Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #402, Snogging (HBP Chapter 14, Felix Felicis)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Hi, welcome to MuggleCast Episode 402. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: Laura, you okay? You sound a little off.
Laura: [laughs] I had a really good time last night.
Andrew: Oh, good.
Laura: And I warned you guys preemptively when we scheduled this that I was probably going to be very hungover during the recording, and would you look at that? I am.
Andrew: Were you singing?
Laura: What?
Andrew: Were you singing or talking loud?
Laura: Yeah, there was a lot of loud talking happening because it was… the music and the venue was really loud.
Andrew: Yeah. And you’ve got to say a lot to explain to people how you’re a Harry Potter podcaster.
Laura: Yes, that definitely takes some explanation. But it’s always a fun explanation, if that helps.
Andrew: It is.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: I had this experience few days ago, meeting somebody for the first time. And he’s a huge Harry Potter fan, and even he asked me, “How do you guys still have stuff to talk about?” I’m like, “Dude, come on. You’ve read the books. You know.”
Micah: Yeah, and movies are getting production dates pushed back. We got a lot to talk about.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: That could take up a whole episode of analysis!
Micah: Yeah, it really could.
Interview with Anna
Andrew: And videos are going viral. Speaking of that, I wanted to start the show today… I wanted to call somebody who actually listens to our show. You may know her; she’s been in the headlines this week. Her dog went viral because she has taught her dog, Remus, an adorable doxie, how to obey Harry Potter spells. I saw BuzzFeed tweet this video at least ten times, so it must be doing very well for them.
Micah: Well, hold on, Andrew. Hold on. BuzzFeed?
Andrew: Yeah, BuzzFeed. Have you heard of them?
Micah: No, I have; I’m just saying, given recent news, do we know that this is actually legitimate?
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Can it be trusted? I don’t…
Micah: Is the dog real?
Andrew: We’ll call Anna and confirm the authenticity.
Micah: I want the dog on the show.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Hi, Anna.
Anna: Hello!
Andrew: Good morning. How are you?
Anna: Good morning.
Andrew: You posted this video of Remus on your YouTube channel?
Anna: Yeah, first it was on my YouTube channel.
Andrew: And it evidently went viral very quickly. What was that like? Does BuzzFeed ask you for permission when they take your video and tweet it 3,000 times?
Anna: [laughs] I can’t actually remember if BuzzFeed was one of the ones that emailed for permission. I don’t think they were, but maybe. So I put it up on YouTube first on Saturday, and then I think I tweeted it maybe the next day as an embedded video on Twitter, and that’s where it took off very quickly.
Andrew: So how did you decide to train Remus to do these spells? And how do you train your puppy to obey? And I mean, even at the most basic level, I’ve yet to teach my dog how to do any trick whatsoever.
[Andrew and Anna laugh]
Anna: I mean, it was kind of the obvious option, right? Especially when he’s Remus and Harry Potter is my everything.
[Eric laughs]
Anna: I think there’s just so many spells that are so obvious, like playing dead and stay, stuff like that, that there are spells that just literally mean that, that you don’t even have to stretch for. So I don’t know, it just kind of felt like the obvious. But it’s pretty simple, as long as you can teach them to do the normal command; you just pick a different word when you’re teaching them. So I just end up googling a lot of like, “How to teach your dog to do this,” and then I just use a different word.
Andrew: Ah, okay. Smart. So how long did it take you to teach Remus all of these spells?
Anna: Let’s see. It’s January now, and I got him in May when he was two months old. I started teaching him not long after that; he might have been three months old. He learned Stupefy and Wingardium Leviosa pretty early on.
[Andrew laughs]
Anna: He’s got those down pat; Stupefy is his favorite.
[Eric laughs]
Anna: And then I just kind of added a couple along the way in the months after that. And then a bunch of them were just really in the past week before the video went up, that I just made up for the video. He doesn’t really eat when I say Engorgio; it’s just a good joke.
[Everyone laughs]
Anna: And then Lumos and Nox were also the day before. Because he was used to pushing a button for Alohomora, so it was pretty easy to teach him to push a button for Lumos.
Andrew: [laughs] He knows how to push buttons?
Anna: Yeah, you just put a little treat next to this button on the ground and he’ll be trying to get at the treat, and eventually he pushes the button, and you give him the treat and reward him. And eventually he learns “Push the button, get treat,” and then you add the word to it, and he learns “Hear the word, push the button, and get the treat.”
Andrew: This is a talented dog. Wow.
[Anna laughs]
Andrew: I feel like, Anna, you have a big business opportunity here. You could tour the country teaching dogs Harry Potter spells. People would shell out money for this!
Anna: Oh my God, that’d be amazing.
Andrew: Right?
Anna: All the puppies.
Andrew: Oh, you know everybody wants to do this and then film it for Instagram and post it. Everybody would be so jealous.
Laura: Yeah, this is like the ultimate side hustle you’ve got going on here.
[Anna laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Anna: One of my favorite responses has been someone sent me a video of their dog and said, “You inspired me and I taught my dog Harry Potter spells,” and it’s just them pointing at their dog and being like, “Stupefy!” And the dog just sits there, and they’re like, “Good girl!”
[Everyone laughs]
Anna: And they pet her. They’re like, “Immobulus!” or whatever. “Wingardium Leviosa!” Nothing happens, and they’re like, “Good girl!”
Andrew: That’s amazing. [laughs] Well, that’s great. Thank you so much. We just wanted to check in with you quick, because you and I were Twitter friends, and it took me a while to realize that it was you behind the video. I was like, “Oh my God! Wow, that’s crazy.”
Anna: Yeah, a lot of people who don’t know that I have that dog also did not realize.
Andrew: Yeah. To be clear, he is named after the Harry Potter character, Remus.
Anna: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: So Remus is your favorite character?
Anna: He’s, I think, definitely my favorite professor, and I think one of the most underrated characters, and werewolf. So that’s why I went with him.
Andrew: Cool. Well, MuggleCast is putting some treats for Remus into the mail in thanks for your time, and thank you for getting up early to speak with us.
Anna: Oh, my pleasure. This has been a dream for over ten years.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: You have been listening for a while, haven’t you?
Anna: Yes.
Andrew: Fantastic. All right, thank you, and have a good Sunday.
Anna: Thank you guys.
Laura and Micah: Bye.
Eric: Love to Remus, bye.
Andrew: [laughs] She’s sweet.
Laura: That’s so cute.
Eric: What a feel good thing for her to do.
Laura: I know.
News
Andrew: All right, so on to some news now. So we have two Fantastic Beasts stories to talk about. One is about the movie that came out last November; we now know when the movie is going to be released to watch in the comfort of our own home. It’ll be released digitally on February 15, and then on March 12, it will be released on DVD/Blu-ray. The DVD/Blu-ray will include deleted scenes and it will include an extended cut, but weirdly, the extended cut won’t be on the disc? You will receive a digital code to watch the extended cut digitally. [laughs] So we’re only a month away from being able to see the film again, which is good, because I think we all need to see it again.
Laura: Yeah, I agree. I’m particularly interested to see all of the scenes that hit the cutting room floor.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Laura: To see if those give us some answers. [laughs]
Andrew: And they will be particularly interesting because presumably J.K. Rowling wrote them, so they are arguably canon [laughs] if anything interesting happens in them.
Eric: Well, are they canon if they didn’t make the final film? That’s the big question. If we get any answers from these extra scenes – which I assume we will, because how could you not – should we take those as canon?
Andrew: I think we need to tweet J.K. Rowling and get an official response.
Laura: I know. She’s really kind of raising a lot of questions about what it’s like to grow a world with different kinds of media. I feel like we could have an entire episode dedicated to the nuances of this.
Andrew: Because ultimately, there’s nobody else we can really ask. I think if J.K. Rowling says it’s canon, then it’s canon, but if anyone else says it – like, let’s say, producer David Heyman or director David Yates – eh, doesn’t really have as much weight behind it.
Eric: Right.
Micah: And I think going back to the trailers that we saw for Crimes of Grindelwald, there were scenes that were in those trailers that did not make the actual film. I remember one specifically was Credence and Nagini on the rooftop, and he’s channeling his Obscurus.
Andrew: Right.
Micah: So I wonder how many we can go back and actually find that were in trailers that didn’t end up making the final cut.
