Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #404, Furry Little Problems (HBP 16, A Very Frosty Christmas)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Eric Scull: Welcome to MuggleCast, Episode 404: Andrew not found? Question? Question?
[Laura laughs]
Eric: We’ve got… [laughs] That was a joke three weeks in the making there. Hooray. We did it, guys. I’m Andrew. I mean, no! I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Eric: Wow, I’m so used to hearing Andrew intro the show that I’m literally copying it word for word, trying to be like our leader. Yes…
[Laura laughs]
Micah: But our recording did kind of start off with that 404: File Not Found feeling.
Eric: [laughs] It did. Is everything running smoothly over there, Micah?
Micah: Yeah, I hope so.
Eric: Okay. All right, I know we had trouble with…
Micah: If my Internet goes down, I think our patrons will know. That’s all I’ll say.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: That’s true. At least we do have people listening live, so they can be on the case if something goes amiss.
Eric: Yeah, they’ll let us know. That’s streaming live over on Patreon, by the way; we’re thrilled to all the patrons that are joining us this morning on Super Bowl Sunday. It’s Super Bowl… what is it? XXLVIIMCM something, Micah?
Micah: I think you added a few extra letters, but that’s okay.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, you’re the football guy. I just figured I’ll ask Micah.
Laura: Yeah, I mean, I think, Eric, that’s close enough to what I’ve seen on all of the signs around town alerting us that traffic is going to be really bad.
Micah: Oh, that’s right.
Eric: That’s right! It’s in Georgia, isn’t it?
Laura: It is; it’s in Atlanta. It’s just funny because they have these signs all over the place saying, “Super Bowl L-whatever, traffic expected to be severe,” and I was like, “Yeah, we know. We’re sitting in it.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: You know what? This one’s a really simple one; it’s LIII. Super Bowl LIII.
Laura: There we go.
Micah: So that’s 53, right?
Eric: I think. L as in Roman numeral…
Laura: That sounds right. Let’s go with it. [laughs]
Eric: L is 50, yep. 53 years of Super Bowl. Wow. Well, whoever you are rooting for today, definitely I hope they’ve won, but when you’re listening to this show, we’ll already have known.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: So moving on.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: Before we get to the news, we want to let you know that today’s episode of MuggleCast is brought to you by Away.
[Ad break]
News
Eric: Just a couple of news items today. Of course, we are talking about Chapter by Chapter; we’re getting into Half-Blood Prince Chapter 16, “A Very Frosty Christmas.” But first, just a couple of news items. Micah, did you point this out on our Twitter? Or was it Andrew that tweeted this, do you think?
Micah: It wasn’t me.
Eric: All right, must have been Andrew.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Andrew is on a road trip, by the way; that’s why he’s 404 at the moment. But he actually popped into the MuggleCast Twitter – yesterday, I saw this tweet go out – and he said, “J.K. Rowling hasn’t tweeted or retweeted in 21 days.” And I looked this up, and sure enough, it’s true. J.K. Rowling’s last retweet was January 12. And I actually also looked up her regular tweets and her likes on Twitter; she also hasn’t liked any new tweets, so it looks like our queen is taking a little bit of a social media hiatus.
Laura: I’m okay with that.
Eric: [laughs] Okay.
Laura: Not in a mean way, not like I don’t want to hear from her, just I totally understand the need to take a break from social media. And I hope that she is enjoying her time away from it, because it’s kind of a dumpster fire sometimes.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. And I mean, she was just really retweeting a lot of political stuff that’s going on in the world, and it was all kind of ugly. The last… looking down her timeline, it’s just not all happy. So if she took this voluntarily, yes, all the best for her; she certainly deserves peace. But I’m kind of worried about her. [laughs] Wouldn’t she have said something if she was planning to go away for a month or three weeks, do you think?
Laura: Either that or maybe she’s knee deep in trying to rework some of Fantastic Beasts 3.
Eric: [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, possibly.
Micah: That’s a good point. Around the same time, right, when we learned that the film was going to be delayed in production for a couple of months? Is that around the time she disappeared from social media?
Eric: Yeah, might have been a week before. But if that is the case, then yeah, maybe she’s just hard at work. Somebody’s reply to our tweet was, “Are pen and paper her priority?” So I thought that was funny.
Micah: Interesting. Speaking of pen and paper, I actually finished Lethal White about a week or so ago.
Eric: Oh, really?
Laura: How was it?
Micah: It was really good.
Laura: Okay.
Micah: Yeah, I was impressed. The one thing that always gets me about all these Robert Galbraith books is that the big reveal is never as shocking as I expect it to be, because she did such a great job of kind of… I feel like the Potter series is kind of a mystery in a way, the way she wrote it.
Laura: Totally.
Micah: And she did such an amazing job connecting the threads throughout the series, I just feel like some of the time with these reveals – in I think this is the fourth book now that she’s written in the series – just not as impactful, but that could just be me.
Laura: No, I agree with you. I haven’t read Lethal White yet, but I will say, even though they’re not as shocking, it still feels satisfying to me, if that makes sense. I’m still happy with the story. I’m happy with the arc.
Micah: Characters are pretty…
Laura: Yeah, everything’s really solid. I mean, it’s a really solid story. And it could also just be a conceit of mystery as a genre, because I too read a lot of mystery outside of the Galbraith series, and it never feels super fantastical in the way that the reveals in the Potter books did. So it could just be something that’s inherent to that genre. I don’t know.
Micah: Definitely. But I recommend it. If those listening haven’t picked up one of the Cormoran Strike novels, they are definitely worth reading.
Eric: Yeah. Where would you rank Lethal White now that you’ve finished it?
Micah: Probably close to the top.
Eric: Yeah? Cool. I’m about a third of the way through the book, I think, and enjoying it so far.
Micah: It is the longest of the series thus far.
Eric: Yeah, it is.
Micah: It’s sort of the Order of the Phoenix of the group.
Eric: Yeah, so it is… [laughs] So the mystery remains whether J.K. Rowling is okay. I hope she’s okay. I hope we would know about it if she wasn’t okay. But if she is just taking a break or putting her nose to the grindstone, I hope it all works out for her. So we’ll keep you posted; we’re going to do Jo’s Twitter watch every week now in MuggleCast till she returns.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: But the only other bit of news here is that ThisIsInsider.com posted that Dan Radcliffe has been cut from Lego Movie 2, or was going to have a cameo that they did not proceed with. You guys know that Lego Movie 2 – or The Second Part – is coming out this coming Friday, February 8. And basically, I was reading this article that said Dan Radcliffe had a cameo. He was going to play a cousin of Harry Potter, a fake cousin character, and the director of the movie, Mike Mitchell, recently said, “Oh yeah, we were definitely going to go out to Daniel. And he was game, but unfortunately his character got cut. I don’t remember why it happened. I think it was because we didn’t want to upset any Harry Potter fans.”
Laura: What?
Eric: Yeah. “They have such a following, so we decided to upset the Mary Poppins fans. We just made Larry Poppins.” So they were going to do a Larry Potter joke, like, “Oh, it’s his cousin, and it’s voiced by Dan Radcliffe,” but they didn’t want to offend yours truly, you and me, us.
Micah: What?
Laura: I don’t… I’m confused. [laughs]
Micah: Me too. This sounds like Warner Bros. intervened in some way.
Eric: But it’s all one big franchise in the sky now. I mean, everybody owns everybody, so it’s not a rights issue, necessarily.
Micah: Yeah. Why would we be upset, offended, frustrated…? It’s just… these movies are funny movies that poke fun at different things in their respective series. I don’t see why anybody would be bothered by this.
Eric: Yeah, especially because we know Dan Radcliffe is game to do pretty much anything. He’s been able to poke a little fun at his role in Harry Potter on anything from Saturday Night Live to every interview ever, so I don’t see why this would be that big of a deal. But bringing it around to Fantastic Beasts, you guys, I think we’re getting a reputation as Harry Potter fans of, I don’t know, being a threat to the studio. [laughs] Do you think because Crimes of Grindelwald tanked so badly that movie studios are now fearful of our retaliation?
Laura: Maybe. It’s just so bizarre to me, because I’ve never gotten the perception that as a fandom, we’re particularly scary. I think we’re passionate.
Eric: [laughs] Well, passion is scary.
Laura: Maybe, I guess. I don’t know. I don’t think that anybody ever wanted the reaction to Crimes of Grindelwald to result in studios shying away from having any kind of Harry Potter cameo; I think it was just for us as a fandom to be like, “Hey, do better.”
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Micah: Exactly.
Eric: So there’s a possibility that there’s just been a mixed message there. It’s sort of upsetting that we don’t get to see a Larry Potter Lego character guy. Maybe on home video, if they really did film it.
Micah: And I’m not sure the connection to Crimes of Grindelwald, because they would have had to have shot this film how long ago in order to have it premiere on February 8? So I don’t even think the feedback on Crimes of Grindelwald would have been available to them.
Eric: Well…
Micah: It just sounds to me like somebody else from another party stepped in and had an issue with this being done, which is surprising because we’ve had Cursed Child, which is probably – from a text standpoint – one of the worst possible adaptations of the Potter series. So to put Harry into a Lego Movie, especially when they have these great video games, the Lego video games, that everybody that I’ve spoken to who’s played it really enjoys…
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Micah: … seems really odd. Somebody else had to have stepped in here and put the kibosh on it.
