wouldn’t be able to really taste the difference, but they’d stay separate.

Andrew: Yeah. I mean, Robyn presents an interesting theory here, and connecting it to Harry and Nagini, but I think it would be too much, a Horcrux and an Obscurus. I think J.K. Rowling would kind of see that as Dark Magic overload.

Eric: Well, just like she’s flat-out said that Voldemort cannot cast a Patronus, just bottom line. No matter… I mean, he can be happy about killing hundreds of people; that can be his happy memory, but there’s something in him that’s broken, that can’t do it. And I think that that’s exactly what it would be like for a Horcrux and Obscurial. They’re just not compatible. And I hope the Fantastic Beasts series is not going of that way.

Andrew: Yeah. And Grindelwald isn’t into Horcruxes, even though…

Eric: Right. Yeah, we’ve talked about that before, how Grindelwald and Voldemort are essentially two different types of power seekers. Grindelwald wants to extend his life and live as long as he can live, but in his body, through no means of messing with his soul. He wants to be the most powerful wizard; that’s why he goes and gets the Elder Wand and kill as many people and recruit as many people to his cause. But he’s not seeking immortality in the same way that Voldemort is by bending the laws of Dark nature, and extending your soul and placing it in containers around the world. They’re different leaders, I think.

Andrew: I buy it. Okay. Yeah, so sorry, Robyn, but hey, good theory.

Micah: Yeah. And she also signed off by saying “Ancora imparo,” which I just looked up because I didn’t know what it meant. Means that “I’m still learning,” which I think ties in very well just to this overall episode, Kyle as well.

Eric: Man, there’s an episode title. “Ancora imparo.”

Andrew: James, who’s listening live, says, in regards to younger listeners, “I’d keep them away from Episode 300. #VibratingBroom.” That’s right, that was the episode where we grew up.

Micah: And now keep them away from Episode 338, where…

[Andrew and Kyle laugh]

Eric: … we reference 300. [laughs]

Andrew: Those vibrating brooms are still on eBay, and I still…

Eric: Did we really spend our 300th episode talking about the vibrating broomstick?

Andrew: Well, just for a few minutes, that’s all.

Eric: We interviewed David Heyman for 200, 100 we got the seventh book, and for 300 we talked about… [laughs]

Andrew: Well, if J.K. Rowling wants to come on this show, we’ll talk about something else with her.

Eric: Save us for 350, Jo. Please do it. Please. Everybody write J.K. Rowling right now.

Andrew: [laughs] All right, so that’s all we have for this week’s episode. We are going to have some news to talk about next week; I see that J.K. Rowling did a Cursed Child interview, believe it or not, for CBS This Morning. I wonder… very few interviews she’s done about the Cursed Child. She did it to promote the New York City Broadway run. And speaking of that, registration to have the chance to buy tickets is about to occur. On the next episode, we’re going to walk you through what that whole process is like and what it means, Ticketmaster’s verified fan program. I did it for Bruce Springsteen Broadway tickets recently, so now I am an expert. I will happily bequeath what I have learned onto the MuggleCast audience, because I know many people, no matter what your opinion is on Cursed Child, you probably want to see the play. Isn’t that right, Kyle?

Kyle: Absolutely.

Andrew: [laughs] Is that true? Do you actually want to see it?

Kyle: [laughs] I’d be curious to watch it, yeah.

Eric: You know what? That reminds me, the tickets are going on sale next Sunday morning.

Andrew: No, no, no. That’s when registration opens up.

Eric: Oh, registration, okay. I was going to say, our next episode can only be just us trying to get tickets to… [laughs]

Andrew: That should be the next episode.

Eric: A bottle episode of us just trying to register. The sound of a keyboard and the mouse clicking, and us going, “Ah, darn, I’m in line.”

Andrew: “Hey, guys. Welcome to MuggleCast Episode 340. And all right, we’re hitting refresh on Ticketmaster… and here we go…”

Eric: [laughs] Exactly. Just a bottle episode where it’s just… an event occurs. It’s centered around a single event. It’ll be great.

Kyle: There’s your bonus MuggleCast.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Andrew: “These tickets cost how much?! I’m out!”

Eric: We will only make our patrons like Kyle suffer through the bonus MuggleCast of us getting angry at our computers.

Andrew: So Cursed Child registration does open on October 1, and it’s open for a few days, so you don’t have to register on October 1, but you’ve got to do it while that window is open. And registration will give you the chance to purchase tickets; you will not necessarily be guaranteed a ticket just because you’re registering, but we’ll explain more of that in the future.

Eric: All I said is that they will get a Turbo-Man doll eventually, right?

Andrew: What is that a reference to? I’m sure it’s something pop culture.

Kyle: “Put the cookies down!”

Eric and Micah: Jingle All the Way.

Eric: “Put the cookies…” [laughs] Thank you, Kyle, for not even attempting a Governator. Thank you.

[Kyle laughs]

Andrew: I see. All right, all right. Kyle, thanks for joining us.

Kyle: Hey, thank you guys very much for having me. This has been a blast…

Andrew: Awesome.

Kyle: … and kind of a dream come true for, what, almost 13 years now, I guess.

Andrew: Awesome, we’re so glad to hear that. I know you recently became a Patreon supporter, too, which we appreciate greatly.

Kyle: Thank you. Yeah, thank you. And I also recently got married.

Andrew: Oh, congratulations!

Kyle: We actually got married on the 20th anniversary.

Eric: Oh, no way!

Andrew: Aw, that’s sweet. That’s sweet.

Eric: You nerd.

