Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #407, G.O.A.T. (HBP 18, Birthday Surprises)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast Episode 407. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: On today’s show, we’re discussing Half-Blood Prince Chapter 18, “Birthday Surprises,” and we have some news to discuss. [laughs] It’s always funny to me when people hear I do a Harry Potter podcast. They’re like, “What do you talk about?” I’m like, “Well, we’re still going through the books, and there’s still news.” And this is a perfect example of how this stuff just comes up, and it just works so well for a weekly Harry Potter podcast.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
News
Andrew: So of course, as we have been saying here on the show, there’s been some fallout around the second Fantastic Beasts movie, and WB’s CEO commented on the negative reaction. He was speaking to The Los Angeles Times for some reason, and they said, “So what went wrong with Fantastic Beasts 2?”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, kind of a little awkward of a question to ask the CEO. And he said, “The second film didn’t perform as well as the first, but I think we know what we need to do to get the third film hopefully even better than the first one. And J.K. Rowling is really working hard now on that third script, and we’re going to get it right. She has an incredible vision of where she wants to go with this that is incredibly exciting.”
Eric: I’m going to stop you right there. This part of the quote sounds delightful, right? That’s great. That’s cool.
Andrew: And the news here from this part of the quote is that J.K. Rowling did return to the script. She had said that she was finished writing Fantastic Beasts 2 last year.
Eric: Oh.
Andrew: So she’s back at it…
Micah: 3.
Andrew: 3, yeah. And now here’s the second part of the quote: “The hardest part of the franchise is you have such a big core fan base. That fan base really knows the lore and they want to go deep into these characters. But what you don’t want to do is intimidate people. You want to be able to create a stand-alone movie that’s enjoyable for someone who isn’t steeped in the lore.”
Laura: Um…
Eric: [laughs] Womp-womp.
Laura: Yeah, so I think that most anybody would be cool with all the extra lore that we were getting in the films if it made sense.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: Thank you, Laura.
Laura: If there was the appropriate amount of context included. [laughs]
Andrew: Right. This quote kind of scares me, because their hypothesis is incorrect.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: They’re not pursuing the right path here. It’s not that they’re having a hard time balancing the hardcore fans and pleasing the casual people who maybe don’t care about what the hardcore fans do; it’s that the hardcore fans need to understand everything that you’re saying, and so do the softcore fans, the casual fans. Right? That’s the problem.
Laura: Correct.
Eric: Yeah, I’d love to complain that this film was “only for general audiences. Oh my God, we didn’t get anything deep.” But the things we got just didn’t make any sense. And I’m not talking about… the films are allowed to end on a cliffhanger; that’s not… I mean, if you set aside the Dumbledore reveal at the end of the movie, you still get a film that… I mean, even general audiences, it’s not clear why these characters are doing these things, and everything with the prophecy is just so jumbled and mixed, and the plot and execution is not that of a standard film. It’s just not how you tell a movie story. And so I’m very confused how the CEO appears to have gotten the mixed message, again, about what went wrong.
Micah: Yeah, and I think that anytime a CEO is doing an interview like this, he or she has the questions in advance for the most part, so they know what they’re going to be asked, so they’re able to prepare a response. And I agree with what you both said; I think that it was just too confusing. And if the movie did end, let’s say, not long after you had that big battle scene, you did have these sort of cliffhanger moments. You had Credence go over with Grindelwald, you had Queenie go over with Grindelwald, and then just minutes later, you have this big reveal about Aurelius Dumbledore. And I just think it didn’t sit well the way it was delivered to fans; it just was too confusing. I had people who were in the theater with me who just… they were so confused. They just didn’t get it, especially because, Eric, to your point, you’re spending the entire film focused on this prophecy and thinking that you’re going to get a reveal that Credence is Leta’s brother. And we talked last week about these deleted scenes; I think some of those deleted scenes maybe would have helped with the flow of the story. Maybe they make the movie, what, seven/eight minutes longer, but it would have, I think, helped with the storytelling component.
Laura: I agree.
Micah: I just… this is a pre-scripted response by the CEO, and I don’t really know that it tells us anything. If J.K. Rowling would have said some of these things, I think maybe we would have responded a little bit differently.
Eric: It would have made this so much worse.
Micah: But how many movies does the WB CEO have to be concerned with over the course of a year?
Eric: Yeah, lots.
Andrew: I think the Harry Potter franchise is very important to him. It’s one of their three big franchises right now – DC, Lego, and this – and for what it’s worth, I remember that Kevin Tsujihara, the WB CEO, was the one who went directly to J.K. Rowling, sat down with her, and said, “Hey, can we do anything with Fantastic Beasts?” And she credits Kevin with getting this series going. There’s a quote from her being like, “When I say he’s literally responsible for this happening, I mean it. He asked me about it, and this was the idea I had in the back of my head anyway. If I were to ever write more in the wizarding world, it would be about Dumbledore and Grindelwald.” Although she didn’t say that at the time; she said Newt.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Poor Newt.
Andrew: So anyway, I just also want to mention that in the same interview, Kevin Tsujihara says that Harry Potter: Wizards Unite – that Pokémon Go type game – is going to be up this summer. I am so excited for that. I can’t wait to dive in.
Eric: God. Yeah, that’s going to be great. I can’t wait for the song of the summer, whatever it’s going to be…
[Laura laughs]
Eric: … to blast that, get on my shorts, my board shorts, and my jandals…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: … and go down to the beach, the fake beach in Chicago, and try and catch some fantastic beasts.
Andrew: “Hey, everybody. Eric Scull. I’m a MuggleCaster out and about trying to catch a Golden Snitch in my flip-flops.”
Eric: Yeah!
Micah: The real question is: Is Patrick going to be able to move away from Hogwarts Mystery to play Wizards Unite?
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I’m hoping the mystery is solved by the time that game comes out, because I shudder to think how much time he’ll be spending on his phone juggling both games. It’ll be interesting to see it, too, because the Pokémon Go company is creating this new Harry Potter one, and presumably they’re going to be using the same locations. Is my local 7-Eleven just going to be populated with Pokémon Go and Wizards Unite players now?
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Just yesterday they were all congregating at the 7-Eleven because of something going on with Pokémon Go.
Eric: Those hooligans.
Andrew: [laughs] That’s going to be us, catching some…
Eric: Yeah, just trying to find my Gatorade.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: “Get out of here.”
Andrew: So update on Rowling watch: She did kind of come back. She tweeted, “Happy Album Release Day” to the Fat Cops, which is a indie rock band; Eric did a little research there. So she’s not tweeting anything yet, for anyone who’s keeping track, but she did tweet that message directly to the band and favorited a couple of tweets.