Eric: Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. They could have just done… I mean, they could feature the whole cast of Lego Harry Potter. I’m pretty sure Voldemort is in the first Lego Movie, now that I’m thinking about it, either The Lego Movie or Lego Batman; I can’t remember which. But he’s definitely one of the villains, and pretty sure he’s voiced by Ralph Fiennes? Or Ralph Fiennes is in…
Laura: Yeah, and wasn’t Dumbledore in it as well?
Eric: Yeah, in the Council of Wizards that… Gandalf is there and Dumbledore is there. Yeah, so it’s just weird. It’s a weird little tidbit that Dan Radcliffe will not be in Lego Movie 2, so stop emailing us. It’s not going to happen. Before we get into Chapter by Chapter, I’d like to tell you about one of our new sponsors this week on MuggleCast, Shudder. Laura, do you like scary movies?
Laura: I love scary movies.
Eric: What’s your favorite scary movie?
Laura: [laughs] I appreciate that reference. But I can’t name just one!
Eric: Okay, okay, fair. Well, you don’t need to, because AMC network Shudder is a premium streaming video service which revels in all things provocative, evocative, and dangerous.
[Ad break]
Micah: You know, before we move on to Chapter by Chapter, I did want to just bring up one thing that Katie Powell over on Patreon just mentioned, and I think I texted it to you guys during the week. She asked, “Have we heard that they’re adding a Gringotts bank walkthrough to the Harry Potter Studio Tour?” And I actually saw this in an elevator at my office. You know how sometimes elevators have those little TVs that show random stuff on it?
Eric: [laughs] Yeah.
Micah: Somehow it was the Studio Tour, and they made mention of the fact that the Gringotts bank walkthrough is going to be added, I think, in April sometime.
Eric: Yeah, I think that’s right. I think I did see something about that.
Micah: That’s pretty cool. I like how they keep adding to the experience, and it’s not just staying the same way that it has been. I’m sure they have plenty of props and sets to choose from.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, I was there when they had just added the Hogwarts Express feature to the Studio Tour, and since then, I know they did the Forbidden Forest, I think they added either a Privet Drive or a Godric’s Hollow section, and definitely now Gringotts as well. So you’re right, Micah, they definitely keep shaking it up. We’ll have to get an English correspondent on, somebody who’s actually been to the new thing in April, and see how they liked it.
Micah: Yeah, April 6 is the date that it is opening, so if anybody’s headed there, definitely let us know.
Eric: Love it.
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Eric: Well, let’s move on to Chapter by Chapter, and Micah, you’ve got the discussion.
Micah: Thanks, Eric. And we go from horror movies to “A Very Frosty Christmas,” Chapter 16 of Half-Blood Prince.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Like Jack Frost? Jack Frost, which is also on Shudder? The horror film?
[Micah laughs]
Eric: Okay, all right.
Micah: I was actually going to ask: There’s probably quite a few holiday-themed horror movies, but I don’t know that there’s one that really stands out to me.
Laura: What about Krampus?
Eric: Yeah. Krampus, Micah.
Micah: I’ve not seen that.
Laura: Oh, it’s great.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: You really are a horror fan, Laura.
Laura: Oh, God, yes, especially movies like that that are just kind of self-aware of how bad they are. [laughs] Great. Anyway…
Micah: All right, well, let’s start things off with a Seven-Word Summary. This is where we attempt to summarize the chapter in just seven words, and Laura, you are up first.
Laura: Oh, boy. Okay, I’m going to start with Rufus…
Eric: … tries…
Micah: … to…
Laura: … convince…
Eric: … Harry…
Micah: … by… I’m trying to give Laura something to work with here.
Laura: [laughs] Shoot.
Eric: Shoot. Rufus tries to convince Harry by shoot.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Eric: Not our best, but not our worst.
Laura: I wanted to say “sucking up,” but I was like, “That’s two words.”
Micah: What about “persuasion”? Or “force”?
Laura: Yeah, persuasion maybe.
Eric: Tries to convince Harry by persuasion. That’s literally the same thing as trying to convince, is to persuade. But okay, all right.
Laura: [laughs] Yep.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Micah: So Rufus tries to convince Harry by persuasion, and that comes towards the end part of the chapter, but we’ll start things off… speaking of trying to persuade people, the last chapter ended with Harry overhearing Snape and Draco and learning about the Unbreakable Vow that Snape made. He, once again, is with one of his two best friends, and trying very hard to persuade Ron to believe him that, number one, this conversation happened, and that Snape had made an Unbreakable Vow. The one thing to note, though, is that Ron starts to take a little bit of a different tone with Harry, I think, once he hears the words “Unbreakable Vow,” and do we finally think that maybe he has somebody that is starting to believe in what he’s saying?
Laura: Yeah, I think so. I also think that at this point in the series, Ron – people at home are going to be very upset that I say this, but sorry not sorry – Ron kind of tends to blow with the prevailing wind, so it does seem like he can be more easily influenced by whoever he’s around in the moment, which isn’t uncommon for teenagers, and I do think that he grows out of it. But I think the fact that his only friend who’s at this Christmas gathering is Harry, so I think he’s somewhat apt to take his side. Although he does have that experience with the Unbreakable Vow, so that’s worth mentioning, that Fred and George tried to get him to swear an Unbreakable Vow when he was five.
Micah: Yeah, yeah. And Harry also runs into a similar situation in terms of pushback a little bit later on in the chapter, when he tells Mr. Weasley about what he overheard, and then he tells Lupin about what he overheard. And so it’s interesting to see the feedback that he starts to get from the adults in the series, as opposed to his friends. But speaking of Fred and George, they are at it again, taunting Ron with the fact that he’s not able to use magic to cut up some vegetables for dinner.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And I wanted to point out the fact that Ron tosses the sprout knife at Fred, and we know what happens to Fred in Deathly Hallows, and so you try and look at some of these things earlier on in the series, whether intentional or not, but I think given that it is J.K. Rowling, it’s certainly possible that this was a bit of foreshadowing as to what might happen to Fred in the future.
Laura: Oh, definitely.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. And I was actually thinking there was something to the left buttock that’s mentioned, because I thought Fred loses his left ear, but actually it’s George’s left ear, or George’s right ear. George loses an ear. The Weasley twins are doomed, everybody.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: I think it’s possible that it is foreshadowing. I mean, throwing a knife at somebody… but how impressive is it that Fred is able to just wave his wand and turn the knife into a paper airplane? That’s good stuff. We don’t even see that stuff in Hogwarts at all, really, get used, and Fred and George are flaunting their magic, but they are pretty good. And Ron and even Harry are nowhere near that level.
Micah: And do you think that this goes back to some of the discussion we’ve been having in the last couple of episodes in terms of how Ron is treated by his siblings? You could look at this as just being a funny moment, but then Laura mentioned the fact that he was almost forced into making an Unbreakable Vow when he was five years old; Fred and George are taunting him throughout the beginning part of this chapter. He doesn’t have an easy go of it.
Eric: What I will say is I found it very interesting that they bully Ron about Lavender because they previously bullied Ginny in the Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes chapter of who she was hanging… they grilled her about who she was dating, and I was pleased to see, because I found that first part to be pretty problematic, that they didn’t… or that they did the same, or basically insulted Ron’s character likability or attractiveness to his face here in this chapter. So at least they weren’t sparing of their other younger siblings, that Fred and George are just having their nose in the romantic affairs of their younger siblings, and that’s the bottom line there.
Laura: Yeah, I think Fred and George harass their siblings with sort of equal opportunity. [laughs]
Micah: That’s fair.
Eric: Yeah, thank God, because I was really offended by how they approached Ginny in that one chapter. But actually, they do worse with Ron. I mean, saying that Lavender Brown must have had an accident, and that’s why she’s into him. So pretty rough stuff.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, also, just not uncommon for siblings to say stuff like that to each other. It’s kids. Me and my brother used to say really nasty things to each other.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Older brother? Younger brother?
Laura: Younger.
Eric: How many years?
Laura: Five.
Eric: Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, I have a younger sister of three years. Micah, you’ve got a brother. You ever say anything mean to him like this?
Micah: I do.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Oh, I’m sure. But never threw a knife at him, that I can remember.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Oh, well…
Micah: And he did not turn it into a paper airplane either, at least from recollection.
Eric: And did you ever peel sprouts? Because that’s something I’ve never done.
Micah: Not that I can remember.
Laura: Nope.
Eric: Yeah, okay. Lucky us, having to prepare food in the kitchen for dinner; we’ve all helped, but never had to peel sprouts. It seems like daunting work. It seems a little tedious, a little like you wish magic could help.
Micah: Yeah, for sure. So going back to this whole situation with Draco, Harry has, I think, been rejected so many times that he can now imagine what different people are going to say to him. He actually plays it through in his head what Hermione would say…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: … and I think that this has now just gotten to a point where has it become a running joke that he believes that Draco is up to something? And pretty much anybody that will lend their ear is just telling him that Snape is just doing what he needs to do in order to get Draco maybe to give him more information. It’s just kind of frustrating to watch him go through this at this point.
Laura: Yeah, it almost seems like he’s gone around to everybody who he could possibly voice this concern to, and I sort of just imagine them all getting together for a beer at the end of the day and being like, “Ugh, yes, he brought it up to me. Yes, I told him that Snape is on our side.”
