Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #390, Falling Softly (HBP Chapter 10, The House of Gaunt)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast 390! I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Andrew: And we’re joined by one of our Slug Club members this week, Sam! Hey, Sam.
Sam: Hey.
Andrew: “Sam I am, my name is Sam.”
[Sam laughs]
Andrew: You are living in Minnesota, but you are in the Chicagoland area this morning, right?
Sam: Yes, I am.
Andrew: Cool. And you came at the recommendation of one of our friends, Irvin, who said, “You gotta have Sam on to talk about the House of Gaunt.”
Sam: I’m so excited. Irvin is the best.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, he’s a great guy. Very, very smart when it comes to Harry Potter. So it’s nice to have you on today. Let’s get your fandom ID; in one breath, give us your favorite book, movie, Ilvermorny House, Hogwarts House, Patronus, and general Harry Potter experience. What’s a trip or show or fan moment that’s really stood out to you?
Sam: My favorite book is a tie between the fourth and the sixth. My favorite movie… am I allowed to say Wizard People, Dear Reader? I’m not a huge fan of the movies.
Andrew: Okay.
Sam: I hate the third one so much. [laughs] Ilvermorny… I have no idea. I don’t even know what the Houses are. And then Hogwarts, I’m a Slytherpuff, but I lean more Hufflepuff. My Patronus, which is weird; it’s a squirrel, and I’m petrified of squirrels.
[Eric laughs]
Sam: So that’s fun. And then experience… last year I did 19 Years Later in London, and then this year I went to Scotland and did the Hogwarts Express.
Andrew: Very cool.
Sam: And then in New York, I ran the Marauders discussion with Irvin.
Andrew: So the 19 Years Later experience. Can you just briefly…? What is that, exactly?
Sam: It was when Harry in the last book, the epilogue, took his kids to Platform Nine and Three Quarters, so a bunch of us in New York City and my best friend in Chicago, we all met up in London and we went to the train station, and we counted down till 11 o’clock. And then we actually boarded a train in our Hogwarts robes, and then went to a castle and had afternoon tea, and it was amazing.
Andrew: That’s awesome. Anyway, thank you again for joining us this week, and we’ll talk about this chapter, “The House of Gaunt,” in a little bit.
News
Andrew: But first, one piece of news. So tickets for the Crimes of Grindelwald are officially on sale, and to celebrate the occasion, a new promo video – I guess you could call it a featurette – was released, in which J.K. Rowling talks about the plot of the film a little bit, and we’re just going to play the audio because it’s pretty interesting.
[Audio clip plays]
J.K. Rowling: Grindelwald has been in jail in New York for a few months. The decision is made to move him back to Europe, where he has to answer for the crimes that he has committed, and inevitably, he escapes. Credence survives, and for Credence, the big question now is…
Credence Barebone: I want to know who I am.
Gellert Grindelwald: The path has been laid and he is following it. The trail that will lead him to me.
J.K. Rowling: The reason everyone goes to Paris, really, is Credence.
Albus Dumbledore: Credence may not know who he is yet, but he needs to be found. And I rather hope you might be the one to find him.
Jude Law: Dumbledore has to maneuver to try and stop Grindelwald’s rise.
Newt Scamander: Dumbledore…
Eddie Redmayne: There is a new threat as Grindelwald mobilizes.
Alison Sudol: He’s a master manipulator, and that is why he is so dangerous.
Dan Fogler: We’re heading toward war. Everyone’s choosing sides.
J.K. Rowling: Things are becoming much more dark and complicated, and people’s allegiances are now being exposed.
Gellert Grindelwald: We must rise up and take our rightful place in the world.
J.K. Rowling: We’re now getting into the meat of the story, and everything gets darker and more intricate. Whatever you think you know at the end of the movie might not be the case.
[Audio clip ends]
Andrew: So a couple interesting things there. First of all, a few months have passed since the last movie. I thought that was kind of interesting; that was the first time I think we found out exactly what the time jump is. And then everyone is going to Paris for Credence. I think we expected a couple people were, but apparently everybody goes to Paris for Credence. [laughs] What does that mean?
Eric: Yeah, I’m wondering how they know that he is somebody, right? We know through the trailers and stuff that he’s a secret Lestrange or somebody, who his father was, but I don’t know how just now everyone knows. And what are the stakes? Just because he’s a Lestrange, they’ve all got to go to Paris?
Micah: What do you mean, though? I mean, he made a pretty big spectacle at the end of the first film.
Andrew: Yeah, I don’t know. That is a big question, I think. And then there’s that one line from Grindelwald; you may not have known that it was him, but it does cut to him. Grindelwald is very interested in Credence as well, which I guess isn’t a big surprise given what happens in the first movie. But yeah, I don’t know. It just seems to all come down to Credence. I love that line from Credence, where he just goes, [imitating Credence] “I want to know who I am.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: It’s so deadpan.
Micah: Very emo.
Eric: J.K. Rowling set that up perfectly.
Andrew: He’s going to be the emo this whole movie, isn’t he? [imitating Credence] “Nagini, you’re kind of cool. But I want to know who I am.”
Micah: One other thing, though, too, that I thought was interesting is we got the reasoning behind the title of the movie from J.K. Rowling, saying that he’s being brought back to Europe to answer for his crimes.
Andrew: Yeah. Still, though, I’m not loving this title.
Sam: Oh, it’s a dumb title.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: How do you feel about Fantastic Beasts on a whole, Sam? Do you like it so far?
Sam: Oh, I love the first one. I’m starting to warm up to the second one. The last trailer, I really liked it, but I don’t know. It just seems like so much is going on that I think it might be a cluster. [laughs]
Andrew: It’s a lot to wrap your head around. [laughs] We’ll see how J.K. Rowling pulled it off. But I’m getting more excited. I thought that featurette was very good, and it was nice to hear J.K. Rowling share some things. And hopefully nobody really considered that stuff spoiler-y, since they released it officially.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, spoiler alert: These films are getting darker and more complicated. It’s all getting darker, and war is coming.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: It’s only the second film, but it’s getting darker.
Andrew: Yeah, we’re going to hear that for the next eight years.
[Andrew and Sam laugh]
Andrew: It’s getting darker, darker, darker.
Eric: There’s not a family film in sight for Fantastic Beasts. I mean, remember when Harry Potter was a family movie? I miss those days.
Sam: Maybe they mean darker in color.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Darker in color. Yeah, what’s that Fall Out Boy song? “If there’s something darker than black, I would wear it”? That’s going to be in the next movie. [laughs]
Eric: Oh my God.
Micah: Well, just speaking of Crimes of Grindelwald, we will be discussing some news in bonus MuggleCast at the tail end of the show for our patrons. We have some new information on our friend Yusuf Kama, as well as some new TV trailers that snuck in a few interesting scenes that are worth discussing, so that’s coming up later on in bonus MuggleCast.
Andrew: Also coming up, we have a Dancing with the Stars update, and we got some voicemails to listen to, and then we’ll get to Chapter by Chapter. But first, I wanted to ask you guys something. We’ve all grown up together over the years, and something we may not have been thinking about when we were kids was making investments, right? Who would have thought this would be a subject on this show 13 years later? But you should be thinking about investments.
[Ad break]
Eric: Whoa.
Andrew: Were you going to say something?
Eric: Just whoa.
Andrew: Oh, whoa. [laughs]
Eric: I wondered where we were going to have the conversation about needing to invest, so here we are.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: We’ve reached an age.
Andrew: It was inevitable. So Eric, what’s going on with Evanna and Dancing with the Stars?
Eric: So Evanna and Keo have made it to another week. They were actually, you guys, they were in jeopardy this week.