Eric: Yeah, she liked a review of their tweets, she liked a reply, and as you say, wished them a happy album release. So I thought we might actually play this music. See, it wasn’t the well wishes of fans across the world that brought her back to Twitter; it was this album release of this band that nobody’s heard of.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: So I thought we should play them, because obviously they’re good enough to bring Rowling back to Twitter, to achieve the impossible.
Andrew: Is this how we get J.K. Rowling to notice us? We start a band?
Eric: Maybe.
Laura: Oh my God, we can call ourselves Muggle and the Casters.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Okay.
Micah: Who’s the Muggle?
Laura: [laughs] You. Micah, you’re the Muggle.
Andrew: Here’s a brief clip. Let’s hear if they’re any good.
[“Hands Up! Get Down!” by Fat Cops plays]
Andrew: Wow. Okay, good stuff.
Listener Feedback
Andrew: So onto Muggle Mail now. We only got one email. You know what, dear listeners? We’re not getting many emails, and we would love if you emailed us. Old school. We get voicemails, which is great – we’ll get back to them – but we would love if people wrote in. MuggleCast@gmail.com, or you can use the MuggleCast website. This is from Amy. She said,
“Hello, MuggleCasters. I’m hoping to leave you a voicemail as well to gush about the Studio Tour and Cursed Child, but for now I wanted to send you my family’s photos taken at Platform 9 3/4 last week. We took our daughter to London for her 9 3/4 birthday…”
Laura: Ohh!
Andrew: “… and had the most magical time doing all things Harry Potter. The staff at Platform 9 3/4 was so excited for her day and the fact that she had sign.” I don’t know what that means, but…
Micah: A sign?
Eric: The sign in the photo.
Andrew: Oh.
Eric: They did get a photo of her, and the photo, I believe, says, “It’s my 9 3/4 birthday.”
Andrew: Maybe this is what I’ll do for my nephew. On his nine and three quarters birthday, I’ll give him the Harry Potter illustrated edition books. There should be at least five of them out by that time.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: But one of them will be part one of Book 4, or part two. [laughs]
Andrew: Keep dreaming, Eric! They’re all one book. [laughs]
Eric: I know, I know, I know.
Laura: Andrew, I thought you were going to say this was what you were going to do… you were going to take him to Platform Nine and Three Quarters.
Andrew: Oh.
Laura: And I was like, “Well, you have eight and three quarter years to save for that, so…”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, but do I really want to spend that much on him? I mean, I love him, but that much? Eh…
[Laura laughs]
Eric: I thought I was nerdy for celebrating half birthdays every year, but this nine and three quarter thing is going to catch on. This is phenomenal. I want to know how Amy thought of it or heard of it, but this is an amazing way to celebrate for a kid who’s into Harry Potter.
Andrew: I agree, and I also feel like that’s a good age to start reading the Harry Potter books. Clearly, your daughter already read them, but that’s really cool, and that’s why I’m thinking maybe I’ll get my nephew into Harry Potter when he turns nine and three quarters. We should have had a birthday party when MuggleCast turned nine and three quarters!
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Yeah, that was a missed opportunity.
Eric: Oh, man.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Well, when we turn 687, for Harry’s vault, we’ll go to Gringotts. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah. Well, Episode 687. That’s realistic.
Eric: Oh, I guess so, yeah.
Andrew: So before we get to Chapter by Chapter, we have a new sponsor this week that I think any Hogwarts student would be interested in signing up for: Chegg.
[Ad break]
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Andrew: All right, it’s time now for Chapter by Chapter. We’re discussing Half-Blood Prince Chapter 18, “Birthday Surprises.” You know, guys, did you notice that in this chapter, they’re transitioning from February to March, like we are IRL?
Eric: Oh! Yeah.
Andrew: Did we plan it that way?
Laura: Let’s say yes.
Micah: Yeah, of course.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Yeah, I mean, it’s basically Ron’s birthday is March 1, which was just two days ago when I was reading this chapter, so it felt real special.
Andrew: Yeah, Happy Birthday, Ron. Laura, weren’t you a big Ron fan back in the day?
Laura: I was, and I really hate what the movies did to him. I feel like there’s so much of Ron’s character that either gets… sort of the best aspects of Ron get moved over to Hermione for whatever reason, and then they just kind of make him look like an idiot throughout the entire thing. He’s an idiot for much of the books, but… [laughs]
Eric: And this book especially.
Laura: Yeah, but there are many redeeming qualities that I feel like are not demonstrated in the films, so I was always very disappointed in that.
Andrew: He’s an idiot, but he’s your idiot.
Laura: Yeah, kinda.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: All right, so let’s do the Seven-Word Summary. Laura, start us off.
Laura: Ron…
Eric: … doesn’t…
Micah: … really…
Andrew: … love…
Laura: … Romilda…
Eric: … Vane…
[prolonged silence]
Andrew: Micah?
Micah: Yeah, well, Eric kind of threw a wrench in it there.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: You know, okay, all right… I can retcon it.
Micah: No, no, no, you have to… you’ve already said your word.
Laura: You could make it “Vane’s.”
Micah: … wholeheartedly.
Laura: Okay.
Andrew: Wholeheartedly.
Laura: Aww.
Eric: Good word.
Andrew: I was going to say, “No mo’.” Pretend that’s one word.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Or “at-all.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: All right, so that’s a good one. I feel like that was pretty accurate and fit well.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Andrew: So Micah, who’s now frustrated by Seven-Word Summary, why don’t you kick us off? Lead us through the discussion.
Micah: Be happy to, Andrew. So the chapter starts off with Harry telling, actually, both Ron and Hermione about what Dumbledore has tasked him with. But I think the most interesting piece of it is that he tells Hermione about Horcruxes, and it’s something she doesn’t really know what it is. And I found it a little bit… I know it’s a little bit further down the line, but there’s not a whole lot of information about this piece of magic out there. And this is a centerpiece to the series; I mean, it’s really everything, and yet it’s just such a small footnote now having been dropped at the end of the last chapter, and now at the beginning of this one, but it’s just kind of casually there, and we’re expected just to focus more on the fact that Ron almost kills himself by taking these love potion chocolates.
Andrew: Well, remember, Micah, this is a children’s series, so we have to have some fun too.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: I know. Well, is this all fun? I mean, it’s a pretty serious chapter. At the end, you don’t even know what happened to Ron.
Andrew: Have some hijinks too.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: It does end pretty scarily, I think, with no guarantee of Ron’s safety. But I think you guys were right last week when I think, Micah, it may have been you who said the time to ask about Horcruxes was last chapter when Harry was with Dumbledore and he first heard the word. Would have been real easy to just go, “Hey, by the way, what are these?” Because Hermione doesn’t know, and in fact, we find out – I think it’s later, or maybe it’s a movie-ism – but Dumbledore expressly forbids teachers to talk about it, and has personally removed all the books that would have mentioned Horcruxes from the school library, from the Restricted Section. These are the books that Dumbledore keeps in his office, so there’s no way you’re going to find out about it from anybody other than Dumbledore, or in the case of, I guess, Harry eventually gets it from Slughorn. But it’s adults only kind of a thing, and that’s just the way it is.