Eric: Yeah. There’s a whole list on the Hogwarts Professor website of deleted scenes analyzing some of those trailer moments, and there’s also that ball that Leta was a part of. She’s in a fancy dress.
Micah: Oh, yeah.
Eric: And it’s, yeah, at the Ministry or something. No idea where that… I know we questioned previously on the show where something like that would have fit into the movie. Maybe with the extended edition that’s coming out, maybe we’ll see. Maybe it really is just a quick shoe-in, doesn’t take much time to set up that there’s a ball. But I’m just so surprised that they’re doing an extended version, because that means for some reason they’re putting stuff back into the film that was cut. Is that an admission of some sort of, I don’t know, impropriety? Or like, “Hey, these belong in there”?
Andrew: Eh, I think it’s just a special feature. They always do this. A lot of DVD/Blu-rays do this. I actually will argue now that these are canon, because if J.K. Rowling wrote them, she intended for them to be in the movie, and then the filmmakers cut out these scenes for time, for pacing. So canon, I say.
Eric: Huh. Yeah. It’s just going to be so difficult, if the extended edition is only available digitally, to get other people to see these additional scenes. I don’t know. The people with…
Andrew: Well, they don’t matter that much. They’re probably all going to suck. [laughs]
Eric: I’m expecting bombshells. I’m really expecting…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: There were so many questions raised by this movie that you feel like if you had even 60 seconds more screen time, surely one of those questions will be answered. Surely these extended scenes are not just going to raise more questions.
Andrew: We’ll see. Well, we have two months of waiting for that extended edition.
[Eric sighs]
Andrew: We’re one month away from just watching the main film. So the bigger news – and this broke on Friday night – Fantastic Beasts 3 has delayed production. They were supposed to start sometime in the summer; they have now moved to late autumn, according to Deadline. Deadline also says it just boils down to more prep time for part three, and that “Warner Bros. executives now have a new approach of allowing big productions to brew as needed.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: And as I pointed out in my Hypable article, this follows years of bad reviews for DC films, and then most recently, of course, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. I mean, right now the film – just to remind everybody – it has a Rotten Tomatoes score of a 38%. It did get panned critically. It was very busy. There was a lot to like in it, I thought, and I enjoyed it more the second time, but it is a very busy film. So I guess we can’t say we’re surprised.
Laura: No. [laughs]
Andrew: Is this an admission that they at least kind of screwed up on Fantastic Beasts 2?
Laura: I think it’s a not-admission. I don’t think you’re ever going to get the studio or J.K. Rowling coming out and admitting, “Hey, that movie didn’t come out quite the way we wanted it. We’re sorry. We want to make sure that we do a better job on the next one.” So I think the excuse that we got about needing more time for pre-production and to let the idea sort of brew, that’s the closest we’re going to get to acknowledgement. But I think that’s definitely why.
Micah: I agree with Laura. I think that it’s about maybe even hearing some of the feedback from Crimes of Grindelwald, and taking a look at the script for Fantastic Beasts 3 and saying, “Hold on, there are some things that maybe we tried to get across in the last film that we didn’t,” or “There are things that we left out that we shouldn’t have, and now we need to go through this with a fine-toothed comb and make sure that Fantastic Beasts 3 answers the questions that maybe a lot of people had coming out of the last film.”
Andrew: I don’t even think it’s really about answering the questions; I think it’s more about making sure that they have a coherent story that will be well received, because the sanctity of the franchise is on the line, truly. They can’t keep releasing bad movies. This doesn’t just affect Fantastic Beasts; this affects Harry Potter, too, because casual moviegoers might be going into Fantastic Beasts before ever seeing or reading Harry Potter, and if they’re seeing a product, in Fantastic Beasts, that is bad, they’re not going to bother going over to Harry Potter. And this also affects the theme parks, and Pottermore’s business, and the book sales, all the merchandise out there… there’s a lot on the line. That’s why there’s a lot of pressure around Star Wars as well right now, because people are afraid that they might be screwing up Star Wars. Actually, this kind of happened with Star Wars; the Han Solo movie came out and it got so-so reviews, and then they hit pause on more solo movies. Solo character movies, not Han Solo.
Eric: That’s actually a really good comparison. Yeah, and that came after all of that Last Jedi backlash from a pretty large, regrettably, subset of Star Wars fans who didn’t think that movie was hot sauce. So yeah, it’s kind of weird to see these two major franchises almost in the same sort of territory.
Andrew: Laura had brought up a point – the four of us were texting about this on Friday night, as you do – and Laura, you had mentioned that they were banking on automatic praise, just because it’s the Wizarding World.
Laura: Yeah, absolutely. I think they are so used to Potter fans being hungry for more story that we’ll sort of take what we’re given, and I think that’s true to an extent, but unfortunately, when we’re given something that feels sort of half-baked, the literary sleuths among us are not going to accept that. We’re going to have a lot of questions.
Andrew: Yes!
Laura: And I think that’s a testament to sort of the generation of people that J.K. Rowling inspired. She kind of bred that in us, so now we’re kind of pushing back and being like, “Hey, this maybe wasn’t the best.”
Andrew: They also had it kind of easy with the Harry Potter movies, because they were basing them off of these books that were incredibly well-received. This time, they’re kind of in the dark. And getting back to our text convo, I had added that I think they trusted J.K. Rowling to know what the fans were going to like, so Warner Bros. may have looked at that Crimes of Grindelwald script and said, “You know, we’re a little nervous about this. We have some problems. Hollywood-wise, this doesn’t really check out. But we trust J.K. Rowling; she knows what she’s doing. She’s essentially doing this film series for us; she doesn’t really have anything to gain from us. Let’s let her… let’s shoot this script as she wrote it.”
Micah: Let it ride.
Andrew: And now they’re realizing they can’t trust her to know what the fans want. [laughs]
Micah: Well, I wouldn’t put everything solely on J.K. Rowling. I think that you need to remember that David Heyman is still there. He’s been there throughout all of the Potter films. David Yates directed, what, four of the Potter films? Five of the Potter films? So there are people there who know what works and what doesn’t work, and have spent a lot of time in this world, and I’m sure there are others that I’m leaving out, but those two jump to the top of mind for me, and I think that they would be willing to push back if needed.
Eric: Yeah, they wouldn’t produce something that was overtly confusing, but… or at least I didn’t think so, because I think on the first Fantastic Beasts special features, they talk about the process, and they talk about how J.K. Rowling delivers pages of script, and then she and Heyman and Yates all go through it point by point by point to really break the story of the film. And that’s before production happens, that’s before sets are built, that’s before… so the idea that a movie as befuddling as Crimes of Grindelwald can make it to the screen, the version that we saw, seems to indicate that at least Heyman and Yates understand what was going on in that movie. So the question then becomes have they lost their ability to translate it for not just general audiences, but even the hardcore fans, I think, wanted more.
Micah: Going back to the book point, though, one of the things I think we were okay with… and I know we weren’t always okay, but things being cut, we have no context for what has been left out because we don’t know the story ahead of time like we did with Potter.
Laura: Exactly.
Micah: So I think that’s also another major hurdle that they have to try and overcome. And Rowling had Steve Kloves for pretty much all the films, I think, except for one, right? Where there was another screenwriter. She’s essentially the screenwriter now, so she doesn’t have somebody that she can go to with the story and say, “Okay, here, tell me what we can do, what we can’t do,” and have that kind of dialogue and that kind of conversation. I would almost wonder if she consults with somebody like Steve Kloves while she’s writing, so that she makes sure that everything that needs to be in the film is in the film, and there’s not all these plot holes. I felt like there was just too much happening in Crimes of Grindelwald. I think that’s the biggest piece of feedback that we got from most fans and listeners that went to go see it, is just too much is happening, too many characters and not enough substance and plot.
Andrew: One of the big questions is what will this do to the release date, if anything? Warner Bros. hasn’t really officially announced it, but it’s been presumed that they would release it November 2020, because the first two films came out in November. We had been talking about a summer release. This isn’t going to push it earlier, so it could come out in…
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: I don’t know, Andrew, maybe you’ll get your summer release blockbuster Harry Potter film.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Maybe.
Micah: Right, but in 2021 instead of 2020.
Andrew: Right. I mean, God, that’s so far away. Am I going to be alive by then? Are any of us going to be alive by then? Who knows?