Andrew: Oh! Not enough people voted?
Eric: I’m still not sure. They got all eights from the judges. It was trios week, and as I mentioned on last week’s MuggleCast during the Dancing with the Stars update, actress Scarlett Byrne joined Evy and Keo in dancing. It was trios week, so the three of them danced; they did a salsa to the song “Black Magic” by Little Mix. And I thought it was good. Micah, what were your thoughts?
Micah: I thought it was good, but apparently they ended up in the bottom two, but that was from the vote of the previous week, which is when they danced to “Hedwig’s Theme.” So hopefully they did enough to keep them safe coming up on Monday night.
Eric: Yeah, I don’t… I guess they’re using the votes from the previous week to inform the new week and whether you’re in jeopardy or not. Bottom line is I think not enough people are voting. So just shout-out… I tend to tweet out the hotline number on Monday nights when it’s time to vote, retweet from MuggleCast; the number is on both Evy and Keo’s social. It’s weird to me, still, how their dancing doesn’t affect whether or not they’re getting eliminated. They could be a great dancer… this is Dancing with the Stars. It’s not a popularity contest, for crying out loud; it’s a dancing contest.
Andrew: They should have had one of us. Evanna should have invited one of us on for the trio week.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I think we would have driven the vote.
Eric: Scarlett did great. On trios week, what usually happens is people utilize the advantage of having a second professional dancer, but Scarlett did fantastic. So one thing that might be a saving grace going into next week, it’s Disney week, and Evanna and Keo will be… it was actually announced they’ll be jazz dancing, which, first of all, jazz dancing is awesome. The song, though, from Disney, is “When Will My Life Begin?” from the movie Tangled.
Andrew: Can they do a dance interpretation of Credence’s mood in this next movie? Very emo and dramatic?
Eric: Yeah, once they get to performance art week of Dancing with the Stars? Yeah, interpretive dance.
Andrew: “I want to know who I am. Somebody tell me.”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Well, I would say, Eric, the only challenge there, though, is even if they knock it out of the park on Monday night, they’re being judged based on what they did this past week. So that’s what confuses me about the show, because even if you do an amazing job, you’re not being judged right in the moment on that particular performance.
Eric: You’re getting scored on it in the moment, but whether you’re safe or not seems to come from the previous week’s votes. So at any rate, I think in general the longevity of their routines… it’s just been great to see them every week, and Evy making it this far. Funnily enough, before we wrap up, I just wanted to say I did a search, because I was… I remember I saw somewhere that the song would be from Tangled, and all I did was search “Luna Tangled,” or “Evanna Lynch Tangled.” It turns out that for a very long time, the Internet has been sort of fan-casting Evanna as Rapunzel from Tangled in a live action… you know on Tumblr, you’re just like, “Oh, my ideal… let’s do the whole Disney live action thing.” And I found there’s just tons of fan art of Evanna Lynch as Rapunzel, or Rapunzel as Luna, and it’s kind of fun to see. I didn’t know this was a thing on the Internet, but just a quick Google search turned it up.
Andrew: Also just want to give a quick plug for our latest giveaway on Patreon. I’m giving away a box of my Harry Potter crap. That giveaway is happening now. Sam, I hope you enter.
Sam: I’m going to.
Andrew: Oh, good. It’s two boxes of stuff.
Sam: I want your crap.
Andrew: MuggleNet stickers, Harry Potter Hogwarts House socks, and MuggleCast T-shirts and… it’s just a random giveaway. Do some spring cleaning. I can’t hold on to everything, so I’m doing that. And then I think Eric and Micah are also going to give away boxes of crap as well.
Eric: Absolutely.
Andrew: And we’re calling it crap lovingly. It’s just for fun. [laughs] It’s good stuff.
Micah: And then we’re going to have the three people on the show that win the box of crap, and they’re going to evaluate whose box of crap was better.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: And then they’re going to replace us entirely and host a show.
[Sam laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, exactly.
Micah: That’s a great idea. Gives us a week off.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, we are nothing but our boxes of Harry Potter crap that we’ve collected.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: So again, that’s over at Patreon.com/MuggleCast.
Listener Feedback
Andrew: Let’s listen to some voicemails now. This first one is a connection between Sorcerer’s Stone and Deathly Hallows, and a couple other things as well.
[Voicemail plays]
“Hey, MuggleCasters. This is Gomyo calling from Japan. Listening to the ‘Half-Blood Prince’ chapter episode, and you were talking about connections between the books. I just wanted to mention one connection you never brought up when you did Book 7, the Chapter by Chapter, was that in Book 1, the twins sing the Hogwarts school song to the tune of a funeral march, and in Book 7, Fred dies. I don’t know if you… I’m pretty sure you didn’t talk about that. Also, you were playing a song whenever a character died, and I think you kind of blew it on Fred’s song. I don’t remember what song you played, but I think you should have played ‘Freddie’s Dead’ by Curtis Mayfield from the Super Fly soundtrack. One more thing: You talk about Snape referring to the Horcruxes, but Snape didn’t know anything about them. Dumbledore kept that from everybody but Harry. Love the show, peace.”
[Voicemail ends]
Andrew: I had forgotten that we used to play songs when characters died.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: That was a great idea.
Eric: Can you pull up this song that he recommended? “Freddie’s Dead”?
Andrew: Yeah. Did he say Curtis Mayfield?
Eric: I think so.
Andrew: Yeah, okay. This is the song that he wishes we played.
[“Freddie’s Dead” by Curtis Mayfield plays]
Hey, hey
Lord, Lord
Yeah, yeah
Andrew: This is too happy.
Micah: Well, Fred was a happy guy.
Freddie’s dead
That’s what I said
Let the man rap a plan
Said he’d sing him home
But his hope was a rope
And he should’ve known
It’s hard to understand…
Andrew: Okay, well, we respect your choice.
Eric: Yeah, man. I feel like I’m on hold right now with Comcast or somebody.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I’m trying to lower my bill. Yeah, but it’s a good… it’s one of those happy songs which is really infectious. There’s not enough of that in this world.
Andrew: Yeah. I think maybe I might be wrong, but maybe we used to play dramatic songs when these characters died.
Eric: Something a little bit more… yeah, if Umbridge had died, we would have played “Ding-Dong, the Witch Is Dead,” but…
Andrew: [singing] “Celebrate good times, come on!”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: We’ve played that on the show before, mostly around New Year’s.
Andrew: [laughs] All right, here’s our next voicemail.
[Voicemail plays]
“Hey, MuggleCast. This is Chris again. Just got done listening to the newest episode about the quirky walrus, and I just had a quick thought. I was kind of curious what your guys’ opinion would be or thoughts would be on how Hogwarts is ran today. Who would be headmaster/headmistress, if any of the old teachers would still be around, there’d be any new teachers with students that we already know, such as Neville or Hermione… kind of curious what you guys think about that, and if you could have a possible quick discussion about it. And my other thing is speaking on the NEWTs and the OWLs; I’m actually pretty glad to see that the teachers kind of have a dictation on where they go with their NEWTs, what their expectations are, because that breaks it down from teacher, from student to student, and not just a standardized ‘This is what it has to be.’ Being that I was in high school probably about ten years ago, and we had standardized testing, I absolutely hated the fact of it because it wasn’t about who the student was or what the student’s strengths were; it was all based on what the government said was it okay. So I’m glad to see it go that way. Let me know what your thoughts are. Yeah, you guys are doing awesome. Been listening for about a year and a half now, and it’s just absolutely amazing. Well, have a good one. Bye.”
[Voicemail ends]
Andrew: Thanks, Chris. That was the point I was getting at. We don’t need these broad brushes being painted over who can take what classes. Let the teachers decide what’s best for their individual students.