Eric: “Harry is always on about Draco. They should just kiss already and get it over with.”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: “He’s obsessed with that Malfoy kid.” Yeah, it is unfortunate. I think it is a little bit of a… I wouldn’t say it’s a running joke in the sense that anybody finds it funny, but it’s absolutely… I do kind of wish the thread were not being… the string were not being plucked as much as it is, or the thread being thumbed, whatever you call it, where Harry suffers by nobody believing him multiple times, and even in this chapter when he seems to have definitive proof, still gets rebuffed a little bit. I mean, I think that the point that Lupin brings up, and where Mr. Weasley says it’s down to whether or not you trust Dumbledore, that’s all right. I think that’s all true and correct and should be useful for Harry, but Harry’s deal isn’t the vindication of proving he’s right; Harry really just does want to know what Draco is doing, because it’s not good. And whether or not Snape is acting to save his own life, which we know is absolutely true, and Harry says, “He’s not that good of an actor; he must be in on it.” He is in on it, but the reasons why aren’t going to be revealed till the end of the book. So unfortunately, we just see Harry suffer, and so every time he goes around and is telling people and they don’t believe him… and I’m pretty sure he actually will tell Hermione at some point, and her response will probably be as he suspected. It’s just not a winning battle.
Micah: And it’s also very interesting to hear Mr. Weasley or Lupin say that it comes down to whether or not you trust Dumbledore. Harry seems to really not want to hear that as a response, but then yet, look at the end of this chapter and how defensive he is with respect to Dumbledore. So I just… he kind of is in two different spots in my mind, one here where it’s like, “Eh, well, I don’t want to hear about Dumbledore,” but then he uses Dumbledore as his defense when he’s having this conversation with Scrimgeour.
Eric: That’s a brilliant point.
Laura: Yeah, it’s almost as if he doesn’t completely trust Dumbledore, but he’s not willing to admit that to himself.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Micah: Right.
Laura: Which is understandable. I wanted to bring up this point; it’s kind of a change of pace, but I think something that we’ve talked about on the show a lot over the years is Ron’s perception of house-elves and his bewilderment that Hermione cares about their wellbeing. Well, there was a little point in this chapter where I was like, “No wonder Ron feels this way.” Fred and George Stupefied a living creature, a troll from their garden, painted it, and glued wings to it so it could serve as the angel on their Christmas tree, and nobody really seems to notice this, or that it’s weird that there’s this little garden gnome/troll thing sitting on top of the tree, glaring down at all of them. And I’m like, “Well, no wonder…”
Eric: [laughs] Yeah, no wonder Ron doesn’t recognize that those beings should be respected and treated fairly?
Laura: Right, it’s like, no wonder he’s not really thinking about the bodily autonomy of things that aren’t human.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Eric: Yeah, if he’s learning from Fred and George.
Laura: Well, and also, who did Fred and George learn from?
Micah: Themselves? [laughs]
Laura: I mean, it’s just interesting, because I think the Weasleys are very emblematic of families that we might see in our own culture. The Weasleys, they’re pure-blood, so they sort of have that standing within their community, but they’re also very progressive compared to a lot of pure-blood families, and yet they still seem to have some of the same hangups as those families, so it’s just interesting.
Micah: Yeah, because one thing that I thought about when I read this chapter before it got up to this point… you’re thinking about, “Oh, it’s Christmas at the Burrow; all these great descriptions of things happening around the house,” and probably even when you read this as a younger person, even a teenager, whenever you read the Potter series, you’re probably saying, “Oh, isn’t that just so fitting in with the magical world, that they Stunned a garden gnome and put it up and dressed him up on top of the Christmas tree?”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: It just adds to the magic; it adds to the feel of the series. But now you’re reading it in a different light, to your point, Laura; you realize that they’re taking another living creature, they’re binding it against its will, they’re putting it on top of a Christmas tree, dressing it up, making it look all stupid and everything, and everyone’s just kind of sitting around the fire not paying it any attention.
Eric: I mean, it bit him! It bit Fred! He was just trying to pick some carrots and it bit him, and so he showed it some respect, I guess.
Micah: No, but it’s different interpretations, though, at different times, because if we did this Chapter by Chapter let’s say ten years ago versus doing it today, we probably wouldn’t have paid much attention to the point that Laura just raised.
Eric: Yeah, I completely agree with that. And I think it’s an incredibly important point to bring up; this creature is bound against his will. And like Laura was saying about the families and privilege, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Weasley – who surely see what they’ve done, what Fred and George have done – demand that it be taken down. Mrs. Weasley is not saying, “These creatures are deserving of our respect. They live alongside us, in this house or out in the garden. They’re on our property. You must treat them with respect. Never dress them up in a tutu against their will.” This is all allowed, so you’re completely correct; they didn’t raise their kids to be tolerant of the foreign creatures that are even in their own backyard.
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Laura: But it’s interesting because also, to their credit, they raise their kids not to be judgmental about people, right? So Mr. Weasley loves Muggles; the family doesn’t read into their pure-blood status. Obviously they’re friends with Harry and Hermione, who are not pure-bloods, so they are definitely very progressive. It’s just interesting to see some of the old hangups that come with being a pure-blood family still kind of existing, in a way. It’s interesting. It’s kind of like when you meet very progressive-minded people who then sometimes on the other token will say something that’s like, “Ooh, that’s really problematic that you just said that. Do you know that that sounded kind of racist or sexist or whatever?” And oftentimes it’s just ignorance. So I think this is a case of old traditions and ignorance still existing within the Weasley family.
Eric: I like that.
Micah: Yeah, and speaking of progressive, there’s a werewolf sitting in their living room.
Laura: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: Yeah, anyway. Huh. Well, this is a brilliant paradox you brought up.
Micah: And it gets interesting later on in the chapter with those garden gnomes, because they really kind of parallel the conversation that’s happening between Scrimgeour and Harry, if you read into the gnome and what it’s trying to do, and it’s trying to catch something… and yeah, so we’ll get into that. But I also just wanted to call out our good friend Celestina Warbeck. Her music is playing throughout the course of the conversation that’s happening in the living room, and it also sets a little bit of a confrontation off between Mrs. Weasley, who loves Celestina, and Fleur, who clearly does not. But Celestina, of course, performs daily at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Eric, I know you’ve had the privilege of being on stage with her. I thought maybe you’d want to talk about that.
Eric: Yeah, I have to say I’ve long held a little bit of contempt for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter Orlando – and theme parks in general – boasting about how many attractions they have, because if you look at it on the surface, Wizarding World has three rides, right? How many “rides” does something have? But for attractions, things like food, drink, nightly shows, it doesn’t get better than Celestina Warbeck in the Diagon Alley section of the theme park. And I have to say, when I first saw this at the opening of Diagon Alley or shortly thereafter, I was blown away. That wasn’t when I was pulled up on stage; that was later. [laughs] But it’s just a really great show, and it’s a wonderful thing for them to have taken from the books, and I think probably this specific chapter of this book probably has the most weight on what they… because these songs are, I believe, directly lifted into her act or her routine.
Micah: Yep.
Eric: At the very least, they did a special Christmas version of the routine recently, or a couple years ago towards the winter season, and Celestina was on stage singing these lyrics that are called out at various points in this chapter. But really, making it more fleshed out, making Celestina a person of color – which was not, as far as I’m aware, called out ever in the book, because she’s just over the radio all the time – and really fleshing out the world and building a Celestina Warbeck character as she is portrayed, is a really exciting thing, and that’s the reason why the park is such a cool thing to go and see.
Micah: Definitely. Now, turning our attention to the conversations that Harry has while this music is playing: The first one is with Mr. Weasley, and then he talks a bit more with Professor Lupin. And this really gives us, I think, our first real insight into how the Ministry is functioning with Scrimgeour in power. I mean, going back to when he takes over, we obviously meet him in the first chapter of this book, but we don’t have a sense for how he’s operating things different from Fudge. And Mr. Weasley mentions that, and quote, “Top levels want to look as though they’re making progress, and ‘three arrests’ sounds better than ‘three mistaken arrests and releases,'” and this is referring to potential Death Eater Stan Shunpike is mentioned. And I know we all look at Fudge – he was delusional, he didn’t want to admit that Voldemort could possibly be back – but I wanted to just throw out the question: What do we think this says about Scrimgeour as Minister, that he’s just doing things to make himself look good, essentially?
Laura: Yeah, I mean, we clearly see at the end of the chapter that he does not have as much control as he would like it to seem he does. I think also… I kept thinking about Broken Windows Theory throughout this chapter, and thinking about the arrests that were made of people who are clearly not Death Eaters, and sort of this mentality of like, “Well, we need to make it look like we’re doing something.” And that’s sort of what Broken Windows Theory is about in the real world, this idea that, “Well, if we prioritize things in our communities that have the appearance of crime, and we pull those things out, then there will be no crime because people won’t be incentivized to do that. So we’re going to prioritize things like petty theft and maybe selling things that you shouldn’t be selling on a street corner, or drunkenness in public.”
Eric: Huh.
Laura: So this idea of really pinpointing these very, very low-level crimes that maybe should not be the priority of a government that is facing much bigger threats, in order to make it look like, one, they’re doing something, and two, so that they can pass along this idea that, “Well, if we get rid of these very visible petty threats on the low level, then we will avoid larger threats in the future.”