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: It’s a long time.
Micah: Not if somebody gets reelected.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Micah, you beat me to the punch on that. [laughs]
Eric: Man.
Andrew: But yeah, I mean, we still don’t know… because one of the big issues is that there are a lot of special effects involved in these movies, and those take a lot of time, especially if they need to look phenomenal, and they do need to look phenomenal. This is a A-level product. This is a… [laughs] I don’t know what I’m trying to say.
Micah: And I’m guessing they’re going to be spending some time down in Rio.
Andrew: Maybe, if that’s to be believed.
Eric: “Filmed on location.”
Andrew: What if Warner Bros. is like, “J.K. Rowling, no, we can’t go to another city for this franchise. We’ve got to keep it in one place, otherwise you’ve got to rebuild the world, and it just gets confusing again.” [laughs]
Eric: I mean, I’m sure a large portion of it was recorded on studios at Leavesden, but I’d like for them to do some location film work. But it’s just that maybe no place on Earth looks like it did in the 1930s today. You know what I’m saying?
Micah: That’s fair.
Eric: So there is some leeway.
Andrew: I’m just saying story-wise that they kind of have to reset the scene every time they move to a new city. You’ve got to introduce new characters, new locations… that just takes up time.
Eric: Yeah, but James Bond has done 25 films like that. So it does work, or it is possible. There’s a formula for it.
Andrew: True. So I mean, we really haven’t gotten… I was hoping that one of these trade sites, like The Hollywood Reporter or Variety, would offer some more information on why there’s been a delay, but none of them say exactly why. So who knows? Maybe we’ll find out as time goes on. Another potential issue is that pushing production might mean some actors are less available.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: So we’ll see if that causes any issues. None of these reports noted that an actor would run into an issue, so I guess everything’s good for now? I feel like Johnny Depp is a busy guy, and Eddie Redmayne is sort of busy. Jude Law, he’s busy! He can’t wait around!
Eric: Yeah, he’s going to be in Captain Marvel.
Andrew: Yeah. That’s already shot, though. Maybe a sequel.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. But I mean, we’re going to see a lot of him in the next couple months, I think.
Andrew: Is Kevin Guthrie coming back to play Abernathy?
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: Is Wolf Roth coming back to play Spielman? Are they available?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: I sure hope so. These films need more Spielman.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Derek Riddell… I’m just going through the IMDb.
Eric: Oh, God.
Andrew: I’m going to reach out to all these actors’ publicists. “Excuse me, are they going to be able to make it?”
Eric: Might get an answer that way.
Andrew: “Yeah, Kevin Guthrie has absolutely nothing going on, sir?” All right…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: Worst publicist ever.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: How about the McGonagall actress? Is she free for this production to play? Jessica Williams?
Micah: You have the inside track there, Andrew, so you need to send an email and find out.
Andrew: Yeah, I’ll get lookin’. I have an IMDb Pro account. I can call all these publicists. Just kidding, I’m an introvert. I’m not going to do that.
[Eric laughs]
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Andrew: All right, so it’s time now for Chapter by Chapter. We’re discussing Half-Blood Prince Chapter 14, “Felix Felicis,” this week. We are going to start off, as always, with our Seven-Word Summary.
Micah: All right, guess I’m up first. I’m going to go with Ron…
Laura: … hates…
Andrew: … being…
Eric: … left…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: We’re not going to have enough room.
Micah: … out…
Laura: … of…
Andrew: … snogging!
Eric: Hey!
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: Teamwork makes the dream work, guys. Look at this.
Micah: Nice.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Andrew: So Micah, do you want to take the lead on this?
Micah: Sure. So one of the things that I wanted to note at the top of this chapter for “Felix Felicis” is that it is one of the chapter titles that J.K. Rowling revealed on her website all the way back in 2004.
Eric: Wow.
Micah: So 15 years ago, when we were all… well, some of us. I wasn’t at MuggleNet yet. But I remember all the hype around J.K. Rowling opening up that locked door on her website, and she revealed three chapter titles. The first one was “Spinner’d End,” which we’ve done. “Draco’s Detour”; did we do that one yet?
Eric: Yeah, that was, I think, 3? Chapter 3, maybe?
Andrew: Chapter 6.
Eric: 6, ooh. Wow.
Micah: Got it. And “Felix Felicis,” so all three chapter titles now we’ve gone through.
Andrew: And Felix Felicis, we didn’t know what it was prior to this book, right? I don’t think it was introduced.
Micah: A lot of people thought it was a person.
Andrew: Ahh.
Eric: Yeah, I remember having those conversations. Of course, this didn’t happen on MuggleCast, because MuggleCast was not a thing until after Book 6 was released…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: … but if it had been a thing, we all would have been like, “Who’s Felix? Who’s Felix? Have we met Felix before?”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: “Where is he from? What’s his deal? What kind of accent does he have? Who’s Felix?” I just remember having those types of conversations, and I don’t know that anyone in particular that I spoke to was like, “Oh, it’s going to be a potion.” That’s really, really cool.
Micah: Not only that, they tied it to the description that was revealed on her site that was for Rufus Scrimgeour, so people were saying that those two were connected.
Eric: That Felix was the lion-maned, grizzled folk?
Micah: Right.
Andrew: This chapter – and we’ll get to this at the end – but this chapter needs to be renamed, because he doesn’t even actually use Felix Felicis.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: That’s a great point.
Laura: Yeah, but as long as you believe in luck, luck is inside of you all along.
[Andrew sighs wistfully]
Eric: Laura, by the end of the book, when spells are actively not hitting them because they took some Felix, I think I’d argue that that’s not true.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: There’s just a whole lot of teenage angst going on in this chapter. That’s the best way that I could really describe it.
Laura: Yep. I have to say – and this is just sort of a blanket statement in rereading this chapter – I gained a whole new appreciation for J.K. Rowling’s understanding of teenage angst. She really got it. I was reading it, and I was having all of these memories of my own angst from those years of my life.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: And I was like, “Damn, she really gets kids. She really does.” I mean, it shouldn’t be a surprise, because she used to teach and all of these things. But it was just really cool to have that sort of moment where, in retrospect, you’re like, “I recognize on the surface this whole situation is totally ridiculous, but it didn’t feel ridiculous at the time.” At the time when you’re 15/16 years old, that’s everything. So I really appreciated how she captured that.
Andrew: Yeah, I totally agree. There’s a quote that I’ll cite in a little bit, but she really knows how people can be feeling. And I think I said this on a recent episode; she is really good at capturing the human experience, what it feels like to go through certain things, and I’m more appreciative of it now than when I was a kid and having less life experience under my belt.
Laura: Yeah. Or at least, when you’re younger and you’re having all of these really confusing feelings, but you’re too embarrassed and shy and awkward to be upfront about feeling that way. I remember when I was reading this, I was like, “Man, I had so many dramatic situations like this when I was a teenager, but I was too embarrassed to admit they were happening, so I tried to play it cool.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: But now I’m 30, so now I’m like, “Oh, yeah. That happened.”
Andrew: That was kid Laura.
Laura: Yeah, it was me. [laughs]
Andrew: That’s so kid Laura. Young Laura. So one of the biggest aspects of teenage angst happening in this chapter is Harry, for the first time, acknowledging the potential for a Ron and Hermione relationship, which is significant because, of course, they end up. And Harry tries to draw out two scenarios early on in the chapter. He wonders, first, what would happen if they broke up? Could their friendship survive it? And the other scenario he thinks is what if they became like Bill and Fleur and it became excruciatingly embarrassing to be in their presence, so that he was shut out for good?
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: We used to play a segment here on the show called “What if?”, and I thought we could kind of do it for both of these now. So could their friendship, Ron and Hermione’s and Harry’s friendship, survive a breakup between Ron and Hermione? Probably not, right?
Laura: No. [laughs] Those two… I mean, don’t get me wrong; I’ve always shipped Ron and Hermione, but they’re a little bit unstable, especially in the books. And then apparently, later on, Time-Turners come into it and really screw everything up. They can both be pretty immature with each other.
Andrew: They can, they can. And that’s a big reason why they wouldn’t have been able to survive as friends after a breakup. I mean, even in this chapter, you see how at odds they are with one another. Could you even imagine what would happen if they were at odds with one another after a breakup?