Laura: Yeah. I did want to give a shout-out to Hermione here for actually recognizing the importance of figuring out what Horcruxes are. It’s kind of funny, because it feels like there may have been something that happened between chapters here that we just didn’t get access to, because all of a sudden, Harry seems to have this renewed interest in figuring out what Horcruxes are, and he mentions that he had hoped Hermione would know, and it makes me wonder if between chapters, Harry was like, “Oh, yeah, and there was this thing about Horcruxes.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: And I could see Hermione being like, “Well, did you ask what they are?” And then when Harry says, “Uh, no,” Hermione is like, “Okay, idiot, let me go try and figure this out for you.”
Andrew: [laughs] Is it the fact that they’re so hard to get information on that Harry is now really intrigued by them?
Laura: Probably.
Eric: Well, yeah, I think it’s when Hermione draws a blank, because that’s never happened before. And I think part of this whole Ron/Hermione breakup thing that’s going on right now is basically to underscore how under-appreciated Hermione is, and how comfortable or how used to her help they’ve been. Even later in this Potions class, Ron kind of realizes he can’t just copy Hermione or rely on her to help him out when he’s stuck, so he ends up brewing probably the worst potion he’s ever brewed before in his life. Hermione is always going to be there, and that’s how Harry feels. It’s just like, “Oh, I’ll just ask Hermione about Horcruxes,” maybe in the back of his mind. But now at the beginning of this chapter, when she doesn’t know, he’s like, “Oh, man, now I am interested. Now I’m very much in the game. I have to kick it in gear.”
Micah: Right. And I think one of the other things that’s kind of underscored through this chapter when we’re talking about the Horcruxes, or we’re talking about the potion-making, is the fact that when the three of them aren’t working together, it makes things a lot more challenging and a lot more difficult, because they all bring something to the table. And I think it’s challenging, particularly for Harry, to have to constantly be sharing information in two different situations, right? He can’t tell Ron and Hermione together about what Dumbledore has tasked him with. Can’t tell both of them together about the Horcruxes; they can’t work on a solution together. The same thing as it relates to Malfoy and what he’s up to later in the chapter. I think when they’re together, they’re at their best.
Andrew: [emotionally] Need to get the band back together. This is so sad.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: I can’t take it anymore! So they do have this Potions lesson, and it’s no match for the Half-Blood Prince. Harry finally feels like he might be stuck, because he can’t find a solution; he can’t find some notes about an antidote. But wait a second: He flips a few more pages, and he finds a note that says, “Oh, just shove a bezoar down its throat.” And Harry ends up deciding to try this, and lo and behold, it works. But an interesting thing here is that Harry realizes, “Wait, hasn’t Snape brought up bezoars before?” And what’s interesting to me is that this note, “Just stuff one of these down its throat,” is so in contrast to the line that Harry recalls from Potions. One of them is just so slap-dash, and the other one is so formal teacher, so it’s like, you can’t really make the connection there. But should Harry have?
Micah: Not necessarily, but I think the reader could have, because you have that very… as you say, it’s very teacher-esque, the way it’s scripted and written out about bezoars, and then not a paragraph later, it’s referencing the fact that, “Well, hadn’t Snape mentioned them in Harry’s first ever Potions class?” I feel like that was a little bit of a way for J.K. Rowling to drop a clue for readers that there could be some connection here that we’re still not figuring out as readers.
Eric: If anything, the handwriting on the box of bezoars should match that of the Half-Blood Prince. [laughs] Because he wrote “Bezoars” on the box. Presuming he wrote it and didn’t get it at a store where the cardboard box had already been written on, “Bezoars.”
Andrew: As a reader, though, I still don’t find this to be a very big clue.
Micah: No, but…
Eric: It’s subtle. It’s kind of brilliant.
Micah: It’s subtle, exactly. It’s there.
Andrew: It’s there. It’s a thing.
Micah: And I just thought, too, that this whole Potions class was very foretelling of what was to happen later on in the chapter with Ron, right? It’s trying to come up with these antidotes, and then all of a sudden, Harry finds the solution by flipping a couple pages and going and getting a bezoar.
Eric: I loved the couple of pages here where it seemed like Harry would finally lose or have to come clean or… that was, I thought, really good tension. Hermione is kind of gloating a bit too much for my liking. [laughs] She’s just so happy to see Harry fail, and when he doesn’t, I think we kind of feel with her. I feel Hermione’s pain in this chapter most, of when Harry is able to yet again cheek his way into Slughorn’s good graces. I think it’s said that she isolates 52 separate poisons there, or something like that, in her antidote that she’s trying to make.
Micah: That’s all well and good, though, but if Harry didn’t flip those pages, what would have happened at the end of the chapter?
Eric: Yeah, considering Slughorn does not have a game time reaction.
Micah: He’s too hungover.
Andrew: He would have died on his birthday, and Laura would have been really upset.
Laura: Yep. Wahh.
Andrew: Her idiot, dead.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: So it definitely makes internal sense for him to see what the bezoar is, and then he uses it later in the chapter. That’s right.
Laura: But yeah, I totally felt Hermione’s frustration here. She’s worked her ass off throughout this entire lesson based off her actual knowledge. She is actually the better student, and yet here’s Harry, again, pulling an answer out of this book that is not in any way indicative of his actual talent at Potions, and yet he’s getting all the fanfare still.
Micah: But if Hermione was a true friend, she would realize the fact that Harry needs to endear himself to Slughorn, and what better way to do this than to continue what the Half-Blood Prince is providing him with?
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Well, actually, I think she is a real friend because she’s telling him early on in the chapter that he needs to come up with a strategy for how he’s going to approach Slughorn, and he just seems to think, “Oh, I’ll just hang out and talk to him after class,” and we see how well that goes.
Micah: Yeah. No, that’s a good point.
Andrew: But this book also has saved Ron’s life, so Hermione should be a big fan of it now.
Laura: Well, she doesn’t know that yet.
Eric: It’s just that Harry has chosen to rely on this book 100%. If Harry had seen… I like to think of myself, if I were a student and if I got this book, I’d be like, “Okay, this is very helpful. It’s a game changer on things, but I still haven’t grasped the fundamentals of why Potions…” So that’s Harry’s big thing in this chapter, is he needs to understand the basic, rudimentary laws of potion-making to be able to complete this exercise, and he just doesn’t. So it’s not… I mean, to use the book to get you halfway is smart and useful and would have been the better call, but Harry wouldn’t have been so paralyzed if he had just a basic understanding of Potions. I mean, he’s a sixth year Potions student; he should generally understand what the deal is with Potions, but he seems to really not be able to without… he’s using the book as a crutch a little bit too much.