Micah: I like that. I think that definitely is the better approach, even though I know I raised the question last week as to whether or not there should be some sort of standard in place. But I like that, what he said about just working directly with the student, knowing their strengths and their areas to improve upon, and then just making a decision as to whether or not they’re able to take that next level course. As far as the teachers still at Hogwarts, I know we know that Neville is there just based on… I think it’s the epilogue, right? He teaches Herbology. But I’d like to think there’s still some professors who are around teaching their classes. I don’t see why Slughorn couldn’t still be teaching Potions, or McGonagall Transfiguration. I mean, I’m disregarding probably a lot of information that’s up on Pottermore right now, but…
Sam: Is she headmistress when Neville is teaching?
Micah: That’s a good question. I don’t know. I do feel like there’s probably some information on Pottermore about who has taken over officially as headmaster or headmistress.
Eric: Well, she must be, because she’s the headmistress in the Cursed Child, which, 19 years after the school…
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Eric: … so unless it was still… I mean, Snape wasn’t. I think if McGonagall came in…
Micah: But is that being treated as the actual canon, though?
[Sam laughs]
Eric: Well, that’s a question. But Cursed Child had a real opportunity to introduce some of these other teachers for different classes and didn’t, which is interesting, because the whole thing is set in the future. We could have figured out… I don’t know if there’s maybe a throwaway mention to another teacher that’s going that Scorpius or Albus Severus are having to deal with, but it’s mostly about the call-backs, not the world-building call-forwards they could have done.
Micah: I’d bet Professor Binns is still there.
Andrew: Probably.
Sam: Oh, he has to be.
Eric: It’s a safe bet.
Andrew: I mean, I think most of these teachers, as we learn in this series, they live for a really long time, these wizards and witches. So I think they hang around at the school long after the seventh Harry Potter book. I’m just looking at the Wikia for McGonagall, and it reminds me that Curse Child is set in 2020. [laughs] So yes, McGonagall… in fact, we already know she’s teaching two years from now still. Or sorry, she’s the headmistress.
Sam: Can she be headmistress and also be teaching as well?
Andrew: That seems like too much work, personally. I wouldn’t sign up for that.
Sam: Yeah, so they probably have a different Transfiguration teacher right now.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: Although, I don’t know; was Dumbledore that busy during the Harry Potter books? Maybe he could have taught as well. All right, here’s a theory about Leta.
[Voicemail plays]
“Hey, MuggleCast. This is Denise again. Sorry about that last voicemail. I was just listening to the most recent episode, and Eric commented on the picture that was released, and it said that Grindelwald was in the Lestrange mausoleum. Do you think that maybe Theseus convinced Leta to try to get Grindelwald to host there so that he could lure him in to trap him? We did see Newt and Theseus fighting in a graveyard; maybe they lured him there to capture him and use Leta because of her name to get him there and to tell him, ‘Hey, you can use this area,’ and then eventually get him and catch him. Just a thought. Bye.”
[Voicemail ends]
Andrew: I like that idea. “It’s a trap!”
Eric: [laughs] He seems to be doing quite well with that setup for a venue. Even if it were a trap, the hundreds of witches and wizards that are audience members in that mausoleum all seem to… if they’re into Grindelwald the way that they appear to be into Grindelwald, they’ll probably help him escape. A massive crowd of people is not what you’d consider ideal situations for if you’re trying to catch somebody or close the walls, close the snare, whatever that is.
Andrew: Power in numbers. And then speaking of Leta, we have this other voicemail.
[Voicemail plays]
“Hey, MuggleCast. This is Kevin Entwhistle from San Francisco, and I’m a huge fan of the show. I’ve been listening every week for about two years, maybe three, and I just wanted to tell you about a couple things. The first one is this: My current theory for Leta and Theseus’s relationship, shall we call it, is that Theseus was in the process of escorting Grindelwald to his cell when Leta came and Imperiused him and helped in Grindelwald’s escape. I don’t know how this exactly fits with Abernathy supposedly helping, because in my mind, Leta would take the place that you guys have been speculating that Abernathy has. And second thing is that I cannot wait for Cursed Child to come here to San Francisco. I’m sure it’s coming, no matter what, because they’re not losing this lawsuit, so thanks for talking about that a couple weeks ago. And finally, I just wanted to tell you that I was at a secondhand bookstore today, and I found the British editions of Philosopher’s Stone, Prisoner of Azkaban, and Half-Blood Prince. And I think they’re first editions, maybe second edition, something like that, but they were a dollar each, and so I was like, ‘I’m grabbing this’ and buy out the store. And I also was able to get Cuckoo’s Calling and Silkworm for a really awesome price there too. So just thought that I’d tell you about this, and I hope to hear myself on the show soon. Bye!”
[Voicemail ends]
Andrew: Well, you’re in luck! First of all, I like how confident he is that Cursed Child is definitely coming to San Francisco, despite this brewing legal battle.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: But I also wanted to ask you guys, when you go into secondhand bookstores, do you ever try to find the Harry Potter stuff to see if you can find anything special?
Sam: Damn, no, I haven’t.
Eric: For me, there’s a local chain here. Do you guys have Half Price Books? Sam, have you ever heard of Half Price Books?
Sam: I’ve heard of them, yeah.
Eric: Yeah, so there’s one in… well, I don’t want to give away my secret location in Chicagoland…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: … but every time I go there – seriously – every time I go there, they have a section dedicated to board games, and I have found the original board games that came out before the Harry Potter films. There’s a number of them. There’s a Sorcerer’s Stone trivia game; there’s a Mystery at Hogwarts, which is a direct rip-off of Clue. There is also a game that recreates the seven challenges of the Sorcerer’s Stone journey, so the three-headed dog, etc. It’s like seven mini games in one. And the boxes are decorated like the first Harry Potter book, like the cover of the first Harry Potter book with the style… the very Mary Grand-Pré-esque castles artwork and the circus tent style diamonds.
Andrew: I always open up The Cuckoo’s Callings when I see them at used bookstores, because I’m hopeful that one day I’m going to find one that doesn’t have J.K. Rowling’s name in it. I already have one of those, I’m proud to say, but it would be amazing to find another one, because there were so few of them prior to the big leak, the big reveal. So if you’re ever in a secondhand bookstore, look at The Cuckoo’s Calling if you see it there. I saw one a couple months ago in a used bookstore; I was like, “Oh my God, oh my God, I’m going to open it, J.K. Rowling’s name isn’t going to be there, and it’s going to be worth a lot of money.” I felt like I was opening up a… scratching off a lottery ticket or something, opening up a Willy Wonka Chocolate Bar.
Micah: And then you only won $1.
Andrew: Right, yeah, it was worthless. [laughs] Had J.K. Rowling’s name in it.
Micah: Yeah. What do you think about his theory around Leta helping Grindelwald escape?
Andrew: Maybe she’s fooling Theseus into thinking that she’s on his side, but really she’s on Grindelwald’s side?
Micah: Perhaps.
Eric: But why would she get engaged to him? It sounds like an unnecessary red tape of “Now I have to extricate myself from this relationship.” I don’t know. There’s still just so many unanswered questions I have about Leta, her possible previous relationship and/or feelings for Newt, how Newt feels about it, and this whole Theseus thing. But maybe it’s an act. Maybe it is an act. I don’t know.
Sam: The whole her being engaged with Theseus is very odd, when that came out. Is there any chance…? I mean, I know Theseus is trying to hunt him down, Grindelwald, but could he potentially hear what Grindelwald is saying and agree with it?