Eric: That’s so fascinating. So really, by removing a drunken, boasting Stan Shunpike from a bar, and having fewer people boasting that they’re Death Eaters, you just… the Ministry seems like they’re actually cleaning up Death Eaters when they don’t really have the first clue where to start.
Laura: Correct.
Eric: Yeah. I had never heard of Broken Windows before, which shows my ignorance.
Laura: Yeah, unfortunately it’s… well, I mean, it’s unfortunate because it’s something that’s practiced in a lot of our major cities.
Eric: Yeah. Hmm. I also think it’s a little bit of insubordination on the part of Mr. Weasley. He’s just kind of… he’s telling it like it is, which I think is very valuable, and it’s certainly not falling on deaf ears. I think that Mr. Weasley’s input is taken by Harry exactly in the way that it needs to be. I think the reason the end of this chapter surprises me and pleases me so much is because Harry has had the exact handful of experiences that allow him to have his very specific negative view of the Ministry, right? If it weren’t for – and I know we’ll get there in a moment – but specific instances of the writing on his hand and specific encounters with Fudge and previous Ministers, Harry and the Ministry could be friends. Harry could be going in and out. Unfortunately, I think the Ministry is just in a bad way, and it’s not necessarily Scrimgeour’s fault. I tend to feel bad for Scrimgeour, even in spite of his behavior in this chapter. I find myself feeling like he inherited a sinking ship, he was not strong enough, despite his war history, to really turn things around, and he is running a Ministry that is complacent to do these things, to commit these crimes, to imprison people wrongfully. His Ministry is willing to do that because it’s not competent enough, or perhaps at this point, too corrupt enough to really affect real change, and he’s just kind of the man who’s got to go down with this sinking ship. And unfortunately, his attempt to recruit Harry, which I think is ballsy, fails, and so he’s left to walk away.
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Laura: Well, I think his big mistake was bringing up Umbridge in that conversation.
Micah: Right. Totally.
Laura: But yeah, I do tend to agree with you, Eric. I think that a lot of the incompetencies that existed in the Ministry were inherited in the case of Scrimgeour, and that is not his fault. However, I don’t think that he’s reacting in the best possible way that he could.
Micah: Exactly. And I think – this goes to both of your points – that the Ministry, in many ways, is already compromised at this point, with people in high-ranking positions that may have ties back to Voldemort. And we may not know of all of them, but there’s definitely some that could be passing information back to him or exerting control over others. And I think that even in this conversation that Harry has with Mr. Weasley, before we even get into the situation that develops in Deathly Hallows, it just seems like Mr. Weasley operates very much in a silo, almost, compared to other things that are going on, or at least we can start to see those situations taking shape, I feel like. And also, Eric, you kind of touched on this, but Stan Shunpike… shouldn’t somebody like Mr. Weasley be advocating on his behalf, potentially? Maybe not Stan, but other people who are just being arrested for the sake of being arrested. It seems something’s wrong here, where the people that we would normally expect to speak up and do something about it aren’t.
Eric: That’s an interesting question. I think there are tons of parallels between where the wizarding government is at in this chapter, and where American government is at in this moment in American history. Whether or not there are members in a presidential cabinet who are speaking out against a leadership that is imprisoning innocent children, or… which, hell, that’s straight out of this book, and straight out of the headlines. Whether or not there’s an insurrection, or whether Mr. Weasley would be part of a protest march or something to really have his voice heard that this is negative, I think it’s already… even though we tend to think of Book 7 – which we’ve already done Chapter by Chapter for completely – as the book where things become completely totalitarian and unrelenting and unfixable, the government is more or less already there, I think. We already have people… Micah, you mentioned high-up people that are connected to Voldemort. Yaxley comes to mind, and so does Pius Thicknesse, who’s, I think, at this point – or will be shortly – the Head of the Magical Department of Law Enforcement. And this is a guy who’s either Imperiused by Voldemort – I can’t remember – or exactly a Death Eater in the highest position. This is how they’re able to eventually kill Scrimgeour, and so it’s corrupt from within. Whether you have Supreme Court justices who are guilty of sexual assault, a President of the United States who has had multiple sexual assault allegations, you have dirty people in the highest levels of government. How do you eradicate it? And unfortunately for Harry Potter, I don’t think his world ever really does, until after the war when there’s tons and tons and tons of bloodshed. But do you organize marches, if you’re Arthur Weasley? Do you protest? And do we think less of him for not doing so?
Laura: Yeah, that’s a really good question. And you just kind of… I don’t know, you had me thinking about historical parallels as well, since you brought up the current situation in the US. I know on prior shows we had drawn parallels between the Harry Potter books and World War II and the rise of Hitler, and it’s always really interesting to look back on history and look at all of these atrocities that were happening, but then also observe sort of the everyman in the general public who’s not really affected by these things because he’s not a target, and how he’s just able to go on living his life normally while people are being put in concentration camps, or while there are raids happening in neighborhoods a couple miles down the street. And so he still goes to work every day, and he still celebrates Christmas with his family, and he does all the normal things that he would do, because unfortunately, there’s just sort of a part of the human experience that is feeling like, no matter how bad things get, you still have to continue living. So I don’t think that’s an uncommon thing that we’re seeing here from Mr. Weasley. I also think that, because he works at the Ministry, he has to kind of play his cards correctly. He’s in a position where he’s able to get intel, so he can’t necessarily put his neck out there every time an individual is wronged, because he has to consider the greater good of, “Do I do what would be the right thing by putting my neck out there to get Stan Shunpike out? Or do I continue in my position and continue giving intel to the Order so that we can hopefully bring this to an end?”
Eric: It’s about the atrocities that you can stomach.
Laura: Yep.
Micah: Right, because if in this book, we just see how the Ministry is doing things for the sake of doing them, whether it’s raids or arresting people, that just by itself can lead to what we see in Deathly Hallows, where they develop the Muggle-born Registration Commission. I think the groundwork is being laid here when you have good people that are turning a blind eye to what’s going on, because it sells papers and it makes the government look good, but then look at what happens as a result of that in the next book.
Laura: Yep. No, there’s that really famous poem about…
Eric: By doing nothing, yeah.
Laura: Yeah, exactly. “They came for them, but I wasn’t one of them, so I did nothing.”
Eric: This discussion is so interesting to me, and I can’t wait till we talk about werewolves in a moment.
Laura: I know.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: It’s already… this is…
Micah: Well, let’s talk about werewolves. Let’s get into that discussion, then, because Lupin is kind of part of the conversation with Mr. Weasley and Harry, and then finally they get some time to talk one-on-one. And Harry approaches Lupin about the Half-Blood Prince, and he wants to know if there’s any information that Lupin may have that could be helpful to him in figuring out who it is. And the spell that gets mentioned, Levicorpus, Lupin says that spell was… he refers to it as that “That one had a great vogue during my time at Hogwarts.”
Eric: [laughs] “Vogue.”
Micah: And I had no idea that spells can come in and out of being popular; that’s the sense that I got from what Lupin was saying. But this person actually invented the spell. And Harry notes the fact that his dad used it, he saw it in the Pensieve and that he used it on Snape, and Lupin ruled out the fact that either him or Sirius or James came up with this spell, but what about Snape? I mean, I think that we’re meant to not necessarily think that somebody who the spell is used on could potentially be the person that invented it…
Eric: Right.
Micah: … but I think subtle hints are being dropped here about the identity of the Half-Blood Prince.
Laura: Yeah, absolutely.
Eric: I think it’s so much a point that J.K. Rowling brings it up at the end of the book when Harry is attacking Snape, and he says, “You dare to try and use my own spells against me?” He fully sees the irony of Harry trying to Levicorpus him, or Sectumsempra him, or whatever it is that he’s trying to do specifically. It’s just… I love how much of… how put off of the scent Harry and the readers are just by Lupin’s casual tone when he says, “Oh, spells come and go,” which you’re right, Micah; we haven’t heard of that before. We haven’t really had that insight into the wizarding world of spells as if they were fashion trends, like leg warmers or something, or “Low waist jeans are coming back; so is Levicorpus.”
[Micah laughs]
Eric: It just kind of boggles the mind how easily J.K. Rowling is able to deflect direct suspicion onto the Marauders era, even though now we know who the Half-Blood Prince really is.
Micah: Yeah, I think there’s definitely clues here, but we’re misdirected. We’re misdirected by Lupin saying that spells come in and out of fashion, we’re misdirected by Lupin telling Harry to go look at when the book was published, which I thought was… who cares if the book was published 50 years ago? It doesn’t mean then that it was written in that way 50 years ago. It could have been written in by somebody 15 years ago. Who knows?
Eric: Yeah, but it wouldn’t have been written before, you know? I think that’s a great piece of info, and even though it serves to throw Harry off the scent, it’s great advice from Lupin. It’s really smart.
Micah: Well, it can provide some context, but I think for us as readers, it’s meant to throw us off the scent of it potentially being somebody that went to school in the timeframe of the Marauders. Because let’s just say – we all went to school – if we got a textbook that was written in, even if the textbook was published 50 years ago, it doesn’t mean that it was written in 50 years ago, right?
Eric: Right, but it couldn’t have possibly been written in 51 or 52 years ago. That’s the point.
Micah: Well, yeah, yeah, there’s some context that’s provided. I just… I don’t know. I didn’t like that… good advice, but I don’t like the conclusion that Harry draws from it.