Laura: Yeah, and actually, Slughorn mentions… when Harry gives him the bezoar, he’s like, “Well, yeah, this is really cheeky and clever, but it doesn’t work on everything, so you should still understand how this works.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Slughorn is very genial about Harry, and part of that has to do with him reading the Half-Blood Prince’s book. But there’s also this connection; it got brought up again, and I want to get your guys’ thoughts on it. It’s just… he brings up how Lily was such a good potioner, and I keep forgetting that that’s not just a throwaway line. Now I want to ask: If Lily was so good at Potions, shouldn’t she have just married Snape?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: And gotten it over with? I often think of Snape’s Patronus as being, “Okay, so he was totally into her, and that’s kind of creepy,” but it sounds like they really did have something in common. The Half-Blood Prince, a.k.a. Snape, really understood Potions, had that intuitive knack, in much the way that Slughorn describes Lily as having had. So is it possible, guys, that they were more alike than we appreciate, often?
Laura: Totally. I think 100%. I think one of the interesting things about Snape’s character is that, were he less of a jackass, he could have been Harry’s father. He and Lily were really good friends when they were younger, and I like to imagine – this is my headcanon, but – young Snape and Lily sitting down, working on potions together, and some of these discoveries that are written down in the Half-Blood Prince’s textbook were actually things that Snape and Lily discovered together…
Eric: Ohh.
Andrew: Aw.
Laura: … so Harry is kind of low-key using solutions that his mother helped develop.
Andrew: Aw, that’s so cute.
Laura: Isn’t it beautiful? It’s my headcanon.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Wow. So what qualities do you need to be a good potioner? Patience and observation skills, right? So I mean, maybe that same patience is what made Lily able to put up with James Potter for so long in his teenage years.
Andrew: Interesting. But I don’t like this idea that Snape and Lily… Snape could have been Harry’s father, because if that were the case, Harry just wouldn’t exist.
Laura: Well, you know what I mean. Lily kind of had this… we don’t really know all that much about her, but the two primary men in her life during her Hogwarts years, as far as we know, were Snape and James, and there was this very definitive breaking moment where Snape decided to go be a Death Eater, where it became very clear that that path was closed, and so that is ultimately, I think, what opened up the path for Lily to pursue James Potter, perhaps, or maybe for him to see, “Oh, I have this opportunity now. Let me act like more of an adult.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: Maybe.
Micah: Yeah, this chapter, too – or even the book as a whole, I feel like – allows us to learn more just about Lily as a character through Slughorn. And I feel also like Potions, which has long been the bane of Harry’s existence for such a long period of time, ever since he stepped foot at Hogwarts, it’s now kind of become his… I won’t say his favorite class, but it’s like things have flipped a little bit. He’s got a professor who he likes who’s teaching him, he’s doing well at the subject, and he’s getting all these great insights and references to his mother. I think this book is as much about Lily at times as it is about Snape…
Eric: Wow.
Micah: … and I think they did even more service in the movie with the scene in Hagrid’s Hut when Slughorn is talking about Francis, his fish that Lily had given him, and it shows just how strong of a bond existed between Lily and Slughorn. And I oftentimes wonder, is that also part of the reason why Dumbledore brought Slughorn back? Or was it purely just to find out about the memory? Or was it to give Harry a little bit more of a bond to somebody who knew his mother?
Laura: I think maybe that was a bonus, because I think…
Micah: Dumbledore is still savage? [laughs]
Laura: Kind of, but I mean, I can see him looking at this and being like, “Hey, you have this information I really need. You also had a favorite student in Harry’s mother, and you’re already obsessed with Harry because of his standing in the wizarding world.”
Micah: Right.
Laura: So a pretty easy connection to make. But I wanted to piggyback off of your point, Micah, that we learn way more about Lily through her associations with Snape than we ever learn about her through her associations with James.
Eric: Yeah. Part of that is because the other Marauders are unavailable for comment.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: They’re just not… you get a little bit about James or a little bit about Lily at Christmas and birthdays, but not… just the reunions type stuff. So I do find it fascinating.
Andrew: Something else I found interesting was that Hermione experiences something that she rarely experiences: the inability to find information on the Horcruxes, like we were talking about earlier. I wonder if the series was set a decade later, would J.K. Rowling have written this storyline where Hermione goes to London and gets onto a computer and starts googling for Horcruxes? Because she is just totally out of options. And this book was set in the ’90s, back when the Internet exploded. Back before the Internet exploded.
Eric: It would be like if the government decided to remove a topic off the Internet and actually succeeded, would be the equivalent, I think. Which is weird. I mean, I’m assuming there are… you probably can’t google how to build a bomb, and I would really recommend our listeners don’t try, because you’ll get on a list.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: But that’s what a Horcrux is, essentially, is a very destructive… it’s the same kind of thing where it would only cause harm learning about it, so it’s removed. It’s a dark web kind of topic. But yeah, it’s definitely never happened before. Hermione… the library has never failed Hermione; she’s even found Nicolas Flamel, and she did a massive search for that back in year one.
Andrew: She would totally go to a cat cafe, by the way, and just steal somebody’s laptop.
Laura: [laughs] I do wonder… in modern day Hogwarts, they have Muggle Studies, so one is presuming the Internet is a big part of that at this point, 2019. So does modern day Hogwarts have Wi-Fi for people who are taking Muggle Studies?
Eric: Yes, but it’s always down.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Damn it, Peeves. It’s always his fault. [laughs]
Andrew: Or are they just taking field trips into the Muggle world to experience computers and iPhones? Is there cell reception at Hogwarts? You would think so.
Eric: I think the magic interferes with it, because electronic devices don’t work at Hogwarts.
Andrew: Man, that would suck.
Eric: Was it Andrew or Micah…? You wanted to debate something here?
Andrew: Oh, yeah. So another big focus of the chapter is Apparition lessons, and Harry says something I found kind of interesting. All the students are very excited to learn, as we saw in a previous chapter, and Harry is like, “Oh, I don’t even really care to do well here, because I just prefer flying.” So I wonder, fly or Apparate: Which one would we prefer?
Eric: Flying.
Laura: Fly.
Andrew: Why?
Laura: I feel like flying incorporates far more decision-making abilities, whereas Apparition is very much these low level, almost subconscious level abilities. And we see what happens to Susan Bones when she’s not entirely focused on her destination; she ends up legless for a moment. And I just like the idea of being able to control what’s happening to me.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: When I’m flying, I am in 100% control of that.
Andrew: Unless someone jinxes your broom. I find flying very dangerous. You’re up in the air very high. You could hit a bird or another wizard or a plane. You could be spotted very easily. You’re not buckled in or anything; you’re sitting on a freaking broomstick.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: But what if you fly only five feet above the ground?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Uh…
Andrew: Is that allowed? I doubt that’s allowed.