Eric: I think the timing is important. Harry relies on both of them pretty heavily, and they, for their part, also rely on Harry. And so I think that had their relationship really taken off, say, year four, year five, or even in year six, and ended unexpectedly within the next year, they still would have, I think, all banded together to help Harry defeat Voldemort and things. So I think they would have still been friends, maybe through some level of circumstance, and then gone their separate ways. I tend to think that Harry… these three characters, their personalities are such that they really bring each other together. So I mean, that’s probably why Harry feels so awkward about all of it.
Micah: One thing, though, that you made me think about is… does Harry, Ron, Hermione have friends outside of each other that they would turn to if something like this did happen?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Well, Hermione is close to Ginny, we hear, but that’s never really shown too much. Harry will go down to breakfast and Hermione will be sitting next to Ginny, but I don’t know that we know much about their friendship.
Andrew: Harry and Luna? They could… they’re a little close.
Micah: That’s true. Neville. So there’s others that… that’s a fair point.
Andrew: But you’re right. I mean, this is what happens in relationships. You get in a relationship with somebody, and then you stop spending time with other people, and then – God forbid, but it does happen – you break up, and then you’re like, “Oh, shit. Who do I hang out with now? I wasn’t hanging out with anybody but that person for the past two years!” [laughs] So a life lesson to everybody: Maintain friendships while in relationships.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Advice from Andrew.
Eric: It’s good advice.
Andrew: Something I need to keep in mind, personally.
Laura: Andrew, you should start a segment called “Andrew’s Advice Corner.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Inspired by what we’re discussing in the Harry Potter books. [laughs] Don’t be like me, kids.
Micah: What’s interesting about the “What if?” scenario here, though, is that in this chapter, it is almost like Harry is dealing with the ramifications of a breakup, but the two of them haven’t even gotten together yet.
Eric: Yeah, you’re right.
Laura: It is interesting kind of how, especially when you’re young and a little less mature, how the beginning and the end of a relationship really can serve as bookends that sort of mirror each other, in that you see a lot of the same tension and bickering happening early on before they get together, and then later at the end, if they end up splitting up, you see sort of the same habits reflected. And that’s not just about Ron and Hermione; that’s just about any teenage pairing.
Andrew: Yeah. I feel like if they had… let’s say they got together in Book 6, they broke up, they were broken up through the summer going into Book 7. I feel like once they defeated Voldemort, they would have gotten back together. They would have watched him disintegrate into a million pieces, and then they would have run towards where Voldemort just stood and start making out.
Laura: [laughs] Andrew.
Andrew: But the other scenario… what?
Laura: I don’t know if that’s something you would do, but I don’t think that’s something most people would do.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Especially not in the books, because he doesn’t disintegrate in the books. He’s a corpse, so they’d just be kissing over…
Laura: Right.
Andrew: I know. [laughs] I’m kidding about that part. I know that’s a movie-ism.
Eric: Oh my God.
Laura: A really bad one, too.
Andrew: Well, fine. Fine, they start making out over Voldemort’s dead body. Happy?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Yeah, there you go.
Andrew: No, but I really do think that at the end of Book 7, they would have gotten back together if they had gotten together in Book 6 and they broke up.
Eric: I don’t know. It just… Ron’s character – and we’ll get into this when we get into the chapter, but almost as a bookend here – he just decides when he’s unhappy to make everyone else as miserable as possible. He goes around shouting at young kids who are in his way or whatever. He’s just decidedly a miserable person when he’s not… and he’s the cause of his own unhappiness. And so I don’t know if their friendship could survive a breakup, Ron and Hermione’s, because he is just committed to being an ass about this. Even when they’re not together, he’s thoroughly miserable. And it’s actually… this chapter lays bare Ron as a character, his flaws, his biggest flaws.
Andrew: Yeah. Just briefly, the other “What if?” situation that Harry wonders, like I said, what if they become like Bill and Fleur? The Cursed Child actually offers glimpses of Ron and Hermione’s relationship. I don’t think it’s Bill/Fleur level bad, but they do have some lovey-dovey moments. There’s that one quote: “The truth is – I love you, Hermione Granger, and whatever time says – I’d like the opportunity to say so in front of lots of other people. Again. Sober.” We found out in the Cursed Child that Ron was drunk the first time he married Hermione. So they have some lovey-dovey moments, but nothing as extreme as Bill and Fleur, so Harry doesn’t have to worry about that.
Eric: Yeah, Hermione has too much sense.
Laura: Yeah. I do find it interesting – and I think this is definitely typical of any 16-year-old – but Harry’s mind, the worst case scenarios that he jumps to are the ones that would also have an impact on him. So it does somewhat show a degree of selfishness about “How is this relationship going to impact me?”
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: It’s a valid question, though. I can’t fault him for that, because these are his two best friends, and he could potentially lose them as he knows them.
Micah: Very good point. And we see it when Ron and Hermione are fighting over McLaggen and Slughorn’s Christmas party, and I think two things here: Ron is clearly jealous of McLaggen, but I think he’s also really feeling left out when Harry and Hermione are getting the opportunity to go off and be a part of the Slug Club, even though Harry is trying to duck every opportunity to participate. Ron is by himself, and I think he feels like he’s been a part of this team for so long; what is it about him that makes him not fit in to be a part of the Slug Club?
Eric: Right.
Laura: Yeah, and he gets that so much in this chapter. He’s not in the Slug Club, he’s screwing up at Quidditch practice, he’s never made out with anyone, and his little sister calls him out on it. That sucks.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, the most embarrassing thing of all.
Micah: It’s true.
Andrew: And I mean, this just goes to what Ron has always dealt with, is being left out. The Weasleys are kind of this other family. They don’t have much money; their home is a mess, even though we Muggles think it’s cool. And once again, he’s just gotten the short stick, and he’s just feeling left out once again. Being different.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, this is prototypical of one of the younger children in a large family. They’re put in a position where, in order to be seen and be heard, they have to be louder and they have to kind of draw attention to themselves, and it seems like this is Ron’s method of doing that.
Eric: Yeah, he’s what, the sixth son. It’s just crazy. Or as the Horcrux puts it, “The least loved of a mother who wanted a daughter”?
Laura: Yeah. Oof.
Eric: It’s crazy rough.
Andrew: Ouch.
Eric: He does have it a bit rough.
Andrew: Yeah, and I mean, I was planning on bringing this up later, but I also just mention now: shame on Slughorn for creating this exclusive club. This is just not a good thing to have in a school where you’re trying to teach children good lessons. This isn’t a good lesson.
Laura: No, I mean, he’s a horrible educator. He’s really bad.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: And then we get into some of Harry’s own personal situations that he’s trying to work through, because he ends up choosing Dean to join the Quidditch team with them over Seamus, which causes its own problems between Harry and Seamus. It seems like Seamus is very upset with him, and now another potential friend is pissed off. But then there’s the whole Dean and Ginny dynamic, and he’s just given the opportunity to join the Quidditch team to somebody who is dating the girl that, he doesn’t really know yet, but he really likes deep down inside.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: I don’t know what to make of all this.
Andrew: Yeah, I mean, it’s just a mess right now. And as we were talking about, when you’re young… it seems like everything’s coming to a head at once. The timing of it is interesting. There’s just all these annoying things that are going on right now.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, I have to give Harry some credit here, though, because he’s having all of these really confusing, very intense feelings, especially when he sees Dean with Ginny in the corridor, but he keeps that to himself, right? It’s okay to have a visceral reaction to something that comes across unpleasant to you, as long as you don’t start taking it out on the other person.
Andrew and Eric: Right.
Laura: And he’s still being kind to her, whereas Ron is just all over her, saying some really horrible things to his sister.
Eric: Yeah, that’s a really good point about Harry keeping it to himself. It’s a very, very good point, especially in those moments where the monster inside him agrees with what Ron is saying in the moment. Ron is making these ridiculous things, and Harry’s inner self is nodding approval; he keeps silent, so that’s great. But also Ginny, in this scene where she is caught and reacted, I just have to give her mad props, because she is standing up for herself. She does not need any assistance on this front.
Laura: Yep. I love it.
Eric: She just lays it on the line. “It is none of your business who I snog, how many people I see…” She just really hands it to Ron, and she’s exactly right.