Eric: [laughs] Yeah. Well, I mean, so Snape has his mother’s old Potions book, right? Is that the whole thing right here? It’s clearly a hand-me-down; his mom was probably at school 20-something years before him, and that’s probably her Potions book. And inheriting his mom’s Potions book, he wrote that it’s the property of the Half-Blood Prince, which is her son, connecting the threads, connecting the dots, there you go. Yeah, it just puts Harry off the scent another couple chapters. What I find to be the most touching between Harry and Lupin’s conversation, though, is that Lupin understands implicitly what Harry is getting at, and Harry wants to feel an additional level of connection to his father. And Harry… I think it’s even… J.K. Rowling writes this pretty delicately, but it’s like, at one point Harry abandons all pretense, and is just like, “Hey, did you or my dad write this?” And Lupin smiles, and understandingly he says, “No, we had nothing to do with this.” And Harry is just a little bit crestfallen that the Half-Blood Prince is not his dad, and Lupin is able to make a joke about James not being that conceited. But it just kind of… it really is a subtle, touching moment that reminds me of Lupin and Harry’s relationship in Book 3, that even though we’ve had precious little Lupin the last several books – and still don’t get any Lupin until he dies, basically – these small moments are really, really touching, and they underscore why I love Lupin as a character.
Laura: Yeah, he’s definitely the most, I think, sensitive and emotionally perceptive of all the Marauders, which also makes him my favorite.
Eric: Yeah, aw.
Micah: Well, Lupin also is very defensive of Snape in this chapter, and I wondered if his current state… he’s clearly going through a lot, being tasked with trying to rally the werewolves to the “good side,” or at least pass back information to Dumbledore and others in terms of what’s going on. And he’s very sympathetic to the fact that Snape made him the Wolfsbane Potion throughout his tenure at Hogwarts. And I wonder, though, is his current state…? Because of the fact that he’s going through what he’s going through, and he knows that Snape lent him a helping hand, does he overlook things here?
Laura: I mean, certainly. I think anytime your justification for something is, “Well, it just comes down to do you trust Dumbledore’s judgment?”, then yeah, you’re going to overlook things for sure. Now, in the case of Lupin and Snape, I think that he brings up some solid points about things that Snape has done to prove his allegiance to the light. And I also think that, as Lupin rightfully points out, Harry is carrying an old prejudice from his father and his godfather, and again, that’s another sort of, I think, desperate attempt for Harry to try and hold on to something that was given to him by them.
Eric: Yeah, Harry can’t keep any of that, can he? Just the eyes. He just gets to keep his eyes.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: All the rest is problematic. It just… yeah, I definitely think that this situation of the prejudice that he gets… and it’s not that Lupin’s only example is, “Snape was really nice to me, so I can’t hold a grudge,” but Lupin spent most of his life holding a grudge against Snape, and he says so. He says, “We will never be friends, but I can’t deny that he made life considerably easier for me during that small period of time.” And Harry has his points, too, but at this point, I think there’s enough evidence in all of the books. I mean, every year Harry suspects Snape of something, and it’s proven that he’s not, but it just shows that there’s no one answer, right? And even though Harry has some of the most incriminating evidence against Snape that he’s ever had up to this point – and he’s sure in for a surprise when he finds out that Snape overheard the prophecy, which is either this book or the next book – but it just… Snape is so clearly in the middle on all this. He’s so clearly either a double agent or a gray area that there’s… he’s not all good, but he’s not all bad, and Harry just doesn’t have the ability to really cope with that.
Laura: Yep. His Facebook relationship status with Snape is “It’s complicated.”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: I think everybody’s with Snape is “It’s complicated.”
Laura: Very true.
Eric: Yeah, geez.
Micah: And to tie this back, though, to the conversation we were having earlier about the Ministry, the Ministry could take a page out of Voldemort’s book, at least from the standpoint of trying to play to underserved and underrepresented communities like the werewolves. And I know that Dumbledore is sending Lupin to try and gain information, and to kind of serve as a spy in a way, so a couple of questions came to mind: One, I wondered how Lupin would be able to do this. I feel like his identity is known at this point, and his allegiances are known at this point, so I wonder how he’s able to infiltrate this underground community and act as a spy. And then we learn the backstory about him and Fenrir Greyback, and just the absolute horror show that Fenrir is, that he preys on children, but yet somehow Voldemort is able to utilize somebody like that and probably make promises, not unlike… when I heard about this, it made me think a lot of Grindelwald and how he is able to play on certain insecurities and certain fears. We see it in that scene in the mausoleum in the graveyard when he’s talking to all of his followers. This was not unlike that, in my mind. And I know I kind of threw a lot out there, but I feel like Voldemort is able to really utilize this community in a bad way, whereas potentially the Ministry and others could have done so in a good way. But it speaks to the larger issue at hand of how the Ministry has treated werewolves, giants, house-elves, etc., etc., etc. throughout the course of the series, and probably even before.
Laura: Yeah, totally agree. I mean, any time you push a community away and culturally regard them as deviants or evil, then good luck when the big final war comes around. They’re not going to be on your side; they’re going to be playing for the other guy, and that’s exactly what happens here. You’re totally right.
Eric: When I was reading this, I made a connection in my brain between werewolves and white supremacists that I want to talk about briefly and see if there’s any valid to it.
Laura: Yeah, that’s interesting. Bring it up.
Eric: So I don’t know where to start, other than to say if… well, Voldemort is giving werewolves a voice – they think they’ll have a better life under him – in the same way that I think our current president has given a lot of power to these underserved groups that are now allowed to have a voice. Somebody like Fenrir Greyback doesn’t deserve a voice; he’s using his abilities for such evil and nefarious purposes, and I think is beyond redemption at this point. Not all werewolves are bad people, but I think that there’s something to it in the way that these – I keep wanting to say white supremacists and I mean werewolves – are being promised a good future and coming together. The question of whether or not Lupin… how Lupin got in, and the book does say it wasn’t easy, because he shows signs of having tried to live amongst the other wizards and humans, and I think that they probably smell it on him, that he’s kind of a human lover. But ultimately he’s white, ultimately he is a werewolf, so he is allowed in the club, and it’s just like being in… I mean, to be a white supremacist, if you’re white, it’s probably easy to get in. So that’s kind of my theories on that.
Laura: That’s so interesting. It kind of reminded… did you guys see BlacKkKlansman?
Micah: No.
Eric: I didn’t.
Laura: There’s a point in that where a Jewish man is able to infiltrate the KKK because he passes for being white, and so he has to sit around and hear them say all of these horrible things about Jewish people and pretend like he agrees with it. So I don’t know. Anyway, it’s a random connection to a completely different form of media. I like this point. I think it’s… how do I put it? I think it’s a really interesting post-Potter interpretation. As the world continues developing, I think that we’re going to see random connections between what’s going on in the world now and what was written in the books, so I love that. That’s really cool. I think it’s interesting how you were able to make that connection, considering the fact that originally the idea of werewolves, it was kind of about the world’s – or I mean, the Muggle world’s – distrust of certain bloodborne diseases like HIV, AIDS…
Eric and Micah: Yeah.
Laura: … so I think it’s really fascinating and totally valid that we could make a completely different interpretation based on something like white supremacy. I love this. I just got chills, actually, Eric.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: It’s scary, though, too, that – to your point, Laura – when this series was written, it would be reflective of those individuals, or even going back and making comparisons to World War II, yet here we sit in 2019 and we’re making comparisons to present day.
Laura: Yep.
Micah: I don’t know what that says about us as a society.
Laura: Well, I think it says that history repeats itself.
Eric: Well, it does, which is why it’s more important than ever to be reading these books.
Laura: Seriously, man. This should be required reading.
Eric: It should be.
Micah: In Laura Mallory’s household. Yeah, right.
Laura: Ugh, seriously.
Eric: Oh, God.
Laura: Does she still live in Georgia? Probably.
Micah: She’s probably going to the Super Bowl.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: She was in front of you in that traffic jam, Laura. You didn’t even realize it.
Laura: Oh, somebody… I’m fairly positive she would never be caught dead inside the Atlanta perimeter.
Eric: Oh, man. Because it’s so liberal, you mean?
Laura: Well, yeah, also it’s just a very diverse community here.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: I just am not sure… anyway. [laughs]
Eric: Okay. All right, okay, so still on werewolves, though, and still on AIDS. One thing you reminded me… because I’d forgotten that, and it’s absolutely accurate that it was sort of an AIDS allegory, I think, when it was first written – especially in Book 3, at least – where Lupin is shunned for his bloodborne affliction. And if you get somebody like Fenrir, who wants to infect people; he wants to infect as many… those people are very problematic, people with bloodborne diseases who see it as their purpose to infect as many people as possible. Yes, that’s a problem. But I also see this – thinking about what you said about BlacKkKlansman, Laura – about what conversation must be like, and I’ve always wondered this for Lupin, who is there, and Fenrir is apparently making an interesting case for empowering these werewolves to take what is theirs to fully live out… he basically – and Micah, to your point about Grindelwald – tells these people that they deserve better, that they are owed better, and that they’re entitled to more.
Micah: Right.
Eric: And I think the Ministry has absolutely not given werewolves their fair shake; I think that’s 100% accurate, but by enraging and encouraging these people to lash out and take by force, sort of the way that Voldemort would use the werewolves to do so and use them against his political enemies, is very much more in the realm of, I think, white supremacy and what that’s doing in today’s society than the AIDS epidemic ever was about. I think unfortunately, these werewolves are being really empowered, and I think Lupin is having to probably listen to a lot of conversations and maybe even throw in a racial epithet himself just to blend in, of talking down on humans or wizards or whatever. I can’t imagine what he’s going through.