Eric: Like a Landspeeder in Star Wars? That’d be pretty cool.
Laura: Yeah. I’m imagining it in the countryside, where nobody’s there, just a few feet up.
Andrew: Sure, if I want to graze the farm field.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: I don’t see the point of only being five feet up in the air. [laughs]
Eric: You could till the field.
Laura: Because then if you fall, you don’t die.
Eric: Well, I mean, let’s not forget, too, when Harry flies, he’s got Bludgers hit at him, so he’s having to avoid serious cranial injury. But he still prefers flying. I think the problem is just the danger, like you pointed out. It’s not… flying, it might be more dangerous than riding a car, than driving a car, because you’re not as protected. Unless you have some kind of magical shield around you, you’re not protected against collision. There’s also the altitude factor; you fly too high, you probably can’t breathe. So there’s a lot more that makes it more dangerous, but is that as dangerous than possibly leaving half of yourself in your last destination? [laughs] If the Heads of House weren’t all there in this room to fix Susan Bones in a puff of purple smoke seconds after it happened, what would really have happened to her?
Micah: Eh, I feel like they’re practicing this within a safe environment where if something happens, they’ll be able to take care of it like they do.
Andrew: Right.
Micah: My argument was going to be, what if you’re being chased by a Death Eater or Voldemort? Are you just going to be like, “Excuse me, sir, can you wait a second while I grab my broom so I can fly out of here?” Or you’re just going to Apparate on the spot?
Andrew: Yeah. [laughs] “Accio broom.” “Okay, everybody. He’s getting his broom. He’s going to fly.”
[Micah laughs]
Laura: But I mean, just because you Apparate doesn’t mean that something bad can’t happen to you. Look at what happened to Dobby.
Micah: That’s true.
Andrew: What also cracks me up is that for these Apparition lessons, the teacher is like, “Destination, Determination, Deliberation!” and there’s all this work involved, and then when they learned about flying, it’s just “Up!” Say, “Up!”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Very different. A lot simpler.
Laura: Well, and also, there’s just no strategy being taught here. This teacher’s like, “Yep, here are your keywords, and then go ahead and just take a half turn on the spot, and you’ll…” Like, what?
Andrew: Yeah, what cracks me up about that is they’re entering 12 weeks of lessons, and he wants them to do it 30 seconds into the initial lesson? What is he thinking?
Eric: This is not well… the lesson plan for this is disastrous. You don’t just hand somebody… on the first day of Driver’s Ed., you don’t hand a kid keys to the car and go, “Okay, well, go drive around the parking lot.” They’re going to back into something. They’re going to hit a lamp post or fellow students or something.
Andrew: More evidence showing that Hogwarts is a safety nightmare.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: So I don’t know what he’s trying to get at. Splinching was bound to happen. On the first lesson ever, a whole lot of nothing, and then somebody got Splinched. And that’s par for the course, because the lesson is just so shoddily planned. I do, however, like the description of Wilkie Twycross – who was a former or previous Quizzitch answer – that he’s described as being barely there. [laughs] Whether his substance… there’s a line I’m going to… I’ll find it, but the question is whether or not… he’s got wispy hair and stuff; whether that helps him Apparate, or whether he’s actually less substantial because he’s Apparated all of his life. I thought that was really brilliant.
Laura: Maybe he’s left little pieces of himself all over the world.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: See, Voldemort could have just done this, and he didn’t need to make Horcruxes.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Oh my God. Yeah, there are no good Apparitioners; there’s just people who lie about how often they Splinch themselves.
Micah: Right.
Andrew: Harry notices at this lesson that Draco is talking with Crabbe and Goyle, and he’s like, “Oh, what are they doing? What are they doing?” And Draco goes missing, so Harry decides that he’s going to start following him on the Marauder’s Map, and Harry opens it up on Ron’s birthday and it’s the first thing that Harry notices, that Draco isn’t there. So I’m wondering, though, has Harry crossed a line here in terms of how he’s approaching this Draco situation? Because now he’s basically stalking him. And I realize that the Marauder’s Map, that’s all it is, really. It just made me wonder if Harry is going too far, and if we should seriously consider Harry to be a stalker, because Harry doesn’t really have much evidence that Malfoy is up to anything bad; he just has his suspicions. So should Harry…? [laughs] What am I trying to say? Unless Malfoy is a murderer and Harry Potter is Cormoran Strike, I think he’s out of line.
Micah: Eh…
Laura: I mean, I’d do it.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Laura: If I were in Harry’s shoes, I’d totally do it. Especially at that age.
Andrew: Wow, you creep.
Laura: I mean… okay, how is this different from excessive online stalking of Facebook profiles and things like that? We all do that.
Andrew: But you know exactly where the person is, and you can follow them in real time. This is like having access to me, Laura, on your Find My Friends app. You wouldn’t see much activity; I’m at home all the time, but you would know where I am at all times.
Laura: [laughs] Note to self: Need to friend Andrew.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I think at this point, the book has stated the case for why Harry is doing this. We do have a lot of evidence that he’s up to no good. Harry has been following him all year, and seeing what he says to Snape, overhearing that, seeing him in Diagon Alley, he knows Draco is up to no good. Obviously, prejudice plays a part, but I think that Harry does have enough information to go and do it. The real problem is… I mean, I think the book shies away… well, the book doesn’t really give Harry the opportunity to become a full-fledged inappropriate stalker, because Malfoy has found the loophole, or it’s just that the Room of Requirement… the Marauders never found out about it, so it’s not on the map.
Micah: I think he has even more reason to be suspicious, especially after he does a little bit of listening in on Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle during the Apparition lesson.
Eric: Right.
Micah: And it comes down to the fact that Harry is just not satisfied with the response that Dumbledore provided him with during their last lesson when he gave him all the details on the Unbreakable Vow. And he’s Harry, so of course he’s going to… ever since day one at Hogwarts, right? Or even before he stepped foot on Hogwarts, him and Malfoy haven’t really seen eye to eye. So he knows he’s up to something, to Eric’s point, and I think that if he’s able to keep tabs on him with the Marauder’s Map, then what’s the big deal? Nobody else seems to be. Harry is taking matters into his own hands.
Andrew: Yeah, but you’re stalking somebody. I think he needs more evidence before this is warranted. I think Harry, Ron, and Hermione should be followed right now because they’re trying to look up Horcruxes. That’s more dangerous.
Eric: [laughs] The NSA wizards are coming after them for their search history.
Andrew: Yeah. Anyway, it just felt weird to me, because especially… maybe what felt especially bad about it was it was Ron’s birthday, and Harry is just focused on following Draco. [laughs] Maybe that was part of it. But speaking of Ron’s birthday, Harry can’t really focus on Draco for too long, because Ron has accidentally taken a chocolate spiked love potion, and this was actually one that was given to Harry by Romilda Vane. We clearly see that it was Romilda’s idea, because Ron suddenly falls in love with Romilda.
