Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #413, Horcrux Hangover (HBP 22, After the Burial)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast Episode 413. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: And we’re joined by one of our Slug Club members this week from Patreon, Sara. Hello, Sara!
Sara: Hi!
Andrew: How are you doing? Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Sara: Oh, I’m great. I’m very, very excited to be here. I’m talking to you from about an hour east of Toronto in Canada, obviously.
Andrew: Obviously indeed. I heard the “aboot.”
Sara: Yeah, right. Yeah, you got that. Okay, great.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Sara: I’ll try to keep my “Eh”s to a minimum, but you never know.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: And you told us you just had a newborn baby. Congratulations!
Laura: Oh!
Sara: Thank you! Yes, I’m a brand new mom. I have a new daughter named Addison. My wife gave birth to her ten days ago, so she’s very fresh.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Very fresh.
Eric: Still has that fresh baby smell.
Sara: Yes, very fresh baby smell.
Laura: I love that name.
Sara: Oh, thanks.
Laura: It’s so beautiful.
Andrew: Have you started reading Addison Harry Potter yet?
Sara: I was actually holding her while I read this chapter to get ready for today, and it was amazing. [laughs]
Andrew: Ah, beautiful! The magic is already rubbing off on her.
Sara: Yeah, it was pretty cool.
Andrew: Did you try to push for naming your child after a Harry Potter character?
Sara: No, that would not have flown well. When we found out that my wife was pregnant, she gave me a very significant look that was basically, “We are not having a Harry Potter nursery. Don’t even ask.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: Maybe for baby two?
Sara: Maybe. Maybe for baby two. [laughs]
Andrew: Baby two: young Ron.
Sara: Yeah, Ron Jr.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: So let’s get your fandom ID. In one breath, please give us your favorite book, your movie, your Hogwarts House, Ilvermorny House, Patronus, and your favorite HP fandom experience.
Sara: Okay, so my favorite book and movie are both Half-Blood Prince, so it’s pretty cool about the Chapter by Chapter today.
Andrew: Perfect.
Sara: Hogwarts House, Ravenclaw; Ilvermorny is Thunderbird; Patronus is a ginger cat, which I don’t really love, but oh well; and my favorite Harry Potter fandom experience was for our first wedding anniversary, my wife and I went to Orlando and we went to the Wizarding World, and it was amazing.
Andrew: Excellent. What year was that? Was Diagon Alley open?
Sara: Yes, it was 2015. It was when Cabana Bay was still pretty new.
Andrew: Okay.
Sara: We went in October, so there was no lines or anything. It was awesome.
Andrew: Excellent. Well, thanks for your support on Patreon. We really appreciate it.
Sara: Yeah, absolutely. I’m excited.
Andrew: Cool. Eric and I, we’re about to… we’re recording really early because we’re about to go to day two of Star Wars Celebration.
Eric: Day three, Andrew! Day three!
Andrew: Oh, gosh. Well, day two for me.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I just want to give a shout-out to one of our listeners, Michelle, who I met at Star Wars Celebration. He had flown in from Sydney, and he was attending his first fandom convention ever; he’s never been to a Comic-Con or anything like that, so Star Wars Celebration is his first. I have to say, Star Wars Celebration, it is an official convention, and yet it is extremely fan-oriented; they have tons of panels run by fans. And this has been going on for a few years now. I wish Warner Bros./J.K. Rowling would put something together like this. They have done A Celebration of Harry Potter, a name that is obviously very similar to Star Wars Celebration for some reason. [laughs] But they don’t do any fan panels at A Celebration of Harry Potter. It’s all “officially sanctioned events.”
Eric: In the Expo Center.
Andrew: You know what I mean? Eric, doesn’t it have a great fan vibe, Star Wars Celebration?
Eric: This does have a great… yeah, it does have a great fan vibe. I, unlike you, didn’t get into any of those big name panels that you have to do lotteries for, so I’ve only been walking the con floor and interacting with fans. And yeah, I would agree; the environment and the atmosphere is very, very fan-centric, which is great. And of course, I’m doing the cosplay and getting a lot of compliments and interacting with fans in that way. I also bumped into one of our patrons just the other day, on Thursday, when I was there. Pablo came in from Mexico, and he said he was staying at a hostel but the hostel didn’t open yet by the time he got to Chicago, so he came with a backpack, and we met on the show floor, and he spotted me and was like, “Hey, are you Eric?” And it was really, really cool. So I got to meet him.
Andrew: Excellent. I told Michelle to look out for you dressed as a Jedi, because that’s what you were dressed up as day one. But then I’m seeing on Instagram that on day two, you were Darth Waiter?
Eric: Yeah, Darth Waiter.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: I get it. What are you going…? Are you being somebody else on day three?
Eric: Yeah, a different Jedi. The robes are actually reversible, so I’m going to be a different Jedi look today.