Andrew: So this is the moment I was referring to earlier when I said J.K. Rowling can capture how humans feel. So Harry walks into this situation; Dean and Ginny are snogging, and he experiences the feeling of being cheated on. He says – J.K. Rowling says – “It was as though something large and scaly erupted into life in Harry’s stomach, clawing at his insides: Hot blood seemed to flood his brain, so that all thought was extinguished.” He feels like he’s being cheated on! And I think we’ve all experienced this feeling at some point in our lives, seeing something romantically occur that you wish you didn’t see happen, and that you wish was a different way. [laughs] Maybe you kissing that person.
Laura: Oh, yeah, totally. And it’s so interesting that you bring up the idea that Harry is experiencing the feeling of being cheated on here, even though he’s not being cheated on at all.
Andrew: Right.
Laura: Because it is truly a thing you can experience. I, when I was younger, had a situation where I was really into somebody that I was super close with, and we ended up having a falling out. And I went to therapy about it, and I was like, “I don’t know why I’m feeling this way; we weren’t actually together. I have no right to feel this way.” And my therapist pointed out; she was like, “Well, just because you weren’t officially together doesn’t mean that this can’t feel like a breakup.”
Andrew: Right.
Laura: It still can, absolutely.
Andrew: Yeah. Harry feels like he’s been cheated on because he already has feelings for Ginny, and he wants to be with Ginny. Ginny should be with nobody else, in his mind.
Eric: Right. But he hasn’t done the work of obtaining consent and actually getting Ginny to be his. He just assumed, or his heart assumed.
Andrew: Right, but he has feelings for her still. But I mean, you could still be in this situation, because let’s say you have a crush on somebody, and you’re hoping that you two end up together, but then you walk in on your crush kissing Dean. That’s heartbreaking, whether or not you’re in the relationship.
Micah: But is he still a bit in the discovery phase with Ginny? I feel like with Cho, he knew straight away that he was interested in Cho, but for Ginny, it seems like it’s slowly working its way below the surface, and finally it’s starting to come out right now.
Eric: He almost had to see her like this, I think. He almost had… this is the trigger that awakens Harry. I mean, not just the monster or whatever…
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: … but to really stop seeing her as just Ron’s younger sister. She’s independent, she’s acting on her desires, and he wants that. He covets her desires, and he wants to… what’s the word? Foster more connection between him and her. So I do agree, Micah, I think this is what generates or brings a lot of those feelings to the surface.
Micah: And you said it, because the way that he even questions himself is as a older brother to Ginny. Is that why he’s feeling the way that he’s feeling? He almost passes it off as that at one point.
Andrew: He passes it off as that, but I think he’s in denial.
Laura: Yep.
Andrew: How could he feel this way for that reason?
Eric: Yeah, yeah. When I first read this book, I was like, “Oh, chest monster? That’s such a ridiculously over-the-top explanation.” But you know what? As I’ve grown up and I’ve felt some of the chest monster stuff, I’m like, “You know what? No, this is exactly, surprisingly accurate.” [laughs] Just mad props to J.K. Rowling, like you said, Laura. I don’t know if it’s that she’s a teacher, I don’t know if it’s that she’s a parent, or I don’t know if that she was a human teenager once too. But I’ll be damned if this isn’t pretty accurate stuff.
Andrew: Now you know how I feel towards you, Eric. What I’m going through.
Eric: Oh, Andrew. It would never work, Andrew. It would never work.
Andrew: No, don’t say that!
Laura: [sighs] You two have been dancing this dance for years.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: I moved to Chicago for you!
Eric: Okay, okay, if I get some quality Brooklyn time, I will consider going on three dates.
Andrew: Oh, wow. Deal.
Eric: Don’t tell Pat.
Andrew: Can you teach him Harry Potter spells?
Laura: Oh my God.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yes, I can teach Brooklyn some Harry Potter spells. Pat can come too.
Andrew: Great. [laughs] Oh, great. This will go well.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: So I thought it was also interesting in this chapter, Ron meanwhile is mad about learning about Hermione’s kiss with Viktor, so both Ron and Harry end up with the person who they’re feeling sick over in this chapter.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: A little bit of foreshadowing, maybe.
Laura: Yeah, so I had a question about the timeline of this. So that would have happened in Goblet of Fire when Hermione was 14, right?
Eric and Micah: Yes.
Andrew: Go on. [laughs]
Laura: And Krum, I believe, was 18 in that book.
Eric: Yes.
Laura: And I know four years is not a lot of time for people who are all above the age of 18 and who are all legally consenting adults, but four years is eons apart between a 14-year-old and an 18-year-old, so this just kind of squicked me out a little bit. I was like, “Eugh.” Reading it as a child, I didn’t really think that much of it; I was like, “Oh, he’s only four years older than her.” And now as an adult, I’m like, “Uh, that’s a little weird.” [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, I don’t know what J.K. Rowling was really thinking there. I guess they’re both students, and that’s…
Laura: Well, I mean, and it happens. That is a thing that happens in the real world all the time. So it’s not necessarily that I’m even faulting her for writing it that way, because I think it’s realistic, but it still made me uncomfortable.
Eric: Well, let’s be clear, I don’t think Hermione and Krum snogged the way that snogging is used in this book, of just obnoxiously making out. I tend to picture it in my mind’s eye as maybe they kissed, maybe it was tender, either during the Yule Ball, or somehow throughout that year. I just feel like if they kissed, it was very almost chaste; it was very not the kind of things we see later in this book. And because we know – isn’t it in Book 5? – she keeps in touch with him; she and Krum are pen pals while she’s traveling, if I’m remembering correctly. It just seems like they had a nice… they, I don’t know, saw something in each other or got something out of each other. It never really grew up or never really amounted to much, but it was just a nice… I just imagine if they kissed, it was just a nice, quick sort of thing.
Andrew: Maybe.
Laura: We’ll never know. Unless J.K. Rowling decides to release some bonus content on Pottermore.
Andrew: Crimes of Grindelwald deleted scene, adding that in for us.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Well, this sibling war of words between Ron and Ginny is potentially even more intense than some of the duels we see in the series, I would argue.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: And Ginny is really on fire. I mean, she lays into Ron, and if Ron could feel any worse than he already is, he definitely does. And I’ve never seen this side of Ginny before; I think that’s what’s so interesting about this part of the chapter, is that Ginny has been such an integral part of the series throughout going all the way back to really Chamber of Secrets, but now we’re starting to see more of her, and she stands up for herself and puts Ron in his place.
Andrew: So Ginny’s emotions are coming from being caught, I think? But what…?
Micah: I don’t think so. Not from being caught; I think for being judged by her older brother.
Andrew: Maybe “caught” is the wrong word. Being… I don’t know, just… it’s kind of embarrassing, especially when you’re a kid, to be seen making out with somebody when you were trying to have a private moment, so I think that’s a bit of a factor.
Laura: I mean, it’s that, and it’s the fact that it was her brother who did the interrupting. It’s the fact that he’s low-key slut shaming her. It’s an amalgam of things that come together to make her react in that way, which, in my opinion, was totally justified, because Ron was being kind of a dick here.
Andrew: Yeah. And what are Ron’s emotions stemming from? Is he jealous that he’s the only one who ain’t snogging anybody?
Laura: I think it’s that and toxic masculinity, this idea that older brothers are supposed to be their little sisters’ sort of caretakers, and they’re supposed to be aggressive towards any man who would lay his hands on her. So I think it’s a mixture of the two.
Micah: I thought a little bit about Fred and George in this chapter, too, and I don’t think that they would have reacted the same way that Ron did.
Laura: No.
Andrew: They are more carefree, aren’t they?
Eric: Well, we neglected to bring this up during the Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes chapter, but they get pretty into it with Ginny as well. When they’re in their shop and everybody wants a piece of Fred and George, they go straight up to Ginny and start asking her…. reading her the book. They’re like, “Are you or are you not dating so-and-so?” And she’s just like, “None of your business, none of your business.” But they are keeping tabs on her too. And in that chapter, if y’all just go back and want to look it over, it really feels almost as inappropriate as Ron is behaving in this chapter. I think they do suffer from the same sort of, like Laura was just saying, this guardianship, this self-imposed idea that they’re her keeper somehow that Ron does. But I mean, to be fair, Ginny is in the middle of a… what is it? A common shortcut used by all Gryffindors to get up to their tower. [laughs] They’re kissing right behind a portrait. You would think it was a secluded area that Ron has no business being in, but when you learn it’s a shortcut that all the Gryffindors use, it’s like, oh, okay, they are in the middle of a hallway, basically.