Micah: But it’s in Harry’s trunk. Do we…? I’m assuming at some point we learn how it got there, but… or did it show up earlier on in the book and he just kind of tossed it in there?
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: That’s what happens.
Laura: Didn’t she give it to him while he was walking into the common room?
Micah: Oh, yeah.
Eric: Yeah, he had other stuff to do.
Micah: That’s right.
Laura: Yeah, and he was kind of like, “Uh, okay, thanks.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: But wouldn’t you throw it out? Why would you throw it in your trunk?
Eric: Well, he didn’t realize then that they were… I mean, he didn’t know for sure that they were spiked or whatever. And even now, he didn’t intend to take them out; he opened his trunk to look for the Marauder’s Map so he could stalk Malfoy, so it’s actually a little bit of clever coordination of how those chocolates got onto Ron’s bed and into Ron’s mouth. But we’ve discovered that if Ron sees food, he’s going to eat it.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Yeah, and they didn’t even end up on his bed, because at one point Harry calls him out; he’s like, “You just picked those up off the floor, didn’t you?” And Ron was like, “No? I just knocked them off my bed. Gosh, Harry.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: It’s his birthday; he wants some chocolate. Give him a break.
Eric: Yeah, I think they’re with a bow on them or something, the chocolates. So considering it was the one day of the year where Ron could mistake that as being a present for him, I think it’s fair enough.
Andrew: Oh, I agree.
Eric: But what’s interesting is that Slughorn says love potions age over time, so this reaction that Ron is seen having… I mean, he even physically assaults Harry, punches him right in the ear.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: What would the effect have been on Harry if Harry had eaten chocolates that night? That was over Christmas or something, so it’s probably three months ago that the love potion was meant to be ingested. Would he have just had a vague kind of affection for Romilda?
Andrew: Well, yeah, it probably would not have been as intense, because Slughorn says, “The longer it sits, the more intense it gets,” which I found very interesting. But just the fact that it drives Ron to punch Harry. Like, wow. That is crazy.
Laura: Yeah, and I mean, he’ll believe anything that he’s told about Romilda at this point. He actually believes that Romilda is going to be in Slughorn’s office, just because he’s so desperate to see her, which I don’t think is a reaction Harry would have had if he had eaten these back over Christmas.
Eric: Yeah, and Ron is going on and on about Romilda’s shiny hair and her large eyes, and I’m just… that kind of gets into how the magic works. Clearly Ron knows of Romilda Vane vaguely, and then I don’t know if it’s something in the pheromones of the love potion that make him identify her and make the connection of his mental image, because how does…? The potion didn’t tell him to say her shiny hair and large eyes; that’s just what he knows about her that he likes? So it’s just an interesting…
Micah: In the movie, though, doesn’t Harry ask him, “Have you actually ever met her before?” And he’s like, “No, can you introduce me?”
Eric: Right.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: So I just think magic is at play, that’s all, in terms of the things that he starts to say. But one other question I did have was – and we can talk about the poisoned mead as well – how are all these items getting into the castle?
[Eric laughs]
Micah: The necklace didn’t necessarily make its way into the castle, but now you have this kind of contraband love potioned chocolate; you have the poisoned mead inside of Slughorn’s office. Filch is not doing his job.
Andrew: Well, exactly.
Eric: No, not exactly. The Weasleys have screwed it. The Weasleys have given you that workaround mail order thing; that’s what Hermione said a couple chapters ago, that they found a way around Filch’s Secrecy Sensor. So Romilda Vane either bought the love potion over the summer, or had it owled to her in a nondescript package that fooled Filch. It’s not really his fault.
Micah: Okay.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: And I mean, as far as the mead goes, Slughorn himself brought it from the Three Broomsticks, where I assume an Imperius Cursed Madam Rosmerta put the poison in. So we’re talking about adults who are not your normal… I don’t know if the adults don’t get scanned when they enter Hogwarts, but it just seems that Slughorn was certainly shocked to discover that something he gave to Ron from his personal store could have been not what he thought it was.
Andrew: But look, it’s Filch’s responsibility. That was his job: Prevent Dark magic from entering the school.
Eric: You know, maybe they shouldn’t make a Squib the protector of a magic school.
Andrew: I agree.
Laura: Yeah, I was thinking about that too. Also, why isn’t Dumbledore in charge of this? [laughs] Seriously.
Andrew: He’s busy.
Laura: I get that he’s busy, but you’re still the headmaster of this school. You are the greatest wizard of your age. Perhaps you should have some sort of oversight on the committee that scans things that come into the castle.
Andrew: Well, maybe it should have been McGonagall. She’s a little less busy, and she’s the number two at Hogwarts. Or just any teacher there who isn’t a Squib.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: Yeah. I mean, to be honest about McGonagall, though, I think we’ve recently found out that she’s actually much older in these books than we realized when we were reading at the time…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Wow.
Laura: … so she probably needs a lot of naps.
Andrew: Aww.
Eric: Oh my God.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Every year, Dumbledore should not only find a DADA teacher, but also a security head. That should have been a plot point in each of these books, and the position could have been cursed, just like the DADA teacher is.
Eric: Do you think that he’s just fine with collateral damage on this front?
Andrew: He really doesn’t care. There’s so many issues.
Eric: Yeah, he knows Malfoy is trying to kill him. He knows Malfoy is on the loose. And first Katie Bell almost dies, and now Ron almost dies? Harry would never have forgiven Dumbledore, never, if Dumbledore’s carelessness and brushing off his suspicions about Draco ended in Ron’s death because Dumbledore didn’t want to look into it, or Dumbledore actively knew and it was later to be revealed that he did nothing about all this poison going around.
Question of the Week
Andrew: Speaking of the love potion, Ron and Lavender see each other while Ron is heading out to go see his new love, Romilda, and this ends up breaking their relationship, and this is the starting point of it falling apart. So we asked on Patreon this week: If your partner was love potioned and you saw them falling for someone else, do you think your relationship could survive such an attack? And Tiare said, “Did you mean, ‘Would the person who gave my partner a love potion survive my attack?’ And the answer is no.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: That one had the most likes. [laughs] Robbie said, “If I knew it was love potion, then of course.” Megan said, “Anyone else kind of wish your husband would suddenly come under the effects of a love potion so that he would leave you alone for a while? No? That’s just me?”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Uh…
Micah: Hope he doesn’t listen to the podcast.