Micah: It’s almost an impossible task for him, because Fenrir Greyback can just point to the current state of things and say, “Look, if Voldemort takes over, then we’re going to have so much more available to us than what the Ministry currently allows.” And that’s why I think for Lupin, it’s almost a losing battle that he’s fighting. He’s the exception, not the rule, when you look at the fact that he was able to attend Hogwarts, that Dumbledore created the Whomping Willow and allowed him to use the Shrieking Shack for his condition, and that probably wasn’t the case for many other children that grew up with being a werewolf and have had to live through a society that looks down upon them, that shuns them, that’s afraid of them because they don’t understand the condition. They don’t understand who these people really are at their core. It’s a very easy argument for Fenrir to make, to rally them to the side of Voldemort, and it’s interesting to see the two contrasting sides, right? You have Lupin, and then you have Fenrir. But I think by and large, we would probably say that most werewolves, from a… I won’t say human, but from… they’re innately good – probably – people, right?
Eric: Yeah, probably.
Micah: They just have this condition that transforms them, whereas Fenrir is now going to utilize the way that they’ve been treated over time to his advantage and rally them to the cause of Voldemort.
Laura: Yeah. We’ve got to call Jo.
[Micah laughs]
Laura: We need to be like, “Listen, we’ve got some theories.” [laughs]
Micah: It’s just so funny to me that a chapter that’s supposed to be about the holidays, right, and spending time… again, if we were to review this chapter back when we first started this podcast, then we would probably have a much different take on it, but now, we’re looking deeply into the subtext of what’s going on, and I think as we now get to the conversation between Harry and Scrimgeour, there’s even more to talk about.
Eric: About the werewolves and how they’re described as either a losing battle or… I think the Ministry just never sent anybody to talk to them the way that Lupin is. You’re right, Micah, I think Dumbledore realizes it’s a smart thing. But in other fantasy as well – I’m thinking of Narnia, for sure, probably Lord of the Rings – you get these beasts or these creatures that are just inherently bad, or that skew bad, so whenever an evil Dark Lord rises up, certain beasts are always on their side, and each individual piece of literature does its own job at either explaining or not explaining why. I think for Harry’s world, for the wizarding world, the Ministry treats werewolves as though they’ll just inherently skew bad. They’re just like, “Oh, they’re beasts. They’re creatures. They’re not human with human wants and desires, so we’ll just treat them as though they’re going to ally with Voldemort,” and maybe that’s why they don’t send any representatives, because they already think it’s kind of a lost cause.
Micah: Maybe, but I think, though, that’s where – and we can get into this when we talk about the conversation between Harry and Scrimgeour – that Dumbledore is very smart in the sense that he’s sending Lupin to infiltrate the werewolf community, or at least be able to send back information. He’s sending Hagrid to go parlay with the giants. He’s trying to do the things that the Ministry should be doing, and the Ministry is failing at doing because they just, to your point, maybe don’t see the value. Maybe they don’t think it’s worth it, but clearly Dumbledore thinks otherwise. I know you had a couple of points here, I think, Eric?
Eric: Probably, yeah. So before we get to the conversation between Harry and Scrimgeour, I want to talk about Mrs. Weasley, and I’m not going to be easy about it. I’m not going to be gentle. She is very mean to Fleur, and I don’t care for it at all. I’m not here for it. I mean, Fleur and Mrs. Weasley, it’s presented… this is a sort of thing ten years ago we were reading this; I’m like, “Oh no, Fleur is on eggshells, and she doesn’t seem to know it that she insults Mrs. Weasley’s favorite artist, Celestina Warbeck, by saying ‘Zat awful woman,’ or ‘Zis is awful, awful stuff. Zis music is so bad.'” Mrs. Weasley doesn’t knit her a sweater, and I’m pretty salty about it.
Laura: [laughs] Yeah.
Eric: Everybody gets a sweater. Harry gets a sweater every damn year. Every Weasley kid gets a sweater every damn year. Bet Hermione got a sweater. You know who doesn’t get a sweater? The fiancée of her oldest damn son, okay? And that is not okay. You cannot exclude somebody that close to your family in such an obvious way. Mrs. Weasley is so flawed right now, and women hating women is so big right now, and I can’t stand it. This bothers me to no end.
Laura: Didn’t Mrs. Weasley do the same thing to Hermione in Goblet of Fire?
Eric: Yeah, she did. I think, yeah, you’re right.
Laura: Yeah, so this is kind of a trend for her. [laughs]
Eric: Like, “Oh, my little passive aggression.” And if it took 15 to 27 hours to knit a sweater for each person, I’d say, “Sure, okay, that’s a lot of work. Maybe still be worth it.” Mrs. Weasley is still probably using magic; it probably doesn’t take that long. It’s a sheer act of passive aggression to not knit Fleur a sweater, and… ugh.
Laura: Yeah, it totally is. And I think this has its roots in the end of Order of the Phoenix when Mrs. Weasley makes the wild assumption that Bill would have to cancel his wedding to Fleur because he’s been attacked by Greyback, and Fleur was rightfully offended by that, and it seems like ever since then, these women have been at odds with each other. It sucks, but it’s also not an uncommon narrative. I think seeing conflicts between women and their mother-in-laws is a story that is as old as time. [laughs]
Eric: But I mean, yeah, you mentioned the thing at the end of Order of the Phoenix. Shouldn’t they be over it by now? Shouldn’t they have hugged and made up by now? It’s Christmas!
Laura: Yeah! I mean, Mrs. Weasley never liked Fleur to begin with, and then she sort of made the implication that Fleur was this very vapid, kind of two-dimensional figure who would only care about the way Bill looks, and she was justifiably upset by that. And if there was never any apology, then…
Eric: It’s just Fleur has not only an uphill battle, but just a never-ending battle of having to prove herself to Mrs. Weasley. And you know what? A certain type of music is not everybody’s taste. It’s just… get over it. These comments that… and everybody has to kind of “Ooh” and “Ahh” and change the subject, or Mr. Weasley is like, “Time for tea!” to clear the air, right?
[Micah laughs]
Eric: It’s all very comical, but underneath is something I think quite sinister. These women do not like each other.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Eric: It’s a bit sad when you think – and I always go back to this, forgive me – but the Goblet of Fire, the omniscient Goblet of Fire that sees into your soul, has chosen four champions of utmost character and integrity, and Fleur was one of them. So Mrs. Weasley should think twice before casting any doubts on Fleur’s character, because the centuries-old goblet gave a better reading of Fleur than years of living around her have seemed to.
Micah: Yeah, and it’s not only Fleur, though, that Mrs. Weasley has some beef with; it’s clear that she is not happy with Lupin, although that’s not how the situation is read by Harry, related to Tonks, because Harry brings up the fact that her Patronus has changed form, and he’s interested to learn how that could happen. And it’s mentioned by Lupin that a very traumatic event, usually, or an emotional state, can influence the form of someone’s Patronus. And there we have it. We’re led to believe that it’s related to Sirius, but we learn later that it’s directly related to Lupin and his unwillingness, really, to get into a relationship with Tonks.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, Harry is about to flat-out ask him, which is the most brilliant form of an interruption, because I think Mrs. Weasley sees Percy coming with the Minister. But Harry is flat-out about to ask. He says, “Do you think it could be…?” And he’s going to ask if it’s Padfoot. He thinks, “Could it be Sirius, because…?” And if that conversation were allowed to go ten seconds longer, Lupin probably would have said, “It’s probably not Sirius,” and maybe Harry would know then that something was up between Lupin and Tonks. We just never know.
Micah: And it’s also a very interesting dynamic that Mrs. Weasley is very much against this Bill and Fleur relationship, but yet is pushing the Tonks/Lupin relationship, because I feel like she’s making arguments against her son’s relationship that she’s then using for Lupin and Tonks.
Eric: That’s interesting.
Micah: And they both have the same “condition.”
Eric: Furry little problem, yeah.
Micah: Furry little problem.
Eric: Huh.
Micah: All right, so let’s get to the conversation between the Minister and Harry. As you mentioned, Percy and the Minister show up at the Burrow, and you’re led to believe initially that Scrimgeour is this nice dude who convinced his colleague to come home for the holidays and see his family and make amends, but then later learn that he’s just there to talk to Harry.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: He’s as subtle as a freight train here.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: “We were just in the area!”
Laura: “Oh, hey, young man! You with the lightning bolt scar and the green eyes! Please come help me find the garden.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: Yeah, so can we talk about how Scrimgeour goes about this all wrong? And I love it, Laura, the freight train comparison. I said, “He’s too transparent and plays his hand way too early, way too easily with Harry.” And I’m actually kind of disappointed by this, because Scrimgeour is the former Head of the Auror Office. Maybe that’s more of his forte, catching Dark wizards. But I think that that would form a bond almost, with Harry. Harry ends up taking over this position later on in his career. It’s his ambition to become an Auror, so I would think that these two would get along pretty well with each other, but that’s not the case. And maybe it’s just that Scrimgeour is not fit to be Minister; I feel like he’s probably getting a lot of pressure on his end to approach Harry and to try and get information out of him.