Eric: Maybe.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. And we didn’t mention this, but at the end of that featurette that we played earlier, J.K. Rowling was like, “You might think things are one way by the end of the movie, but really, they’re not.” So I think there’s going to be surprises, sort of like that, like what you’re alluding to, Sam. Okay, so it’s almost time for Chapter by Chapter, but first, we have another new sponsor this week, who helps you eat healthier. They are Green Chef.
[Ad break]
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Andrew: Time now for Half-Blood Prince Chapter by Chapter, Chapter 10, “The House of Gaunt.” Sam, we heard that this is one of your favorite chapters in the series? Is that right?
Sam: Yes, it is. I love it. It’s so dark, and it shattered what I thought was Voldemort’s parents’ background, what we learned in Book 2 and even Book 4, and just kind of shattered everything I learned.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, that’s a great point. So we’re going to start off by creating a Seven-Word Summary. I think you know how this works, because you listen; we’ll take turns contributing one word to our summary. Sam, you’re in a bit of a tough position because you’re right in the middle, [laughs] so it’s going to be a challenge.
Eric: You control the direction that it goes in halfway through.
Sam: All right.
Andrew: [laughs] Yep, yep. So Eric, you’re going to start this week.
Eric: All right, I will start with the word… A…
Micah: … memory…
Andrew: … comes… [laughs]
Sam: … before…
Eric: … another…
Micah: A memory comes before another… big…
Andrew: Dig? Oh, big.
Micah: Big.
Andrew: A memory comes before another big… I guess I’m just going to say reveal. [laughs]
Micah: There you go.
Andrew: Well, it fits, but I will say that is the worst one we’ve ever done.
[Andrew and Sam laugh]
Micah: At least the other one that was crazy was fun.
Andrew: Yeah, exactly. Right. [laughs] All right, so we’re going to…
Micah: I think we need to ban one-letter words.
Andrew: Ban one-letter words. Interesting.
Eric: Oh, why? No, because “the” and “a”… I mean, “the” is not a one-letter word, but what…? Are you singling out my first word?
Micah: Yeah, that’s a total cop-out to go with “a.”
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: It doesn’t… you could have come up with a better first word than “a.”
Eric: No, no, it specifies… dude, it specifies singular or plural. I’m totally giving you guys a gift by giving that word.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Sure.
Andrew: So he’s dumping the blame to you, Micah.
Micah: Took a lot of thought to come up with “a.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: I deliberated for 15 minutes this morning while I was getting my morning tea.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I prepped.
Micah: Okay, I believe you.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Andrew: So for this chapter, we’re going to focus on the meat of the chapter instead of what happens before and after. But that said, at the beginning, Hermione is disappointed that Harry is relying on mystery person’s notes still, and it’s interesting that she’s so by the book, even though she sees Harry having a lot of success while she is not. It makes you kind of… it just speaks to Hermione being so book smart, while Harry and other characters in the series like Fred and George are street smart, but Hermione just refuses to adopt the street smart lifestyle.
Eric: [laughs] Furthermore, it says in the book that Harry offers to share his Prince’s notes with Ron and Hermione, and Hermione kind of doubles down on using what she calls the “official” instructions, and she’s just very, very stubborn about it.
Andrew: And Ron’s excuse is so dumb. It’s like, “Ron couldn’t… yeah, he can’t read the handwriting.” [laughs]
Sam: He can’t read it.
Eric: That’s real, though. That’s real enough. I have trouble sometimes with… you know how you can only read your handwriting, or handwriting that’s similar to yours? It’s the same thing.
Andrew: Right, but it just really plays into painting him as a lazy character. Like he’d rather fail than try to read the handwriting.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Sam: If anyone else had got the Half-Blood Prince book, do you think Hermione would have reported them?
Eric: Probably.
Sam: Because Ron and Harry, she just lets it slide while complaining to them.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. Because when you’re close friends like that, you’ve got to let certain things like that slide; you’ve got to look out for each other, whereas if, I don’t know, Neville had it or something, she wouldn’t mind ratting him out. Or definitely somebody in another House. Maybe not Neville.
Sam: Oh, yeah.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I don’t necessarily see it as cheating, though, because what’s the difference? You’re following… what’s his name, Libatius Borage? You’re following what he has written in Advanced Potion-Making, versus just what somebody else wrote in Advanced Potion-Making.
Andrew: Right.
Micah: So it’s not necessarily cheating. I guess it kind of is, but…
Eric: It’s definitely cheating. It’s like if somebody wrote the Scantron answers down, like if you were handed a random Scantron entry answer form that was already filled out, and you’re just like, “Okay, I’m going to go with this.”
Sam: But it could be like Potions is kind of like science, where someone else could have a different approach.
Micah: That’s a good point.
Andrew: Yeah, and I mean, clearly it is a different approach, but Hermione still doesn’t respect it. Eric made the Scantron example. Or it is kind of like going on CliffNotes.com or one of those sites where you can just get the path that you need.
Eric: Yeah, you’re not doing your own research or making your own conclusions at all, and even though Harry got an Exceeds Expectations in Potions last year, he has just zero intuition, seemingly, for Potions, and is not making any changes. He’s just going off of this… I would call it cheating.
Micah: But he’s not allowed to have that book when he takes an exam, though, is he? He still has to know what he’s doing.
Andrew: That’s true. That’s a good point.
Eric: Yeah, but in many cases, those exams are potions they’ve already made or studied.
Micah: Right, but he still has to do the work to remember how to make the potion.
Eric: Right, but if he had already done it the cheating way, then he just needs to remember the cheating way.
Micah: I don’t necessarily see it as a cheating way; I see it as an alternate way of making the potion. And I don’t see a difference in learning it from… the funny thing is, at the end of the day, he’s still learning Potions from Snape.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Right.
Micah: But one thing that Slughorn said that kind of struck me was that he didn’t remember teaching somebody so talented, but did he not teach Snape if he taught Lily?
Eric: [laughs] That’s a really good question.
Andrew: Yeah, I don’t know.
Eric: And maybe Snape was brilliant, but was so withdrawn in Potions that he didn’t stand out to Slughorn. I mean, that’s a… I’d say it’s a world-shattering kind of revelation, Micah, that you just asked, because Snape would clearly have excelled.
Sam: Maybe he was trying to figure stuff… because he did write the Half-Blood Prince book, so he was busy figuring things out and how it actually works, so he wasn’t at the time showing off. Harry got the aftermath of it, the prize of all Snape’s work.
Eric: But Snape wouldn’t have been failing Potions at any point.
Sam: No, no.
Andrew: Haley, who’s listening live, is sounding off. She says, “I wouldn’t consider it cheating; the dishonesty comes in when he’s getting recognition for his skills without saying where his insight is coming from.” That’s a good point.
Eric: That’s fair.
Micah: I agree with that.
Andrew: And then just one other point on this scene: Hermione speculates that the prince could be a girl, and Harry says, “A woman can’t be a prince!” Which I think I actually even mentioned last week or two weeks ago. [laughs] But it is a bit of foreshadowing, since Snape chose this name because Prince is his mother’s last name; that is how the name Half-Blood Prince came to be. So Hermione actually is kind of right.
Micah: Yeah. And before we jump into the memory, I did want to mention Trelawney, because nothing that she says is by coincidence; I think it all has relevance in one way or another. And then Harry runs into her on the way to go see Dumbledore, not directly; he just overhears her, and she has a sequence of things that she says. It’s, “Two of spades: conflict. Seven of spades: an ill omen. Ten of spades: violence.” And then, “Knave of spades: a dark young man, possibly troubled, one who dislikes the questioner. And these apply to all of the different memories that Harry encounters with Dumbledore and sort of the whole background of Voldemort.
Andrew: Yeah. It’s funny because as a first time reader, you’re not really paying attention to any of this stuff, but as you just said, nothing is by mistake in terms of Trelawney.