Andrew: That’s a topic for another show, it sounds like.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Kelsey says, “No victim shaming and blaming. Whoever gave him that potion, though… NOPE.” I don’t know; I feel like that would be tough in a relationship, and that’s the reason why I asked this question. I mean, we see it was tough on Ron and Lavender’s relationship. Your relationship is being opened up in a way you never imagined. It’s like cheating. I know that a love potion is at play, but it must feel like cheating, because suddenly you’re seeing bae go after someone else. And it’s like, “Maybe our relationship is fragile, if the love potion could break through.”
Laura: Well, I think that in this case, the love potion was a conveniently timed occurrence, because Ron and Lavender’s relationship was already not the most steady thing.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: I mean, it’s basically based on lots of making out and PDA, and that’s about it, so I don’t think that there was much of a foundational strength to that relationship to begin with. Whereas for a couple who’s been together for years and years, if somebody gets dosed, it’s not quite the same thing.
Andrew: Still, it would just be so sad to see. My love with another woman. Augh! Brie said, “We would survive, but only after an exclamation of ‘NOT MY HUSBAND, YOU BITCH!'”
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Yeah, I will say, there’s a lot of patrons who would definitely have it out for the person who administered the love potion.
Laura: Oh, heck yeah.
Andrew: I didn’t even think about that part.
Laura: Well, yeah, because it’s effectively like roofying somebody’s partner. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, love potions really need to go. They have no place in this post-Me Too era, I don’t think.
Laura: Correct.
Eric: God, it’s not like the olden days, right, Laura? [laughs]
Laura: That’s right.
Andrew: Not like the 1920s.
Laura: Ugh, things were just so much easier back then.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: Make Hogwarts Great Again, guys.
Andrew: You could get away.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: It makes me wonder – and we’ve connected this before – but Merope Gaunt and what she did to Tom Riddle, Sr. He must have… if this is the effect that love potions have, that we’re seeing Ron just go all googly-eyed – and I don’t know if that’s because it’s an expired love potion – but Tom Riddle, Sr. really, really would have been debasing himself on a daily basis to pore over this witch.
Micah: My sense is that Merope was more practiced, and in the sense… maybe not initially, but over time, it seemed like she… not that the situation would almost be normal between the two of them, but maybe even to the casual observer, it wouldn’t look necessarily like he was under some sort of spell. Maybe I’m completely wrong. I think it’s good to compare the two situations, but I think this one occurred over a much longer stretch of time than just taking a couple of chocolates and seeing what happened.
Eric: Edibles, yeah.
Andrew: All right, more show to get to today, but first time for a word from another one of this week’s sponsors.
[Ad break]
Eric: Thanks, OpenFit, for their support.
Andrew: Eric, it’s going to be an overnight low tonight of zero degrees.
Eric: Yeah, I’m not going to the gym!
Andrew: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: I’m not going to do that.
Andrew: Nope. [laughs] This is great during the winter, especially.
Connecting the Threads
Andrew: So time for Connecting the Threads. Micah, is this going to be the last Connecting the Threads?
Micah: No, no.
Andrew: Oh, thank God.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: It’s my favorite segment.
Micah: It’s just that when we’ve tried to connect a lot of the threads with Chamber of Secrets, we’ve looked very closely at the corresponding chapters, and we all know that Half-Blood Prince is just a tad bit longer than Chamber of Secrets…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: … so Chapter 18 of Chamber of Secrets is, in fact, the final chapter of that book, but of course, we can look throughout the entirety of the book to make comparisons. I know we’re going to have chapters coming up that feature Dobby; we’re going to have chapters coming up with Aragog. So of course, there are ties back to Chamber of Secrets that may not necessarily align specifically with the chapter itself. But I think, Eric, did you put this in here?
Eric: Yeah, I did.
Micah: So you’re the thread connector for this particular episode.
Eric: All right, well, thank you. Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day, because actually, the last chapter I read before this was the one I’m about to talk about. But if you view these books as like a mirror, and say that Half-Blood Prince… say Half-Blood Prince ended here, and if you look at it like a mirror, and there’s still a seven book series, and if Half-Blood Prince ended right here, the mirror chapter would actually be not the last chapter of Book 2, but the first chapter of Book 2. And the first chapter of Book 2 was titled… does anybody know?
[prolonged silence]
Eric: It’s in the doc.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I know; I didn’t want to cheat. I saw it was right there.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: We don’t want to steal your thunder.
Eric: All right, all right, all right. Thank you. I appreciate that. It was called “The Worst Birthday,” and I think… so looking at them like there’s some middle point in the middle of probably at the end of Book 4; that’s the true middle. But the first chapter of Book 2 – and this chapter of Half-Blood Prince, which is Chapter 18 – “The Worst Birthday”? That could describe… that could very well be the chapter title of this chapter that we’re talking about, “Birthday Surprises.” Ron has pretty much… I’m going to go out on a limb and say this is the worst birthday Ron ever has.
Andrew: Yeah, and I think I flipped to the next chapter this morning and I noticed somebody comment, “Oh, this is his worst birthday.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: So maybe J.K. Rowling did plan it that way. Again, that’s freaking crazy.
Eric and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: It’s true. Ron ingests poisoned chocolate, and Dobby drops cake on top… I mean, it’s all confectionary stuff.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Lots of confectionary stuff, yeah. You’re right.
Andrew: Any love potions in that chapter? “The Worst Birthday”? Hmm.
Eric: Well, Vernon loves drills, but I don’t know that that’s a potion thing.
Andrew: What?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: I’m cutting that out. I don’t know why I said that.
Andrew: No, that’s good. Keep it in.
Micah: No, no, please keep it.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: No, I mean, Vernon is going on and on about how he’s going to make a big sale.
Micah: He loves his job. How about that?
Eric: Yeah, he loves his job. He loves his job.
Micah: He loves Mr. Mason.
Eric: But actually, one of our MuggleCast listeners, Katy Haile, myself, and Beth Warsaw did a throwback episode of Alohomora! podcast where we talk about “The Worst Birthday.” We just recorded that last week; it’ll probably air in a week from now, so that’s why I had read that chapter. But it’s crazy, the connections.
MVP of the Week
Andrew: So MVP of the Week: I’m going to give it to the Marauder’s Map for enabling Harry’s stalker tendencies.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I feel like once you have the map, you just can’t let go of that thing. It’s just so damn handy. Just lays in bed following people.
Micah: I’m going to give mine to the Half-Blood Prince for helping Harry out, stay atop his Potions class, but also saving Ron’s life.
Eric: Very good, very good. I gave mine to Hermione. For some of this chapter, I said she was intolerable, but when she can’t find the information she wants on Horcruxes – and believe me, she did look through every book – she shuts this book while Harry is with her, and it starts wailing like a ghost wail, and she looks at it and tells it to shut up. [laughs] She’s like, “Oh, shut up.”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: And I have to give her an MVP because Hermione told a book to shut up.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Did we even mention the fact that Harry basically barks the word “Horcruxes” at Slughorn?