Laura: Probably. It was just… his attempt to be like, “Well, see, if you come to the Ministry, just pop in every now and then, I could probably get you a meeting with the Head of the Aurors’ Office.” He’s clearly misjudging what kind of teenager he’s dealing with here. He’s dealing with somebody who’s come head to head with Voldemort numerous times at this point; Voldemort murdered his family. This is somebody who is going to be more mature than your average 16-year-old, and he goes about it all wrong as a result of assuming that Harry could be easily swayed by an ability to make an early jump up the career ladder, as it were.
Micah: Exactly, exactly.
Eric: I don’t think his attempt is that flawed.
Micah: Really?
Eric: It’s just that the… yeah, because…
Micah: Even by mentioning Umbridge? I mean, that’s a huge mistake.
Eric: Well, no, that’s the problem. That’s the problem, dude, is that the little things that have bugged Harry since day one about the Ministry still do, and that’s the problem. You pointed out, Micah, they’re the same type of person. Scrimgeour and Harry, ultimately, they want to catch Dark wizards. They want to do what’s right; I believe that in both of those men. But it’s because… and the prospect of getting to meet somebody who’s actually an Auror… I mean, Harry already met Mad-Eye, Tonks, a couple of the others, but it’s a useful invite. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that invite. The problem is that he mentions that Umbridge told him that Harry wants to become an Auror, and immediately you can see Harry close off, because not only… you and I and everybody who’s read the books know exactly how that conversation happened. Umbridge was extremely smug the entire time, and was insulting Harry when she told the Minister that information. You can just tell. I can hear it right now, like, “Oh, the Potter boy thinks he’s going to be an Auror; you can use this against him, Minister,” kind of bullshit. It just… that’s extreme. The height of anger on my end. But it’s the fact that she still has a job, and that’s said in the book. The fact that Umbridge is still at the Ministry is what boils Harry’s blood over.
Micah: He shows him his hand.
Eric: Yeah, and Scrimgeour is just supposed to understand what that means? Part of me does think that Scrimgeour has just not done his research, unfortunately, and research into recent history to see that bringing up Umbridge would have been the very worst thing that he possibly could have done. Because that relationship is crucial, Harry’s past relationship with the Ministry. Sure, he had one with Fudge, kind of; Fudge’s incompetence touches everyone near and far, and is ever-reaching and all-reaching, but Umbridge is the more direct hand, and Umbridge abused, tortured, and insulted Harry, and put his life at risk in so many ways, in just less than 365 days ago, that Scrimgeour could not have ever won this argument or gotten what he wanted after bringing her name up.
Micah: Totally. But I do agree with what Laura was saying, though, when she was talking about him just coming in random days in and out of the Ministry, right? That all goes back to what Arthur was talking about perception versus reality, right? The perception that you’re catching the people who are actually Death Eaters and putting them in prison. This is the same thing; Harry popping in and out, it would just present a perception that they’re actually aligned on their goals here, and that Harry agrees with what the Ministry is doing, when we know that that’s not the case. And so Scrimgeour is just trying to paint the picture that everything is okay, or at least those that are in power in the Ministry are giving him this direction, that this is what he needs to do, and I think that he’s just not capable of doing it; he’s not persuasive. But I do think, though… and there are a couple quotes here where Harry is taking out a lot of his frustration for the Ministry as a whole from Fudge, for the past five years, on Scrimgeour. He says, “I don’t remember you rushing to my defense when I was trying to tell everyone Voldemort was back. The Ministry wasn’t so keen to be pals last year.” And then this line, which… he really kind of digs into him and says, “But you seem cleverer than Fudge, so I’d have thought you’d have learned from his mistakes. He tried interfering at Hogwarts. You might have noticed he’s not Minister anymore, but Dumbledore’s still headmaster. I’d leave Dumbledore alone if I were you.”
Eric: That’s a threat. That is a huge, huge threat.
Micah: It is a threat.
Eric: Unfortunately, it’s true. It’s just… there could have been a common ground, but Harry shuts off. There really could have been… I foresee a world in which Harry regularly pops into the Ministry, because morale is really important, you guys. There are hundreds of Ministry officials who are fighting a losing battle against authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and an autocracy, and there’re probably some good people there that are trapped in this downward spiral. And Harry really could have been more patient, I think, with Scrimgeour. I mean, if Scrimgeour hadn’t mentioned Umbridge, perhaps this could have gone a different way, and Harry could have said, “These are my grievances,” right? With the Ministry. “You’re operating… you’re corrupt. You’re still allowing somebody like Umbridge to hold office. I have a huge problem with that; here’s why,” and explained himself. They could have just had a conversation about it, because morale is pretty important. I liken it to… I just rewatched Captain America, the Captain America movie, but they hire him first as an actor, basically, to sell war bonds, because that’s the important part, is that the public is involved, and that perception is all in the right direction, or the troops can’t even make it to the frontlines because the public is not interested. And so Harry is very much being recruited as a mascot, like he says, as a poster child, but he just, when it comes down to it, lacks the faith and belief in the Ministry’s ability to do the right thing. Instead of demanding or asking Scrimgeour to release Stan Shunpike, he simply condemns Scrimgeour for having arrested Stan Shunpike, and I think that’s where Harry is wrong in all of this. Ultimately, you’ve got to have a conversation that comes from, “These are my problems and why I’m not willing to budge,” versus, “I have these problems, so I’m not willing to budge.” There’s just inflexibility on both parts, I think. On both sides.
Laura: Yeah, I was going to say, it’s not as though Scrimgeour approached him and was like, “Hey, come to the Ministry and we can talk about this.” His approach was, “If people saw you popping into the Ministry every now and then…” He never once makes the offer or extends the offer to say, “Hey, can you please help us strategize?” Nothing like that, and I think maybe if that had been the tenor and the approach of the conversation, it might have gone very differently. But they are just looking for a poster child, and Harry has already communicated he’s not interested in that. He had, in the last chapter, somebody offering to write a biography about him, and he said, “No, I absolutely do not want that!”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: So that is not who he is as a character.
Eric: That’s a good point.
Micah: But I do think it takes a lot of balls, right? Because this is a 16-year-old kid at this point talking to the equivalent of the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of the UK. This is not just a random person that’s walking alongside of him, and he just lays into him, especially with those two quotes that I mentioned. I think that there is common ground for him and Scrimgeour; I don’t think there’s common ground for him and the Ministry. I think there could have been a chance for them to work closely with him, but I think there’s too much history with the Ministry, especially given the fact that somebody like Umbridge is still in power, and he’s just not going to go for it. Plus, I don’t think he would do anything without running this by Dumbledore. Scrimgeour also messes up in trying to get information on Dumbledore, and the question is, who is looking for this information? Again, it’s very reminiscent of Crimes of Grindelwald, when the Ministry shows up and is trying to keep Dumbledore from acting and doing whatever it is that he’s going to do, and they put those shackles on him for tracking purposes.
Eric: [laughs] Yeah.
Micah: I just think that Scrimgeour plays his hand way too easily and doesn’t go about this the right way. Again, he might not be the right person for this job, and that shows through. That said, to kind of wrap up the discussion, do you think that Harry and Dumbledore would have benefited from working directly with the Ministry, given that they do have somebody in power like Scrimgeour? Despite all the flaws that he shows in this conversation?
Laura: That’s a good question. I want to say that they would have probably found themselves limited by all of the bureaucracy, and that’s probably the reason why that was never much of a consideration. Also, considering the fact that the Ministry has attempted to interfere at Hogwarts so many times, I could see why Dumbledore wouldn’t necessarily trust them to allow him to do what he thought needed to be done.
Micah: That’s a great point. Well, I think that that wraps up this chapter. A lot more was happening at the Burrow than just Stupefying a garden gnome and putting it on top of a Christmas tree.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: Yes.
Eric: Oh my God, yeah.
Micah: It was funny because we were talking before the episode, saying, “The doc is full, but I don’t know that the conversation is going to carry us till a full episode.”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: So I think it did a lot more than that.
Eric: Surprised ourselves.
Laura: Yeah. [laughs] We did good, guys.
Eric: Yeah, wow.
Connecting the Threads
Micah: But I know, Laura, you found a number of threads to connect here.
Laura: I did, and some of these are just fun things that I found between Chapter 16 of Half-Blood Prince and Chapter 16 of Chamber of Secrets, so we can go through them relatively quickly. But they were just things that as I read back through the two chapters, I was like, “Huh, that’s fun. I don’t think that was an accident, that this was in both of these chapters.” So the first one is that Harry reminds Scrimgeour that Dumbledore has dodged the Ministry’s attempts to interfere at Hogwarts before, and in Chapter 16 of Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore has instructed the school to continue running normally, including giving final exams, much to the chagrin of Ron in particular. [laughs] So just as a reminder, this was towards the end of Chamber of Secrets; Hermione and the others are still Petrified, there is still a Basilisk on the loose, and people are scared, and yet the school is still continuing to run as normal. So I thought that was fun.
Eric: Huh.
Laura: Then there was the fact that in Chapter 16 of Half-Blood Prince, Lupin mentions that James used to refer to him being a werewolf as his “furry little problem,” which led people to believe that Lupin had a poorly behaved pet rabbit.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: And in Chapter 16 of Chamber of Secrets, Harry is very confused when he’s supposed to be turning a pair of white rabbits into slippers.