Micah: Yeah, especially the one we’re about to enter. The conflict is very apparent between Bob Ogden and the Gaunt family.
Andrew: Yeah. So let’s talk about that: This is Harry’s first lesson with Dumbledore, and they step into Bob Ogden’s memory of an encounter with the Gaunts. Bob Ogden was an old Department of Magical Law Enforcement officer. He is visiting the family to issue a summons to Morfin, who used magic on an unarmed Muggle, who we later learned is Tom Riddle, the father of Voldemort, so Tom Riddle, Sr. We also learn that Merope had a… Merope? [pronounces it “Mer-ope”] Or Merope? [pronounces it “Mer-oh-pee”]
Eric: It’s actually Merope [pronounces it “Mer-oh-pee”], but I will never not say Merope. [pronounces it “Mer-ope”] Incorrectly.
Andrew: [laughs] Okay. So Merope… [pronounces it “Mer-oh-pee”] – now I feel weird saying it – had a crush on Tom, and later used a love potion to make him fall in love with her. So we learn a lot of information; this is really a chapter where Harry and Dumbledore are kind of just sitting back and watching, and then they recap everything they learned after back in Dumbledore’s office. But the name origin here of Merope is actually interesting, too, right?
Micah: Yeah, it’s very relevant, something that J.K. Rowling has done a very good job of throughout the course of the Potter series. Merope is one of the seven Pleiades sisters, and these sisters in Greek mythology were chased down by Orion, and their mother actually asked Zeus to turn them into stars, and it’s said that Merope is the faintest of the stars because she was the only one of the sisters to have married a mortal.
Andrew: Hmm.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: That’s crazy. I mean, I guess it’s not crazy, but it’s crazy that she planned it that way.
Micah: Yeah, this is a little bit of a different twist. Merope obviously doesn’t marry a mortal. She kind of hoodwinks one…
Eric and Sam: A Muggle.
Micah: … in a Muggle, yeah.
Eric: But it also could speak to Merope’s presumed magical ability as well. Her father calls her a dirty Squib, and her magic is very, very faint because of the abusive situation that she lives in, day in, day out, at least for the first part, when her brother and father are still living with her. So she also has sort of a faint magical ability; can’t even repair the pot when it shatters, that kind of a thing.
Andrew: Right. And she’s the odd one out. I mean, that’s what I get from this name origin. So we learn that… we’re just learning for the first time Voldemort’s origins here. He was born from a sham romance. Now, I have a big question that is serious. It’s not funny. Was Tom Riddle, Sr. raped?
Eric and Sam: Yes.
Andrew: Okay, I’m glad we’re in agreement about that. It’s not the traditional rape that we would think of, but she did take advantage of him against his will.
Sam: Yeah, he loses his agency, and he would never do that under his free will.
Andrew: Yeah. You know, I never really thought of it this way reading it as a kid; it was just like, “Oh, love potion, haha.” But it’s much more serious.
Eric: Yeah, it is more serious. And it’s so odd but also kind of elegant that it comes from such a sympathetic character.
Sam: Yes.
Eric: You feel bad. You feel bad for Merope when she’s being strangled by her father. Like, “Oh my God, Bob Ogden! Do something, Ogden!” And it shows that everybody’s capable of great crime.
Sam: And you have the victim, who is arrogant, snobby, rude, describes the villagers that way.
Eric: Rich.
Sam: Yeah, it’s not a clear black and white.
Andrew: Yeah. Kind of getting to what you were just saying, Eric: Is Merope’s family lineage partly to blame here? I mean, this is a messed-up family, with inbreeding, just bad parenting, an obsession with the pure-blood line… can we sympathize with Merope a little bit?
Sam: I mean, I feel bad for her, but it doesn’t excuse her actions.
Andrew: Yeah. And then also relevant is Merope is just treated so poorly by Morfin and Marvolo that she’s turned into a Squib. Why do we think that she did this? She clearly had a crush on Tom Riddle, but was she so desperate for some good in her life that she wanted to make somebody love her, to find some sort of happiness? Is that what was…?
Sam: Yeah, she probably had no social skills.
Andrew: Yeah, so she found no other way to do it?
Eric: Yeah. The means available to her were limited, and even thinking about when she’s pregnant and is devastated by the loss of… by Tom leaving her… I mean, I don’t know. The whole thing is a very, very sad story, because the whole reason that her plan fails, or that Tom ever wakes up, is because she stops administering love potion. She deludes herself into believing that it’s real. She’s sort of forgotten the heinous thing that she’s done, and when Tom leaves her, is so devastated that she loses her life, that she doesn’t stay… I mean, I’m remembering the scene in… I thought it was Book 2, but actually it’s later in this book at the orphanage, when the young Tom Riddle, I think, says, “My dad must have been the wizard because my mom couldn’t have been, because she died,” and is equating magical ability to immortality even at a young age. But in reality, we see his mother, who we later found out was the witch, was just weak and died, and it’s because she loved this Muggle.
Micah: And she wasn’t a Squib, at least from what we learn. I think it was just repressed magical ability. She was so fearful of her father, and probably her brother to some extent, that her abilities just were not able to come to full form inside of that house. But if she’s able to create a love potion, if she’s able to keep Tom Riddle under this spell, clearly she is probably a very gifted witch, and her powers didn’t come to be until she was able to finally free herself from that house.
Eric: Right. Also a potential candidate for… I mean, we know she’s not an Obscurial, but there’s something there with repressed magical ability where she could be something like that. Because we know you’re not supposed to deny yourself of your magical identity, but she’s just kind of abused into not using her magic.
Sam: Yeah, I don’t think suppression, or if it’s she just is scared to use it. I don’t think she’s trying to hide it; it’s more of she just can’t.
Eric: That’s fair.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s so… you need confidence in order to perform a lot of different tasks in life, and if the confidence isn’t there, like it wasn’t with her, then you’re not able to do it. So I think that’s something maybe we don’t really ever think about or talk about much. It’s like most wizards and witches, they’re confident in their abilities for the most part, so they are able to pull off the magic. But Neville in his student years is not exactly very talented. He also lacked confidence, so that could have been a part of it. Part of not being successful.
Micah: Right.
Sam: Very true.
Micah: I have a “What if?” question, though: What if Bob Ogden just kind of runs away and doesn’t report what happened to the Ministry and send people? Is Voldemort ever born? Is Bob Ogden directly responsible for the birth of Voldemort?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Sam: Ooh.
Eric: I love that.
Andrew: No, because correct me where I’m wrong here, but I mean, she was still going to use that love potion on him, wasn’t she?
Sam: But wasn’t she only able to brew it after they left?
Andrew: Right.
Sam: So them being there, she’s not able to?
Andrew: Yeah, but if there’s a will, there’s a way.
Sam: That’s true.
Andrew: She must have desired to do it anyway. She could have gone and brewed it somewhere else, maybe. It’s a good question, though.
Sam: Or hired someone.
Eric: Yeah, the timing kind of works out as well that Tom Riddle, Sr. was not yet married. I think he was engaged to Cecilia, but not married yet. I don’t know if Merope ever would have backed off if he had been married at the time or had one or two children. The love potion angle is bad enough, and it is rape, but I wonder if the progression of time… so if Bob Ogden hadn’t come back with the force and arrested Morfin and Marvolo, whether or not she would have been able to use the love potion in time, whether she would have been well enough and whether she would have actually gone for it. I think she finds herself with a lot of time on her hands and still has this affection and decides to use it, decides to improve her living situation.
Andrew: So Sam, I know one thing you wanted to talk about was Tom Senior and Merope. Do we blame Tom for abandoning his son? What are your thoughts on this?