Eric: What do you mean, “barks it”?
Andrew: Yeah, why do you want to mention that?
Micah: Well, I mean, he does attempt to try and figure out the memory piece of it. He fails miserably. I just don’t remember if we spoke about it at all.
Eric: No, Laura mentioned that it failed, that it was a failed attempt, but we didn’t specifically get into it.
Micah: Okay.
Laura: Yeah, because he didn’t have a plan.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: That’s right.
Laura: Like his very intelligent friend told him he should have.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Anyway, I’m going to give my MVP of the Week to the bezoar. That thing came in clutch twice in this chapter, and it was the same one, too!
[Eric laughs]
Laura: It wasn’t like it was different bezoars; it was the same one that…
Eric: Wait, no it wasn’t.
Laura: Yeah, because Harry went and got it out of Slughorn’s stuff, and he said it was the one from the class.
Eric: Oh, I was going to… oh, you know what? I was thinking you had to pull it out of somebody’s mouth to get it a second time to use it.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Never mind. It wasn’t his Potions kit that was…
Micah: He didn’t use it in the class, though.
Eric: Yeah, okay, okay. I was like, “Wait, that’s impossible. It doesn’t make any sense.”
[Laura laughs]
Micah: It just goes to show you: Goats save lives.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: I think Laura’s suggest MVP is the best of the week. Literally speaking, it is the most valuable.
Micah: It’s the G.O.A.T.
Andrew: The G.O.A.T.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Greatest of all time.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Episode title.
Rename the Chapter
Andrew: And Rename the Chapter: Half-Blood Prince Chapter 18, [grandiosely] “Destination! Determination! Deliberation!”
Eric: Nice.
Andrew: That’s how I read it in my head.
Micah: All right, I went with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 18 – Andrew, hopefully you’ll enjoy this one – “Monitoring Malfoy.”
Andrew: Yeah, ya creep.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Micah: You can add that in it… hold on… “Monitoring Malfoy…”
Andrew: He added it to our notes.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Oh, God. The chapter idea I had for a title was a quote from earlier in the chapter when Harry is with Hermione in the snow. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 18, “Knee Deep in Sorrow.”
Laura: All right, and mine is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 18, “Ron Weasley’s Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Birthday.”
Andrew: Good one.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: If you have anything to say about this week’s discussion, email us – MuggleCast@gmail.com – or use the contact form on MuggleCast.com. Or give us a call with your feedback; we’ll get back to voicemails soon. 1-920-3-MUGGLE.
Quizzitch
Andrew: It’s time for Quizzitch.
Eric: Yes, last week’s question was actually one based on the special features that we did not fully discuss last week on the French Ministry of Magic. A couple of people wrote in that they actually bought the special features so that they could answer this question, that they bought the home video release. But it turns out there was… as one of our listeners, Sarah Davis, pointed out, the Quizzitch question was answered in a LA Times article as well.
Andrew: Go figure!
Eric: Yeah, I was not expecting this, but the specific minute detail, which was, by the way, a hundred circular period typewriters. I think they were called ticker tape machines in the DVD documentary. But if you watch it – and it’s on the French Ministry of Magic, “Constructing the French Ministry of Magic” – they talk about how they basically have a hundred extras, and each of them has their own little cubicle, and in the center of the cubicle is this rusted gold… it looks like a typewriter, but it’s a complete oval, kind of like a donut, if you were to put typewriter keys around the donut. Anyway, they made a hundred of these, and they look amazing, so I definitely had to make that the Quizzitch question answer. But anyway, Fluffy McNutters was the winner who said, “That answer cost me about $20.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Karen, Sarah, William, SuperMandy, and Leaf all got the correct answer, so thank you all for playing. But definitely those set-building documentaries that they do are all really interesting and fascinating in Fantastic Beasts, so definitely check out if you have the Crimes of Grindelwald Blu-ray when it comes out, or if you have the digital, definitely check it out.
Andrew: Here he goes again, pushing sales of the movie.
Eric: I’m telling you guys, they’re going to give me the extended fans on screen real life thing if I sell a thousand copies. [laughs]
Andrew: Keep dreaming.
Micah: All right.
Eric: Oh, and next week’s question: What is the name of the big Hufflepuff player who succeeds in getting the Quaffle from Ginny? And your hints are it’s not “Bibble” and it’s not “Buggins.”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: The name of the big Hufflepuff player who gets the Quaffle from Ginny during the Quidditch match. Submit your answers over on Twitter, Twitter.com/MuggleCast, @MuggleCast, and hashtag #Quizzich with your answer.
Andrew: So we would love your support at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. You know, I’m looking at this poll; I don’t want to share the poll that we posted there, but it’s really close, guys, concerning one of our benefits this year. I think we need to take the closeness into consideration, because we’re going to let down a lot of people.
Eric: Maybe.
Andrew: So if you are a patron, please go to Patreon.com/MuggleCast and vote in that poll about one of this year’s benefits. It concerns signed album art; we’re going to do it again. I’m just revealing it all now. I don’t know why I was hiding it from people. [laughs] We’re going to do signed album art again this year because a lot of people missed out on it last time, and we have new album art, so we thought, “Let’s do it again.” And everybody who pledges $5 or more is going to be eligible this year, but we’re deciding which album art to use, because we have two new ones, and the poll is extremely close, so make sure you vote. Every vote is going to count here. But besides that, Patreon helps us keep the show going. We are weekly because of the Patreon; it’s easy to forget that, so please visit us at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. When you do pledge, you will have instant access to tons of benefits. We recently made sure that all of our posts were categorized on Patreon so you can easily access the bonus MuggleCasts, the chapter readings that we were doing, the Patreon questions of the week, the planning docs, the announcements… everything is very easily accessible. Again, Patreon.com/MuggleCast is where you can support us, and thank you to everybody who does support us. We have a lot of cool benefits coming up over the next year. And like I said, once you pledge, boom, you have instant access to tons of stuff.
Eric: Yeah, it’s over 45 hours of content, of unique…
Andrew: That’s a lot.
Eric: Yeah, 45 hours of extra stuff that’s only on Patreon. It’s unbelievable. Recently counting it all up, and I couldn’t believe the result.
Andrew: Yeah, time flies. We’ve been doing it for, what, solid three years?
Eric: Three years now.
Andrew: Geez.
Eric: Yeah, we’re into the third year. It was January 2016, the very last days of January 2016 when we started it.
Andrew: All right, and one last plug for MuggleCast.com. You can access our complete episode archive, and there you’ll also find our wall of fame, where you can find our favorite episodes of the show, links to our advertisers so you can get those deals that we talk about – you can get the discount codes – and the contact page. Just click “About/Contact,” and you can easily email us. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: See everybody next week. Goodbye.
Laura: Bye-bye.
Eric and Micah: Bye.