Eric: Oh!
[Micah laughs]
Laura: And that made me laugh.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: I love these.
Laura: I know! I know, they’re just cute little connections, and I’m like, “Maybe they were on purpose; maybe they weren’t.” I tend to think they were, because Jo is very clever. And this is probably my favorite one: Percy just so happens to interrupt very important moments in Chapter 16 of Half-Blood Prince and Chamber of Secrets. So in Half-Blood Prince, Harry is starting to press Lupin about Tonks’s Patronus change when he shows up with Scrimgeour and sort of derails the conversation, and in Chamber of Secrets, Ginny is in the Great Hall and she’s about to spill to Harry and Ron about Tom Riddle and the diary when Percy pops up and interrupts the conversation and sort of sends Ginny away.
Eric: Oh, that’s right.
Micah: Interesting.
Laura: Damn it, Percy.
Eric: Damn it, Percy!
Laura: Just ruining everything. And then the final one – and this is kind of a loose connection, but I thought it was relevant – Scrimgeour gave lame excuses for imprisoning Stan Shunpike, as well as kind of Mr. Weasley’s acknowledgement that it was a problem, but seeming inability to do anything about it. And then Lockhart in Chapter 16 of Chamber of Secrets gave a whole bunch of lame excuses about not being able to help Ginny when the Hogwarts staff started pressing him about, “Well, you said if you could have a go at him, that you would have taken care of this a long time ago, so this is your chance.”
Eric: Wow. This is impeccable, Laura. This is a great list. [laughs]
Laura: It was just fun. I pulled out both books last night and I was going back and forth, and I was like, “Oh my God!”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: Yeah, I also just thought about, too, how Hagrid is imprisoned without any evidence.
Laura: Yep. Ooh, yeah, you’re right. Oh my God. [makes exploding sound] That was my mind, just blown right there.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: No, these are great connections.
Eric: Yeah, wow.
MVP of the Week
Eric: Shall we do MVP of the Week?
Laura: Yes.
Micah: All right, I gave mine to the Burrow.
Eric: Okay.
Micah: I thought that it is kind of a character in and of itself, and just the fact that it was all decked out for the holidays, despite the garden gnome atop the Christmas tree… I just like that the Burrow kind of has its own personality, and I just like the way that it gets described by J.K. Rowling during the holidays.
Eric: And Laura, what’s your MVP?
Laura: Mine is the Christmas gnome angel perched atop the tree.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Laura: I fully support this gnome continuing to glare down on this family that has wronged it…
[Eric laughs]
Laura: … and while I don’t think that it’s addressed later what is done with the gnome, my hope is that it was released back into the garden.
Eric: Oh, God. It’s just put into the ornament box for next year.
Laura: Eugh.
Eric: Put in a state of suspended magical animation. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, they’re like, “It’s already Stupefied, so we’ll just put it in the box.”
Eric: Oh my God.
Laura: That’s really messed up. Come on, Fred and George. Be better. It’s 2019.
Eric: Yeah, be best, Fred and George. Be best.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: I’m going to say my MVP of the Week goes to Scrimgeour, Rufus Scrimgeour. Dumbledore has not been letting him see Harry or talk to Harry, and I’ll be damned if Scrimgeour didn’t find just the way to do it. It’s true, he sabotages or hijacks Harry’s Christmas vacation, which is sort of not cool, but here’s a man who needed to do something, and he went and found a way to do it. He circumvented Dumbledore; he had his conversation with Harry. Even when it’s clear that Rufus is not going to get everything he ever wanted, he flat-out asks Harry, “Why is Dumbledore leaving Hogwarts? Where is he going?” These other random questions that he’s just blunt force like, “I need to know; I’m going to ask.” I just think that’s very bold, and I appreciate, as a character, that Scrimgeour can be so upfront even when he’s losing, can just be so purposeful in trying to glean some information, so that’s why he’s my MVP.
Rename the Chapter
Eric: And now we’re going to rename the chapter.
Micah: All right, I went with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 16, “The Mistaken Minister.”
Eric: I went with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 16, “No Sweater for You!”
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Laura: That’s amazing. I went with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 16, “Christmas Subtext.”
Eric: Oooh.
Eric and Micah: I like it.
Quizzitch
Eric: All right, well, now it’s time to move on to Quizzitch. Last week’s question: What Christmas gift does Harry receive from Kreacher? Oh, yeah, I guess we didn’t really talk about how everybody got some Christmas gifts. We did talk about the sweaters, though, which were the most important. And so the correct answer… so actually, we don’t know necessarily what was in the package that Kreacher gave to Harry originally, but regardless, when Harry opens the package, he finds that it has maggots, unfortunately, in it, which is… did you guys gag when you read that?
Laura: Yeah, especially when Ginny later plucked a maggot out of Harry’s hair.
[Eric shudders]
Laura: It made me want to vomit.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Yeah, that’s a really, really good point. So it is maggots. And do you guys think…? Real quick here before I announce the winners, do you think that Kreacher is obligated to send a Christmas gift to Harry? Because this actually could be a whole ten-minute discussion. But why would Kreacher feel the need?
Micah: Probably just because Harry is his master.
Eric: But why…? I mean, it’s certainly a Christian thing, Christmas is, but it’s not like the Dursleys, where they used to send Harry a dirty sock just to prove a point that they are thinking about him and hate him. Is that why Kreacher did what he did? Or is Kreacher contractually obligated to send master a Christmas gift? I really wonder about that.
Micah: I think there’s probably something about having to send master a Christmas gift.
Eric: Yeah. Interesting. Well, why not…?
Laura: Yeah, and then he just meets the lowest possible requirement. [laughs] “Yes, I sent you something. It was a package full of maggots.”
Eric: Yeah. So if Christmas, why not birthdays? That’s what I’m saying; you’ve got to give him a better gift for his birthday next year. I hope to see it. So the people who got it right – it was maggots – include Justin Sharkey, Kimira VP, I’m Tall, That Ravenclaw Hobbit Guy, Marley, Fluffy McNutters, Alexandra, Jenniffler, Young Susie Blood, Count Ravioli, Sarah Davis, Andre, Michelle, Danielle, Asim, MuggleZu, Retta, Justin, Jeff, Felix Booker, Erica, A Man Has No Name – Game of Thrones premieres in April – Lindsay, Shauna Evans, Megan, The Real Slim Brady, KngOfKngs, and William Walton. Congratulations to all the people who participated in this week’s – or last week’s – Quizzitch question. This week’s Quizzitch Question: How much does it cost to take Apparition lessons? And this is from our forthcoming chapter, Chapter 17, of Half-Blood Prince, so those of you who are reading along with us will reach this answer on their own in due time. And as a slight bonus question, tell us what the cost is of Apparition lessons broken down per week. So both that information is in the new chapter. Once again, how much does it cost to take Apparition lessons? And as a bonus, what’s the cost per week? At reply @MuggleCast and hashtag #Quizzitch to participate.
Laura: Awesome.
Micah: Well, I think that wraps up Episode 404. There are a number of ways that you can get in touch with us. First, though, wanted to plug the really good, as it says, bonus MuggleCast that we did on whether or not Ginny is a Mary Sue. You can find that over on Patreon.com/MuggleCast, where we do bonus installments a couple times a month for our patrons. You can also get a number of other benefits: You can listen to this show live as we record, as a number of patrons are doing right now. We do monthly giveaways, amongst other things, and just a great community of listeners over at Patreon.com/MuggleCast.
Eric: Laura, I was blown away. I just asked you a question – “What did you mean about Ginny?” – and it turned into a 15-minute discussion last episode.
Laura: I know, I loved it. It was such a good conversation. And that’s one of the things that I love the most about doing this show, is that we can just go down these rabbit holes, but then they turned out being really significant. So definitely…
Eric: If today’s episode is any indicator, we sure can have discussion.
Laura: Yes, we can. But yeah, this was a really good bonus MuggleCast, in which I thought, even though I definitely feel one way about this, I felt like, Eric, you brought up a lot of really good points.
Eric: I will say, when she expertly plucked the maggot out of Harry’s hair, I was like, “How did she spot that? She’s such a Mary Sue. Oh my God.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: That’s funny.
Eric: She deftly plucks it out of his hair, and Harry gets goosebumps? Oh, she’s such a Mary Sue. It’s so wish fulfillment, everybody. Sorry.
Laura: [laughs] But yeah, definitely listen to that. It was a really good discussion.
Eric: Yeah, for sure.
Micah: And we didn’t get to any this episode, but definitely feel free to call us at the MuggleCast voicemail line. You can do so by dialing 1-920-3-MUGGLE – that’s 1-920-368-4453 – or send us an email at MuggleCast@gmail.com. You can also use the contact form to get in touch with us on the website and send us feedback on our discussion from this episode on Chapter 16, or feel free to send us your thoughts on the upcoming chapter of Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 17. If you want to send us real mail, you can do so by sending a package, an envelope, a letter, a parcel… Eric, what do we accept over there?
Eric: Nothing with maggots, please. Nothing with maggots, thank you.
Micah: Yeah, none of that, none of that. Send it to MuggleCast at 4044 North Lincoln Avenue, box number 144, Chicago, Illinois, 60618.
Eric: Wow, guys.
Micah: So I think that does it for Episode 404. We’ll see everybody next week for Episode 405.
Eric: Goodbye!
Laura: Later.
Micah: Bye.