Sam: I don’t one bit. He was raped; that’s the main point I have, and the fact that we don’t know how these love potions work long term. We don’t know if he has memory loss. Did he wake up and there’s some chick standing there saying, “Hey, I’m pregnant”? And I mean, then if we reverse the roles as well, would we blame Merope for not wanting to raise this child that she had through rape?
Andrew: Right. Well, so do you find that a lot of fans blame Tom?
Sam: When I go online, I do see a lot of fans labeling him as the worst dad. “He should have stayed there for Voldemort.” And yeah, according to Rowling, had his mom chose to stay alive, or had Tom Riddle, Sr. stay, Voldemort probably wouldn’t have been Voldemort. But sorry, I don’t blame Tom for skipping out. And then I just think back to the fourth book, where he’s described as rude or worse than his parents, and I just wonder could he possibly be suffering from PTSD? He comes home and it’s been months and Cecilia is probably gone, married off… and just comparing love potion to roofies, you have isolation, paranoia… I mean, how the heck can this guy ever trust reality again?
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: That’s a great point.
Eric: And knowing that he chose not to parent the child right away, I’m not sure he could have found his own kid if he had decided to go looking. I mean, Merope went to just some random orphanage in London. It’s true he has the same name as his kid, but there’s no reason he should know that, the dad. And then you never really know what happens to the kid, until 16 years later he shows up at your door and murders you.
Sam: And I was wondering about that, because when Cedric was killed, I don’t remember the look of horror on his face being described. Do you think when…? Because they describe the Riddles as having a look of horror on their face. Do you think the look of horror was because they were like, “Wait, who the hell is this kid? He looks just like me.” The look of horror in his eyes, like, “Oh my God, I did have a kid.”
Eric: I like to imagine that there’s a pretty furtive conversation that happens between…
Sam: Oh, yeah.
Eric: He would shout at his dad for a little bit, at least, and then when finding out the full extent of “No, your mom legit hoodwinked me, couldn’t bear the shame of it,” and then kind of reacted in a killing. Maybe he killed his dad first, and then killed the grandparents, and the grandparents were horror-stricken because of seeing their son die.
Sam: Because I always thought the horror-stricken was just a result with a Killing Curse, but then rereading, I was like, “No, wait, it’s just those three that had the look of horror.”
Andrew: Sam, do you think Tom was conflicted about abandoning his son, though? Do you think he was…?
Sam: Yeah, I have two thoughts. One is maybe he just didn’t believe Merope, and then he comes home and realizes, “Oh, wait, it wasn’t one night, it was months.” And then he has the thought of, “If I see my kid, I might be reminded of what happened to me, and I might resent my kid. My kid might be better off without me as a father.”
Andrew: That’s sad. Should love potions really be legal at all? Is there anything good that comes from love potions?
Eric: That’s a good question.
Andrew: They don’t seem to serve any helpful purpose.
Sam: Yeah, I’m trying to think of anything, and I can’t.
Andrew: Yeah. All right, well, that answers that question.
[Andrew and Sam laugh]
Micah: Well, it doesn’t mean they’re not going to exist, though. I mean, there’s plenty of potions that probably don’t serve a good purpose; they still are made, and they’re still utilized. Same thing with spells.
Andrew: But as we learn in this chapter, they can be highly dangerous, and Fred and George are just selling them in their shops. They go kind of underground with them, but they’re still selling them.
Sam: And Ron gives it to his nephew in Cursed Child.
Andrew: Oh, right! Yeah.
[Eric laughs]
Sam: It’s so weird.
Andrew: It’s like a joke, isn’t it?
Eric: Oh, gosh. Yeah, just for a little bit of light fun. Light, jaunty fun.
Andrew: Yeah. Do you want to talk about this point that you have here, Sam?
Sam: Oh yeah, it was just… it’s not a clear innocent girl/big, strong man type of situation rape. It is this poor girl who’s being abused by her father, and we want the best for her, and we want her to ride off in the sunset with some guy, and this arrogant, snobbish, rude Tom Riddle who is the victim, and I like how Rowling just doesn’t make it… she makes us sympathize with the perpetrator and dislike the victim, so we had to step it back and go, “Wait a minute. Even though this guy is kind of a jerk, he didn’t deserve what he got. And even though what happened to her was terrible at home, and we want the best for her, what she did was inexcusable.”
Andrew: Yeah, that’s a great point. So yeah, I mean, this is obviously a very dark chapter, and talking about it is interesting because, like I said at the start of this, we’re observing with Harry and Dumbledore, and so once they get out of this scene, they kind of recap everything, and Dumbledore, even going into this chapter, he says, “We’re going to be doing a lot of guessing here.” I don’t know if you guys remember what you were thinking the first time you read this, but are we taking the word of Dumbledore as gospel when he’s making all these guesses here? We never end up really having any reason to doubt what he says. Everything he says in this chapter checks out, right?
Micah and Sam: Yeah.
Micah: I think so.
Sam: I tend to believe Dumbledore.
Eric: And I do, too, but I also think that he knows this for a fact. He’s already found and destroyed a Horcrux over the summer, and so this whole premise of this fake, “Oh, we’re entering the joyous realm of speculation, Harry,” he already knows. He has already pieced together most of this stuff. And in fact, the whole crux of the later story of needing the memory from Slughorn, he already pretty much knows, because Horcruxes are already a banned subject of teaching at Hogwarts, and that’s Dumbledore’s will that that occurs. And so Dumbledore already has a clue; Dumbledore already knows all of these answers, and it’s nice that he’s bringing Harry along for this ride, but these lessons are ultimately just an exhibition of how smart Dumbledore is and how smart he thinks he is.
Andrew: [laughs] He’s just showing off all his research that he’s done.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, that’s bottom line.
Micah: Agreed. It’s a very Dumbledore-ian way to go about the whole thing, because if you really just wanted to know what Slughorn said to Tom Riddle all those years ago, just slip Slughorn a bit of a Veritaserum and put an end to it.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: This is a very long, dramatic way to solve the puzzle, which is just to get the word “Horcrux” out of Slughorn’s mouth. So I just found it… I mean, I enjoy the memories; I enjoy going back and seeing how this all kind of fits together. But Dumbledore does say at the beginning of the chapter that he is certainly capable of making mistakes, and that when he does, they tend to be bigger just because of how smart he is. I’m paraphrasing, of course. But what did you think that was related to? Do you think that was related to how he injured his hand?
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: Well, I think he’s also just talking about how he’s doing some really important work here, so his guesswork is related to very important topics, and he better get it right, otherwise maybe we can’t defeat Voldemort.
Micah: Right. I mean, it’s certainly telling that we see the ring in this flashback and then we know that Dumbledore has destroyed the ring by the end of the chapter, and that it has the Deathly Hallows symbol on it. And just given all of the background information that we’re now aware of, and Dumbledore’s quest for power and Fantastic Beasts and all that, it’s telling that he would want to wear it. I’m wondering what was going through his mind. I don’t know that we ever get that amount of information as to why he put it on, but I think we know enough from just other sources to… he was maybe reliving his good old days with Grindelwald in that moment.
Andrew: Interesting.
Sam: Yeah. Do you guys notice they mentioned the graveyard in the opening of this memory?
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Sam: I thought that was cool.
Eric: Yeah, it’s just a town. We’re approaching this town. Look, there’s a graveyard. Look at that.
Sam: Do you remember it, Harry?
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Yeah, he should have picked it out and been like, “No, no, no. Hell no. Not that place.”