Andrew: So who wrote this Malfoy and the girls section? I don’t know who’s green.
Eric: Me. This is a big deal that I think gets overlooked, and I wouldn’t want to go through this book overlooking this. But right after the Ginny/Dean/Harry/Ron blow-up, Ron is, of course, very disturbed – Ginny made it very personal, talking about Auntie Muriel – and they’re walking along a particular seventh floor corridor. They do this a lot in this book, which is great writing from Jo; they just happen to be on the seventh floor randomly. And Ron shouts at this little girl, this probably first or second year student, who’s holding, I think, some toad spawn, and the girl freaks out because Ron is like, “Oi, get out of my way,” whatever, he’s running through. And she drops the toad spawn, it shatters, there’s this loud clanging. Harry, too, is so distracted by his chest monster that he walks past the girl, doesn’t think about it twice. What later transpires, and what we realize about this scene, is that that is actually… they’re along the seventh floor corridor; they’re right outside the Room of Requirement, and this girl was either Crabbe or Goyle disguised via Polyjuice Potion, and the toad spawn that she dropped was a warning sign. So Draco is very much in the Room of Requirement now; we know he’s mending the Vanishing Cabinet, and this is the signal that they worked out to keep Draco from being caught by Harry. So it’s a really clever… it’s blink and you’ll miss it. “Oh, a girl drops a toad spawn; Ron shouts at her.” This is the way that J.K. Rowling peppers in these clues.
Andrew: And Ron doesn’t know it, but he’s doing what he always does, bullying Crabbe and Goyle.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: That’s interesting connecting the threads, though, with Polyjuice, given that Ron and Harry transform into Crabbe and Goyle in Chamber of Secrets.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Eric: Yeah, for sure. And it’s just… I really wonder how this plan developed. We’ll get into this in the later chapters, but Draco is being escorted from Quidditch by two younger girls. I don’t know how Draco convinced Crabbe and Goyle to do this, or if they’re even consenting in this ruse.
Micah: They’re just his lackeys at the end of the day.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. And they do it.
Andrew: Yeah, they’ll do whatever. He’s the boss.
Eric: Yep.
Andrew: Interesting.
Micah: All right, so we finally now get to the Felix Felicis part of the chapter, and Ron has just been, as we’ve talked about, miserable. He’s at practice not performing; he’s just hanging his head low. And everybody is down for breakfast in the Great Hall, and Harry fakes putting Felix Felicis into Ron’s pumpkin juice, and Hermione catches this, but doesn’t say anything at the time. But this really sets a lot of more angst, I would say – teenage angst part two – into motion in this chapter, because we have the Quidditch match, Gryffindor ends up winning, Ron performs amazingly well, and they have this confrontation post-match, and it all kind of blows up from there.
Andrew: Yeah. I’m surprised that Hermione would voice what Harry was doing in that moment, to warn Ron. That just feels kind of unlike her to me, because doesn’t she trust Harry? Does she think that Harry is poisoning his best friend? [laughs]
Laura: No, she’s just a stickler for rules. And I think… I mean, Harry voices later on in the chapter that he purposely did it that way so that she would say something to draw Ron’s attention to it. And I mean, she is correct in pointing out that putting the Felix Felicis in the drink, unbeknownst to Ron, is illegal, so she was… I mean, Hermione is still at a point in the books where she is very much beholden to rules, unless, of course, she’s trying to bend the rules in her own favor, which Harry calls her out on and which is really great.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: But this doesn’t surprise me at all. I think it’s definitely in her character.
Andrew: Okay.
Micah: Yeah. I thought, though, that the interaction that happens between Ron and Hermione… once the truth is revealed, Ron just rounds on her and said, “Oh, you didn’t think I was good enough to do this without Felix Felicis? What does that say about how you feel about me?” But meanwhile, for the last however many hours, he was believing the fact that he was on Felix Felicis. So it’s very… I don’t know what to think of Ron in this chapter. I mean, he treats Hermione like shit.
Eric: Yeah, that was most unexpected at… when all is revealed, super unexpected that he should round on Hermione like that. That’s just Ron… he’s courting sadness. He just wants to make everyone miserable.
Andrew: Yeah. Enjoy the lesson you just learned.
Eric: Right?
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah. Has anybody…? Have any of us had this experience where we may have thought… where positive thinking led to a better outcome?
Eric: I think that’s every day of my life.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I was going to say I’m learning that a little bit more as I get older, that positive thinking can have beneficial effects. So I don’t know if you… maybe it’s about how mature you are at certain times, but I feel like when I was younger, I don’t know if I would believe more in sort of the Felix Felicis approach, but as I get older, I actually do believe a lot more in positive thinking dictating how certain things go.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: I agree.
Andrew: I know people our age who quite often think negatively. I’m like, “Oh, how do you live like that?” And I have to constantly push back against their negativity.
Micah: Do some meditation. Do some yoga. I don’t know what to tell them.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, for sure.
Laura: Also, I got this… a friend of mine got me this five-year memory book for Christmas, and it’s got enough spaces for me to write one positive thing that happens every day for five years.
Micah: That’s cool.
Eric: Whoa.
Laura: And then at the end of the five-year period, you can go back and look over everything and realize, “Oh, the last five years were actually really great. All of these wonderful things happened to me.” But that’s not something that it would occur to a teenager to do. Again, this is an area where I was super angsty, and stewed in my angst as a teenager and wanted to believe that the world was just out to get me, so again, it’s not unusual, and it’s just another bit of evidence to show what great character development Jo has for all of these people, and also her insights into what it’s like to be a teenager.
Andrew: Yeah. This past Friday in your positivity diary, did you write, “Fantastic Beasts 3 is taking more time to flesh out the story”?
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: It’s a good memory.
Laura: I know.
Eric: I’ve got to say, for a plan that Harry hatched just the night before, the execution was an A-plus, right? He did the tipping the potion thing into the glass just as Hermione was coming. It achieved the desired effect; she calls him out on it, and his response to her, where he says, “Confunded anyone lately?” – he whispers it back to her – is sharp! That is just so… cuts to the core of Hermione’s hypocrisy here a little bit when she wants to come at him for the rules.
Micah: Right, but it also just probably worsens Hermione’s state of mind, now that…
Eric: I know.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Not that Harry meant it to come across that way, but now it’s Hermione who’s broken the rules, not Harry, as we’re meant to believe, or not both of them together. Now it’s just her, where she’s been somebody who is by the book, by the rules, for so long a period of time, so it’s interesting to see her now kind of in a different light. But she did it with all good intention, and that’s probably the frustrating part, given how Ron is acting towards her.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: And it’s just funny, because I sort of felt like it was implied as well in Harry’s response that, “Okay, well, how did Ron get on the Quidditch team? Why am I dealing with all this shit?” [laughs]
Andrew and Eric: Yep.
Eric: Oh, but if you ever told Ron that, if she ever mentioned or if Harry were to mention, he would never recover. It’s just… he’s so fragile.
Laura: Right.
Eric: And this is why my love for the character of Ron ends here and never recovers. I don’t think he’s a valuable part of the trio. [laughs]
Andrew: Ouch.
Laura: Aww.
Eric: It’s just because reading about him is so… no, it’s just because reading about him is so difficult in this book. I just don’t think I ever recover properly.
Andrew: Huh. Okay.
Micah: Yep. A couple of other things that happen during the Quidditch match – and Eric, you alluded to this earlier when you were going over what was happening in the Room of Requirement – but Harry does note the fact that Draco is missing from the Quidditch match, and that’s a pretty big thing for Draco, right? He wouldn’t miss the opportunity to go head to head with Harry…
Andrew: Exactly.
Micah: … so his absence would definitely have to be for a good reason.
Eric: Yeah, this is a recurring thing. Draco continuously… I think the next time Harry shows up at Quidditch, Draco is being escorted away by some girls, and Harry is just like, “Where are you going?” And he’s like, “I’m not…” whatever. He just… it bugs Harry to no end that Draco is… he knows Draco is up to something, and Draco, like you just said, getting out of Quidditch is not normal behavior, and it’s going to drive Harry mad, just absolutely crazy.