[Kyle and Micah laugh]

Andrew: Wait, did you do that on purpose?

Kyle: Well, for me, that’s the reason why.

[Andrew laughs]

Kyle: It was also her great-grandparents’ anniversary as well.

Eric: Oh, wow, that really worked out.

Andrew: Yeah. Did you guys have Harry Potter-related vows?

Kyle: My wife wouldn’t let me put Harry Potter stuff in our vows, but we did have a Snitch on our cake, and we had a duo, a violin and cello duo playing at the ceremony, and they played “Hedwig’s Theme” just before the bridal march.

Andrew: Oh, that’s cool.

Eric: What Hogwarts House is your wife in?

Kyle: Well, she kind of refuses to take the Pottermore quiz. She’s not as big… she’s not really a fan.

[Andrew laughs]

Kyle: But I think she’s in Gryffindor.

Eric: Cool.

Andrew: Okay. Has she stepped foot in your classroom?

Kyle: She has; she thought it was cool. [laughs] She wasn’t… she’s not all into it like I am.

Andrew: She’s like, “Kyle, what is this? What?”

[Kyle laughs]

Eric: “It’s just your thing. Just keep it out of our house.”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: She really was just making you take all your Harry Potter stuff out of the house, right?

Andrew: Yeah, it’s like this is your man cave.

[Eric and Kyle laugh]

Andrew: Awesome. Well, congratulations on recently getting married. That’s great.

Kyle: Thank you.

Andrew: Micah, Eric, and I are still wondering when that’s going to happen for us three, but we’re glad our listeners are getting married.

Micah: Yeah, it’s been a lot of… I feel like we’ve talked a lot about marriage the last couple of weeks on the show.

Andrew: Yeah, we have. Micah and I made a pact that if neither of us get married by 2020, we’re just going to wed each other.

[Micah laughs]

Eric: It’s coming up. It’s coming up.

Micah: Unbreakable Vow.

Andrew: A couple shout-outs you wanted to mention, Eric?

Eric: Yeah, definitely. Shout-out once again to Allie, Lindsay, and Danny of the Potterotica Show podcast, and their upcoming performance at the Chicago Podcast Festival.

Andrew: It was fun meeting them.

Eric: Definitely look them up. It was really, really nice seeing them at trivia on Wednesday, and just talking with Allie and Danny was a good time. So they represent a faction of Harry Potter fandom that I never dallied in all of that much…

Andrew: Suuure.

Eric: … and they cater to it and do a very good job of it. So yeah, just go and see if it’s for you.

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Eric: And also, 17+ only.

Andrew: 17+ probably, yes.

Eric: NC-17, yeah.

Andrew: If you want to learn more about the show, visit our website, MuggleCast.com. You can follow us on social media there. Can also just go to Twitter.com/MuggleCast, or Facebook.com/MuggleCast. We’d love your support over on Patreon; we are doing it weekly thanks to our patrons! Patreon.com/MuggleCast. I know we’ve had a little boost in sign-ups lately, so thanks to everybody who has recently joined us. As always, we’re trying to give you as many benefits as possible. We’re trying to figure out something to do to celebrate or to get to 777 patrons, because we’re currently at 752, and with seven being a magical number…

Eric: The most magically powerful number.

Andrew: Yeah, we’ve got to think of something to do.

Eric: You know what, though? There’s another shout-out we have to give, and I would simply hate ourselves if we didn’t. It’s to Nikki Henry, who sent us socks to the MuggleCast P.O. Box.

Andrew: Yes, we are all free thanks to the socks that you sent us.

Eric: [laughs] So Nikki works for a company called Socksmith, and these are the geekiest, nerdiest socks I have ever seen in my life. She sent us a bunch of them. One of them has a goat on it. Another has a werewolf, which looks very much like Remus Lupin, because he’s still got jean shorts on. Unicorns, snakes, dollar signs… I have one that I wore last night that’s Sasquatch and Loch Ness Monster. Also sushi, beer, donuts… one that’s a couch potato. One that’s a fox and it says “Zero fox given.”

Micah: That’s mine, by the way.

Eric: I mean, that’s really, unbelievably, really talented, nerdy, gift-y kind of socks, and Nikki gave us a whole box of them. We cannot thank her enough.

Andrew: Yeah, thank you. Eric picked those up at the P.O. Box. I did not, because he is still not giving me a key.

Eric: I’m going to get you a key. Come to the zoo today; I’ll give you a key.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Well, actually, I didn’t want to bring this up, but Andrew, I’m pretty sure Kyle sent us an invite to his wedding, and we never got it.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: You guys, I went. It was great.

Andrew: Awesome.

Micah: So wait, but you said we’re free, so that means I don’t have to do the show anymore, right? Now that we have these socks?

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Eric: Only if I get you these sucks. Maybe I’ll keep them all for myself.

Andrew: You’re free from the troubles life has given you, whatever those may be.

Micah: Wonderful.

Andrew: Anyway.

Eric: So the P.O. Box address is 4044 North Lincoln Avenue, Box #144, Chicago, IL, 60618. You do not need to send us anything, but if you have something like a nice little card or letter or something you want to write, you’ve been meaning to write, and you like the US postal system and using it, as some do, send us that. We’ll be sure to read it on the show and give you a shout-out.

Andrew: Thank you, everybody, for listening. We appreciate your support as always. I’m Andrew.

Eric: I’m Eric.

Micah: I’m Micah.

Kyle: And I’m Kyle.

Andrew: Thanks again, Kyle. See everybody later. Goodbye!

Micah: Bye.