Micah: Talk about post-traumatic stress disorder.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah. It was also interesting to me how family lineage is such a big focus in this chapter with the Gaunts just so proudly wearing their origins on their sleeve, being a direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin. It made me… do you guys hold family lineage as close as these guys do? For me, there’s always a lot of talk about these DNA tests to see your origins and stuff like that. I don’t care. [laughs]
Eric: Did you ever have any family members that were obsessed with family trees and dating back to…?
Andrew: Yeah, my dad and uncle to a certain point. I guess it’s different when you’re related to a very iconic figure in the wizarding world in this context.
[Andrew and Sam laugh]
Andrew: But I don’t know. If an old president was a descendant of me, maybe I would care a little more?
Eric: I think… isn’t everybody, like, 1/60th related to George Washington or something? There’s something like that that’s common, weird genetic knowledge. But for me, the only ancestor I know about was a surveyor for William Penn, the guy who founded Pennsylvania, which is the state I grew up in.
Andrew: That’s cool.
Eric: So that’s cool. But I had an aunt that did the whole thing, lots of research, and it came out that, yeah, Nicolas Scull, I think his name was.
Andrew: I thought you’re going to say Flamel. I was like, “Whoa.”
[Micah and Sam laugh]
Eric: Oh, yeah. Maybe I’m related to Nicolas Flamel, you guys, in which case, Crimes of Grindelwald is going to hold a special, special treat for me.
Andrew: This chapter also was making me think maybe Pottermore should do a test where you could find out your wizarding world lineage. Like, are you a direct descendant of Salazar or Godric or Helga? Wouldn’t that be cool? I don’t know how they would put together a test like that, because it would all be made up, but it would still… because it would have to be like a personality test, sort of like these other Pottermore quizzes, but it’d still be cool to find out your bloodline in the Harry Potter series. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I agree. [laughs]
Sam: I like that.
Andrew: Yeah, we should make that up. I mean, we’re all desperate for another Pottermore quiz, right?
Micah: Why not?
Andrew: We need another question in our fandom ID. “What’s your lineage?” So one other question I had about this chapter – and then we’ll get into Connecting the Threads more and MVP of the Week and all that – but who’s the worst character in this particular story? Is it Merope for forcing Tom to love him and raping him? Is it Marvolo for celebrating his inbred family and for how he treats his children, to the point where he scares the magic out of Merope? Or is it Morfin for attacking Muggles with no remorse? They’ve all done really bad things, but who’s the worst character in this story, all things considered?
Sam: I’d say Marvolo.
Andrew: Really?
Eric and Sam: Yeah.
Andrew: Why?
Sam: Without his abuse, Merope probably wouldn’t have done what she did. And Morfin, too.
Eric: Yeah, a little bit of discipline goes a long way. Morfin has been allowed to run loose. Marvolo has let Morfin loose on the townspeople, the unsuspecting Muggles, because he himself despises Muggles. It’s all about attitude; it’s all about being a parental figure. Marvolo is just very much not that. He’s operating in some sick, backwoods, inbred, power-deficient kind of illusion here, and is not responsibly raising these two wizards.
Andrew: And I thought J.K. Rowling did a great job of encapsulating the chaotic nature of this family in just a single chapter. You really look at this family in only a few pages, and you’re like, “Wow, these people are… effed up.”
Eric: [laughs] Yeah.
Andrew: Almost said that bad word. That’s what this family does to me.
Micah: Fudged up.
Andrew: Fudged up. [laughs] Cornelius Fudged up. So okay, that’s interesting. I actually thought maybe a couple people would have thought Merope was the worst, because in terms of crimes, raping was a crime, but…
Eric: Yeah, no, I think it just speaks to how much sympathy we have for her emotional state, or her mental state, at the time in which she committed that evil crime.
Andrew: Yeah, Merope and Morfin could have been raised better, but they weren’t.
Micah: I know we touched briefly upon the ring, but I think it’s also worthwhile to mention that the locket makes an appearance in this chapter.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: It’s all coming together.
Eric: I read that and I was like, “Oh my God, the locket!” [laughs]
Micah: Yeah, see, this is why I was very disappointed with the decision by David Yates and David Heyman to cut these memories from Half-Blood Prince.
Sam: Oh, I agree so much.
Micah: For the most part. I mean, we got the orphanage flashback and the Slughorn flashback, finally, but this particular one, I thought, was very telling, and it gives you the entire backstory to Voldemort and his existence much, much more so than the orphanage one.
Eric: But domestic abuse is just not palatable to general audiences, Micah. The movie would have been harangued for this awful scene, which doesn’t… I’m sure it was an easy decision for them to make when they’re like, “It doesn’t directly inform the plot or Harry’s story. Anything we need to tell can be conveyed through dialogue.” Whereas I want to see this adapted because of how amazingly the scene plays out… I want Bob Ogden to have his own spinoff movie series. He just seems like a cool dude.
Micah: Well, I mean, it could have replaced the scene where Ron falls under the love potion of Romilda and that whole odd series of events.
Andrew: I think Eric is kind of right, though. They are also trying to make these movies for children, and this would be a very dark scene. I guess they could step around certain elements, but…
Eric: But without the shouting, without the strangling of his daughter by her father… what is this chapter, really, without that?
Micah: No, I mean, there’s ways you could do it. I mean, you’re throwing a 150-year-old man off of a tower at the end of the movie; I’m sure you could find a way to…
Andrew: [laughs] It’s slow-mo. It was very gentle.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: It was a gentle fall.
Eric: Artistically. A gentle pillow.
Andrew: Yeah, did he even die? I mean, when you’re falling that slowly, I think it’s a nice landing.
Sam: Splat.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: A comfortable landing.
Connecting the Threads
Andrew: All right, so connecting a couple threads here. Who wrote these in?
Eric: I did, I did. Yeah, really we’ve talked recently about the connections between Book 6 and Book 2. I found two more. One of them is that Parseltongue makes a huge appearance in this chapter. I love the slow realization, when Dumbledore turns to Harry and is like, “You can understand them, can’t you?” And Harry is like, “Oh! Parseltongue!” Parseltongue, of course, Harry figured out he could speak it in Book 2, and it’s a big deal in Book 2 of everyone thinking that he is the Heir of Slytherin, so the finding out that he is not the last remaining descendant of Salazar Slytherin in Book 2 is coupled with actually meeting the last then-living descendants of Salazar Slytherin in Book 6, so that’s a pretty cool one. This next one might be a little bit of a stretch, but on the shack that the Gaunts live in, there’s a snake nailed to the door, and I just thought that it was funny that they seem to share the same decorating habits of Salazar Slytherin himself, who adorned the Chamber of Secrets with a snake door, particularly if you look at the movie version where the snake is some kind of a locking mechanism. But yeah, we got snakes on doors, just like the Chamber of Secrets.
Andrew: Yeah, well, it just shows how proud he is of his lineage, I think.
Sam: I have one.
Andrew: Go ahead.
Sam: In this chapter we meet Bob Ogden, and then in Chamber of Secrets, a third of the way in is the first time we hear mention of Ogden’s Old Firewhisky.
Andrew: Oh!
Eric: What are the circumstances of that in Book 2? Do you know?
Sam: I don’t remember, but it’s a little…
Andrew: What the hell? That’s so weird.
Eric: Is it like his brother invented the whiskey or something?
Sam: Maybe.
Eric: Because Bob Ogden is Head of Magical Law Enforcement. If his brother had a…
Micah: Maybe he went into the Firewhisky business after this incident.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Sam: “You need a drink, Bob. I’m going to make you some.”
Eric: “I need a drink,” yeah. [laughs]
Andrew: The drink was a favorite of Lockhart, and he told his second year Defense Against the Dark Arts class that he wouldn’t say no to a bottle for his birthday.