Andrew: “Kill Dumbledore or defeat Harry at Quidditch: Which would I rather do today?”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Priorities, priorities…
Andrew: Hard decision.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And then probably my favorite part of the chapter – and if we could do moment of the chapter, this would be mine – when Ginny post-match takes out Zacharias Smith, who has taken over Quidditch commentary from Lee Jordan, and she just crashes right into the booth and takes him out, and I thought that was just an awesome, awesome moment.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: And looking out for her brother, right?
Eric: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Andrew: Because he had made some quips about Ron’s Quidditch ability, so I took that as looking out for Ron.
Eric: Yes, Zacharias was talking about both Ginny, too, though. He said both of them are Harry Potter’s friends, and that’s the only reason they got on the… she showed him his. The big thing for me was property damage. I was like, “Ginny just totally destroyed a commentator stand.”
Micah: They have spells for that.
Laura: Yeah, “Reparo.”
Eric: Yeah, I know. That’s why it doesn’t matter in the wizarding world; you can just… her excuse to McGonagall, “Sorry, Professor, forgot to brake,” works, or is accepted. [laughs] I don’t know.
Andrew: I guess it happens pretty often.
Eric: Forgetting to brake if you’re a Quidditch player.
Micah: And so we get to the end of the chapter, and Ron and Lavender Brown making out hardcore in the Gryffindor common room for all to see, and that includes Harry, and that includes Hermione. And obviously it doesn’t bother Harry too much, but Hermione gets really, really upset. And I wonder here, would Ron have reacted this way, would he have gone and made out with Lavender, if not for some of the other things that happened earlier on in this chapter, like Ginny calling him out?
Andrew: No, I think this make out session was directly inspired by most of the events that hurt Ron’s feelings in this chapter.
Eric: Yeah, that’s fair.
Andrew: And plus, he’s high on life right now. He just won the Quidditch match, so he feels like he can do anything, and that Quidditch match probably gave him some confidence.
Laura: Yeah. And he’s like, “You’re not going to call me inexperienced, Ginny. I’m going to eat Lavender’s face in front of everybody. Screw you.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: “Check out my skills.” [makes obnoxious snogging sound]
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: That’s how everybody sounds making out, right? Not just me?
Eric: It’s definitely how it’s described in the book.
Micah: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Andrew: Oh, good.
Eric: Which is my full experience with snogging.
Laura: Is it weird…? So the word “snogging” is used a lot in this chapter, and it’s making out, right? But for some reason, just the word snogging, it really sounds to me like that would be what it would be like, just people being like [makes obnoxious snogging sound] all over each other, and it’s just not appealing-sounding.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Andrew: No.
Eric: Is it…? What’s the literary term, onomatopoeia or something, where it’s like, it sounds like the word that it’s saying? Like “belch” or whatever? It’s just like, okay, so snogging is kind of like that a little bit, where it’s like… yeah.
Laura: It’s just not… I don’t know if I would ever want somebody to describe my kissing style as “snogging.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: You know what I mean?
Andrew: It’s just British slang, I guess.
Laura: Oh, I know. It just sounds funny.
Andrew: It’s like they call cigarettes over there “fags,” right? I wouldn’t want to call it a fag over there.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Yeah, no. Always cigarette for me.
Andrew: “Hey, you got a fag?” “What’d you call me?” “No, you have a cigarette?” “Oh.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: A fun little aside there: So long before I was born, my mom actually worked at the British Embassy in Atlanta, and she told me the most confusing thing to her was one day she was at work and one of her colleagues was like, “Oh, I’m going to pop around the corner and get a pack of fags,” and my mom was like, “A pack??”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: “I didn’t know they come in threes!”
Eric: Oh my God.
Laura: Anyway.
Andrew: If she was in West Hollywood, that may have been believable.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: The cultural differences will never cease. I hope that we continue to just put up a united front and point these out when they come up, because they’re cute.
Laura: I love it.
Andrew: All right.
Micah: Yeah, so the chapter ends with Hermione pelting Ron with the Oppugno spell. And I just think it shows in addition to everything that Hermione is going through in that moment, to her really advanced magic, to be able to do something like that. But Ron is obviously happy for the time being with Lavender, Hermione is super upset, and Harry is stuck somewhere in the middle.
Laura: Yeah, I remember reading this book for the first time when I got together with all of the MuggleNet Fan Fiction moderators that summer….
Eric: Oh.
Andrew: That’s a party.
Laura: Yeah, it was. Oh, it was such a party. We were all sitting in one of our parents’ basements, all just with our heads craned over these books, not speaking to each other, but we all kind of came with the same takeaway; we were like, “Man, Hermione really regressed in this book. The maturity level just tanked.”
Andrew: Yeah. Well, it’s hard times, I guess you could say.
Eric: Desperate, yeah.
Micah: What’s the next chapter? Just because it just seems so funny to me that we went from a chapter talking about young Tom Riddle to being immersed in teenage angst at Hogwarts to…
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Probably back to something serious.
Micah: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: Well, the next chapter is called “The Unbreakable Vow.”
Micah: See? There you go.
Eric: Yeah, it’s just…
Andrew: Ron is making an Unbreakable Vow. “You will only kiss me.”
Eric: It didn’t seem so disjointed or jarringly hobbled together as it does when you put that on paper and say it out loud, Micah. But yeah, I mean, the way that this book flutters from some really interesting backstory – series-defining backstory – to just the whims of 16-year-olds is pretty delicate, or at times a little messy, but yeah.
Micah: Right. And it is important that we mention that at the very beginning of the chapter, Harry does give the information from his lesson with Dumbledore to Ron and Hermione, and even then there’s kind of friction between the two of them; Ron not understanding what the importance is of learning about Voldemort’s past, and then Hermione is like, “Oh, well, I think it’s really valuable for Harry to be able to learn about Tom as a young wizard.” And so that kind of sets the tone, even, for what’s to come.
Eric: The next chapter should be about Tom Riddle snogging people.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: No, that’s Cursed Child.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: When Tom met Bella.
[Laura laughs]
Connecting the Threads
Micah: So there were a couple of threads to connect, and I know it doesn’t always have to be exactly connecting one chapter to another; it can be just common threads that are going throughout Half-Blood Prince and Chamber of Secrets. But if you look back on Chapter 14 of Chamber of Secrets, they do spend time in Herbology class; they are working on the Mandrakes. And in this chapter, when things start to really blow up between Ron and Hermione, they are working on Snargaluff pods. And there is a very big Quidditch match that takes place, or is supposed to take place in Chapter 14 of Chamber of Secrets – it’s between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff – but it is canceled due to Penelope Clearwater being Petrified.
Andrew: How did you find these?
Micah: I looked at Chapter 14 of Chamber of Secrets.
Andrew: Wow, nice job. A-plus to you.
Micah: Thank you, thank you.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: I’ve actually got one more, too.
Micah: Go for it.
Eric: The toad spawn that got dropped, or I think toad spawn is actually just tadpoles. Am I correct in thinking that? It’s baby toads? Anyway, it connects back to Chamber of Secrets because a basilisk is born when a chicken’s egg is hatched under a toad, and that’s how you get a basilisk. So any mention of toads or chickens, I always keep an eye on, because there was a theory at one point that the Weasleys could have a basilisk growing because they have all these chickens wandering around the Burrow?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I mean, it’s one of those ones that sounded so insane, it would never come true.
Micah: Wow.
Eric: But you think about it, Trevor is this random toad that’s running around, and there were chickens in the chicken patch and Hagrid’s hut in year two. So there could have been a second basilisk, I’m just saying. But anyway…
Andrew: I don’t think Mrs. Weasley would ever let that fly.
Eric: Reminds me of…
Micah: Don’t google image toad spawn. It’s kind of gross.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: I mean, maybe in Cursed Child Part 2, that’ll happen.
Andrew: You mean 3?
Laura: Yeah, excuse me, it’s already got two parts. Part 3.
Eric: Oh, it is kind of gross. Yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Huh. Why would you just carry this? It’s crazy. Okay, anyway.
MVP of the Week
Andrew: Time now for MVP of the Week. Who is yours, Micah?
Micah: I gave mine to Aunt Muriel for, prior to this chapter, being the only woman that Ron was able to lip-lock with.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: MVP no more, though, I guess? Post-chapter?
Micah: Yeah, maybe. But she was still the first.
Laura: I mean, where do you think Ron got those mad skills from?
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Eric?
Eric: Yep, so my MVP of the Week is actually, in a rare move, Harry. I don’t expect to give Harry many MVP points, but in a bizarre twist in this chapter, he executes a very clever ruse, which achieves his desired effect. So got to give it to him.
Andrew: Okay. Mine is the placebo effect, for inspiring Ron to have a great day.
Eric: Aw.
Laura: [laughs] Mine is also a bit of an unusual pick for me. I chose Ginny. She’s normally not my favorite; typically, she kind of comes across as sort of Mary Sue-ish to me. But I love the way that she advocated for herself and didn’t need Dean to stay there; she actually sent him away so that she could deal with it on her own. And I love the way that she really called Ron out, and she was like, “A what, Ron? Tell me what is it that you’re calling me right now.” So I really love the way that she was able to call him on his bullshit, and also, show both he and Harry that she didn’t have anything to answer for. So go Ginny.
Eric: Yeah, go Ginny.
Rename the Chapter
Andrew: All right, let’s rename the chapter now. As I said at the beginning of this, I don’t think it should be called “Felix Felicis,” because it wasn’t actually used.
Micah: True.
Andrew: What’s yours, Micah?
Micah: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 14, “You Charmed the Heart Right Out of Me.” And that’s actually a song by Celestina Warbeck…
Laura: Ahh.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: … so I have to credit her with this chapter title.
Eric: Love it. I did Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 14, “Lip-locked.”
Andrew: Okay.
Laura: Lots of that.
Andrew: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 14, [singing] “You’re a heartbreaker, dream maker, love taker, don’t you mess around with me!”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Little long, but I think it works.
Laura: I think it does too. All right, I did Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 14, “Snogging.” [draws out the first syllable]
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Just like that. “Snogging.” [draws out the first syllable] Lot of that in this chapter.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: I think from here on out, we need to create a chapter that also has a fun verbal twist to it in the way we say it. Has to be sung.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: That should be a challenge.
Andrew: “Snogging.” “You’re a heartbreaker.” And Micah, you could have sung “You Charmed the Heart Right Out of Me.”
Micah: True.
Andrew: [singing] “You charmed the heart right…” I bet you sing like Michael Bublé.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: All right, that’s Chapter 14.
Quizzitch
Andrew: Now it’s time for some Quizzitch.
Eric: All right, last week’s question… we are, of course, back to Quizzitch questions that have to do with the chapters that we are reading, so if you’re following along with us at home, you can definitely do so, because next week’s question will be for next week’s chapter. Last week’s question was: At what time is the first Gryffindor Quidditch practice without Katie Bell held? And the correct answer is 7:00 p.m.; that is when they meet on the pitch in this chapter that we’ve just finished. And the correct answer was gotten by Kimira, Super Mandy, Jeff, Jennifer, Erica, Justin, Amani, Count Ravioli, Lynnslay, Asim, Sarah, and Where in the World is Kevin Steck?
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Coming soon to Netflix.
Eric: Yeah, who is still participating. But a lot of people were very honest; they said that they did not know this from memory, so now you do.
Andrew: Huh.
Eric: And everybody who had to look this up, that’s perfectly legit. Got another difficult one, very specific, although I’d be surprised… definitely let me know if you do get it from memory. Next week’s question: What is the book that Harry Potter is assigned to read for Charms class?
Andrew: Ooh.
Eric: In the next chapter, called “The Unbreakable Vow.” And just remember to at reply @MuggleCast on Twitter, where this game is played, and use hashtag #Quizzitch.
Andrew: If you have anything to say about this week’s episode, we would love to hear from you. You can visit MuggleCast.com and use the contact form. You can also call us; we love hearing your voice. 1-920-3-MUGGLE; that’s 1-920-368-4453. You can also tweet us, as Eric said, Twitter.com/MuggleCast. We would also love your support over on Patreon; it’s why we are doing the show every week. Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and when you pledge, you will get instant access to lots of benefits – years of benefits – readily available for you immediately upon pledging. You’ll also be able to listen to our livestreams, so you can hear us as we record the episode, and you can sound off as we are recording. You can really influence the show, because we’re reading your feedback as we are recording. Thanks to the 15 people who are joining us this morning. You also get a physical gift every year. You also get bonus MuggleCast. You also have the chance to cohost MuggleCast. You also have the chance to win a monthly giveaway. This month’s giveaway is a… what is it, Micah?
Micah: It is a unopened set of the Harry Potter series, paperback edition, here in the US, and I think that’s a pretty good prize to give away.
Andrew: It’s good. Eric and I both did boxes of crap, and we were like, “Okay, Micah, you do a box of crap,” and Micah’s box of crap was actually a box of paperback Harry Potter books. [laughs]
Eric: But it’s cool because they’re old school Mary Grand-Pré covers. Is that correct?
Micah: I believe so.
Andrew: Yeah, they are.
Micah: I haven’t opened them, so I can’t tell you with 100% certainty, but…
Andrew: You can tell. I’m looking at the books. You can tell.
Micah: You probably could tell by the spines.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: In mint condition. Predates the Kazu Kibuishi and that new guy book covers.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: “That new guy.” You mean Jim Kay? The illustrated editions?
Eric: Is that…? No, that’s not Jim Kay, is it?
Andrew: Yeah, he’s…
Eric: I really don’t think it is.
Andrew: What?
Eric: No, he did the illustrated editions, but he didn’t do…
Andrew: What are you talking about?
Eric: The cover that’s black and white charcoal that are on all seven…
Andrew: Ohh.
Eric: Have you been to Barnes & Noble recently? They have all those covers…
Andrew: I know what you’re talking about.
Micah: There’s just too many versions of these books at this point.
Andrew: [laughs] I like those. But anyway, there’s lots going on at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. One more plug: On the MuggleCast website, we have our complete Chapter by Chapter archive. We had somebody ask earlier this week on Twitter, “Where can I listen to the episode where you talk about Book 1, Chapter 1?” And I said, “Well, that’s easy for us to tell you, because we have this archive.” It is available at MuggleCast.com, if you want to listen to any chapter analysis that we’ve done so far, and you can see our progress, which is pretty cool. It is our goal to eventually discuss every chapter in the books.
Eric: It’s going to be fun when we go back to just the very last chapter of Book 1. [laughs] Just to do that one chapter, and then the book is complete.
Andrew: For some reason, we never did that chapter. Something I guess came up news-wise, and then we just forgot about it. So we will finally do that.
Laura: Oh. Well, that’s an opportunity.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Micah: Aren’t we missing some of Order of the Phoenix as well?
Andrew: Oh, yeah. There are several holes.
Eric: There’s 28 chapters of Order of the Phoenix.
Laura: Wait, how did this happen?
Andrew: I don’t know, Laura. Without you on the show, we just didn’t have guidance.
Laura: Oh my God, I have my work cut out for me here.
Andrew: You do. You do.
Laura: I’m just kidding.
Andrew: I’ll tell you what we’re missing: We’ve done Books 2, 3, and 4 complete. We’ve only done up to Chapter 10 in Order of the Phoenix. We’re working on Half-Blood Prince right now, obviously, and Deathly Hallows is complete. So that’s where we’re at.
Eric: Yeah. It was Brian Selznick, by the way. I looked up the illustrator of the new Harry Potter books.
Andrew: Yeah, if you want those black and white copies, but who wants that? Yuck.
Eric: Charcoal with a giant snake.
Andrew: It’s good for colorblind people, I guess, but…
Eric: That’s not how colorblind works.
Andrew: [laughs] I just mean you can’t appreciate… if you can’t appreciate the colors of Mary Grand-Pré’s work, then why even bother?
Laura: I mean, when someone’s colorblind, it doesn’t mean they can’t see any color. It’s just certain colors.
Eric: It’s a style. Moving on.
Andrew: Okay, I think it’s time to wrap it up. Thanks, everybody, for listening.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: Andrew is going to kick me off the show after this.
Andrew: [laughs] Please email in supporting me.
Laura: It’s been fun!
Andrew: Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: See you next time. Goodbye.
Laura and Micah: Bye.