Eric: So he’s actually imploring 12-year-olds to buy him alcohol?
[Andrew and Sam laugh]
Sam: I love Lockhart so much.
Eric: [laughs] Everything is wrong about Lockhart.
Andrew: Arthur Weasley also insisted on pouring a bit into a cup of tea made for Molly after the riot at the end of the Quidditch World Cup, but that one was Book 4.
Eric: Yeah, Ogden’s is like Tito’s. It’s just a well-known smooth brand, gives a good result, nice finish. It’s the whiskey of the wizarding world.
Andrew: Well, Ogden decided he needed to make some whiskey to relax people like him who get into terrible situations and need a fine drink at the end of the day.
Eric: Yeah, that’s a good one. That’s a good connection.
Andrew: Yeah. That’s wild to me. That almost seems coincidental, but I don’t know.
MVP of the Week
Andrew: So MVP of the Week. Sam, who is yours?
Sam: I went with Ron for always trying to look at Hermione’s homework.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: That makes him the most valuable person?
Sam: Yep. Consistent.
Eric: Yeah, he’s consistent. He’s true to himself, right? He’s not going to do the hard work. He’s just going to effortlessly try to… yeah.
Andrew: Micah?
Micah: I went with good old Bob Ogden. I mean, I can just go on the Firewhisky alone now, but for the role that he played in this chapter. Without him, who knows what would have happened? Dumbledore would have had quite a hard time figuring out exactly where to get Horcruxes and how Voldemort was conceived initially, so…
Andrew: Yeah, but you were just giving Bob Ogden credit for creating Voldemort, and you’re also calling him the most valuable player, so it’s like you’re glad that Voldemort existed.
Micah: Well, without Voldemort, you don’t have the series, so…
Andrew: I don’t know. That’s still messed up. I’m judging you.
Micah: Yeah, that’s fine.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Also, Bob is very sharp. A lot of the dialogue here, like, “You can hardly complain you don’t get forewarning about visitors if you are getting rid of the owls that are arriving,” stuff like that is real, real smart.
Micah: He’s sharp.
Eric: Bob is probably definitely Ravenclaw.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Micah: He also attacks Marvolo.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: Who’s yours, Eric?
Eric: I gave my MVP to Parseltongue, because not only the big comeback that I mentioned, but a lot of the… it really is a… what’s the word? I’m looking for a replacement to trump card because I don’t want to say that word.
Andrew: [laughs] It’s like the new “Voldemort.”
Eric: It’s a good way of covertly speaking directly under Bob Ogden’s nose. So it works on multiple levels, as a way for Marvolo to communicate with Morfin, and for Morfin and Marvolo to antagonize Merope right in front of this stranger, without that stranger really figuring out what’s going on or being able to know. So I thought it was really well used, and it’s nice to see the resurgence is in such a good chapter like this.
Andrew: Mine is Humphrey Belcher for thinking up the cheese cauldron. I freaking love cheese!
[Eric and Sam laugh]
Andrew: And I just think… I guess Dumbledore was saying that a cheese cauldron isn’t a good idea because it can leak or fall apart, but I would eat that whole cauldron, happily. Give me some white cheddar or some Gouda. Mmm. So thank you, Humphrey, for thinking up such a great idea.
Eric: Thanks, Humphrey.
Andrew: They sell chocolate cauldrons in the Wizarding World parks. Why not a cheese cauldron?
Eric: Oh, that’s true.
Rename the Chapter
Andrew: Rename the Chapter. Sam? And introduce it with “Half-Blood Prince Chapter 10.”
Sam: Half-Blood Prince Chapter 10, “Riddle with Roofies.”
Andrew: Oh, God! [laughs] Kind of dark.
Eric: Straight for the gold!
Micah: Half-Blood Prince Chapter 10, “It’s Morfin Time!”
[Andrew and Sam laugh]
Micah: I feel like we need to play the audio clip here, but…
Andrew: I don’t have it. Sorry.
Eric: For mine, I wrote Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince Chapter 10, “A Cook, the Crook, Her Dad, Her Lover.”
Andrew: [laughs] I was kind of inspired by yours, Micah. Half-Blood Prince Chapter 10, “Mighty Morfin Muggle Rangers.”
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Sam: Nice.
Andrew: Okay, and yeah, so that’s Chapter 10. Half-Blood Prince, “The House of Gaunt.” If you have any feedback about today’s discussion or about our next chapter, feel free to email it in – MuggleCast@gmail.com – or call our voicemail line or use the feedback form on MuggleCast.com.
Quizzitch
Andrew: So to wrap up today’s show, it’s time for Quizzitch. Last week’s question was what is the topic of Hermione’s essay? What was the answer?
Eric: Yeah, the correct answer was the Principles of Rematerialization. It’s the one that Ron is trying to read upside down for insight. [laughs] But the correct answers were guessed by Umar Parvati, Vaping with Dad, Lizzie, Michael, Shawn, Brian, and Andrea. We play this game over on Twitter. You must at-reply us at MuggleCast, and use hashtag Quizzitch to participate in this game. But it’s weekly; you get your name on the show. And next week’s Chapter 11 question is how old is Stan Shunpike?
Andrew: Little concerned by this Vaping with Dad Twitter handle. [laughs]
Eric: I would have preferred that the profile name was different than the handle, but nope, both of them are Vaping with Dad. So I don’t know who that is.
Andrew: I guess that’s cool, to vape with your dad. But I don’t know. Is that something to make your Twitter name? I don’t know. Hey, to each his own. All right, so like Micah mentioned earlier in the show, coming up in bonus MuggleCast today we’re going to be talking a little more about Crimes of Grindelwald. There’s some interesting new information about Yusuf, and there are some new TV trailers to unpack. A couple big, curious scenes. They’re dropping these little tidbits. So that bonus material will be available at Patreon.com/MuggleCast at the same time this show is released. Speaking of the Patreon, we have lots of benefits there, including listening live, including being able to cohost the show like Sam did today. Hope you had a good time, Sam, and thanks again for joining us.
Sam: Oh, I had a great time. Thank you for having me on.
Andrew: Awesome. I didn’t mention this at the top of the show, but I love how you didn’t even mention… or you refused to name one of the Harry Potter movies as your favorite Harry Potter movie.
[Andrew and Sam laugh]
Eric: Yeah, that’s a first. That’s never happened before.
Andrew: What was that movie again that you said?
Sam: Wizard People, Dear Reader. It’s the first movie with a guy talking over it. It’s amazing.
Eric: Oh, yeah. Brad Neely.
Sam: Yes.
Eric: Brad Neely, Wizard People, Dear Reader. It’s awesome.
Sam: Yeah, thank you.
Andrew: This is like a documentary or…?
Eric: No, it’s a commentary track. It’s like a riff track for the first Harry Potter film. Oh, if you haven’t heard it or experienced it, we’re going to get together and I’ll play it for you.
Andrew: Okay. I think it’s ringing a bell now that I’m googling it. But I jump to the idea of a documentary, but okay.
Eric: Oh, no, it’s basically like… if you’ve ever heard “Hägar the Horrible!” It’s kind of like…
Andrew: Yes.
Sam: “The Near-Dead Dumbledore.”
Eric: “The Near-Dead Dumbledore” and “Catface Meowmers,” and he renames all the major characters of… it’s amazing. [laughs]
Andrew: Plug the voicemail line one more time. 1-920-3-MUGGLE; that’s 1-920-368-4453. We’re trying to play more voicemails, so feel free to call in with any questions or feedback. Just remember to keep your message around a minute long and make sure we can hear you clearly. Call us from a quiet space. All right, thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Sam: And I’m Sam.
Andrew: Bye, everybody!
Micah and Sam: Bye.