Andrew: I was just going to say, what you’ve got to do is have reversible robes. One side are Hogwarts robes, and the other side are Jedi robes. Two in one.
Eric: [laughs] Oh. Yeah, that’s so funny. Yeah, Twin Roses Designs are the same people who made my Gryffindor robes back in 2004 for HP Fan Trips, and I’ve been working with her ever since. So it turned out great, yeah. Celebration is great; you guys are all missing out. But Andrew, I’m looking forward to seeing you there. And Mikey, who is attending… there’s a podcast meetup tonight we’ve got to go to.
Andrew: Oh, cool, cool. Yeah, I still haven’t seen him yet, but I’m going to try to do that today after one of the panels I’m going to. I’m the only person not wearing anything Star Wars at this event, by the way.
[Sara laughs]
Laura: Lame.
Eric: Not even a…? Do you have a nerd mashup shirt or a Tee Fury shirt? None of that?
Andrew: No. Well, I have a BB-8 shirt, but that doesn’t fit anymore. [laughs]
Micah: Perfect.
Andrew: I have an Ira Bell shirt from Rogue One. Maybe I’ll wear that today.
Micah: Well, Eric has a Darth Waiter costume that you can borrow, I hear.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: It’s true, dude. It would fit you. You’d look great in it. Or tomorrow is Dapper Day, so maybe we’ll do it for that.
Andrew: Is it? Wow, there’s a lot going on there. Okay.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: No, let’s be real about what tomorrow is.
Andrew: What?
Micah: Game of Thrones Sunday.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: We’ve got a lot of pre-show banter, but it’s all relevant. Game of Thrones is huge. Micah and I were on a podcast about it a while ago. You know, the cool thing about today, though, 4/13, is we’re recording Episode 413 on 4/13, on April 13.
Sara: Oooh.
Andrew: Whoa!
Eric: Doesn’t that just blow you guys’ minds?
Andrew: I didn’t even notice that!
Eric: There’s a lot happening.
Andrew: What the…? How did that happen? And we’re also ten days away from Eric’s and my nephew’s birthday.
Eric: Aww.
Andrew: Beautiful. Everything is just aligning.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: And Sara just had a baby ten days ago!
Sara: Exactly. Ten days ago.
Andrew: Ah!
Eric: Whoa.
Andrew: I can’t handle all this.
Laura: Before we move on, we want to take a moment to hear a quick word from one of our newest sponsors, Thirdlove.
[Ad break]
Listener Feedback
Andrew: We have some feedback regarding last week’s episode. Micah, do you want to read the first one?
Micah: Yeah, sure. It’s about ten pages long.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Everything’s coming up ten.
Andrew: This is not about last week’s episode, by the way.
Micah: The first one comes from Kristien, and she says,
“Hi, MuggleCasters. Long-time listener from South Africa – love the show! I was rewatching Crimes of Grindelwald recently and was struck with a theory I thought I’d share: I think there could perhaps be more to Bunty than we’ve been led to believe. Could Bunty perhaps be a spy – of either Dumbledore, or more likely, Grindelwald – sent to keep an eye on Newt? It might be because of the other Obscurus we know Newt has, or because Grindelwald knows Newt was involved in what happened in Movie 1 and wants to spy on him. When Bunty gazes adoringly at Newt, and when Newt repeatedly tells her to go home but she seems reluctant to, we interpreted that as her having a crush on Newt, but it could be that she just really wants to know what he is up to and doesn’t want to leave because she is actually spying on him. There is also the fact that when Jacob and Queenie show up at Newt’s house, Bunty is still down in the basement that whole time – at least, we never actually see her leaving. She could be eavesdropping on them while they’re upstairs and could possibly even have planted the postcard that’s supposedly from Tina, perhaps. It seems only a short time later that Newt and Jacob go back down to the basement to prepare to leave for Paris, and by that time, Bunty is gone (Newt leaves her all those notes), but we didn’t see how or when she actually left. Is it an oversight in the writing/editing of the film, or is it a bit suspicious that she disappears like that?
Also, when Queenie shows Newt the magazine with his and Leta’s picture in it, we see a quick glimpse of Bunty in the background, again sort of staring at Newt, and the caption of the photo just calls her ‘unknown woman’ (or something to that effect). I just find it a bit suspicious that she’s included here – yes, it could be because she’s in love with Newt, but I wonder if there isn’t more to her presence in the background, hanging around Newt and Leta and Theseus, possibly learning what they’re up to… I find her demeanor in the photo ambiguous – is she gazing shyly at her crush, Newt, or is she lurking around suspiciously, secretly gathering information? It certainly feels like a J.K. Rowling-esque move to introduce a character who seems totally unimportant and uninteresting, only to have them turn out to be important later on. (Though hopefully it isn’t another case of a character using Polyjuice Potion…) Thanks for a great show; I love listening every week!”
Andrew: I love this theory, because we hadn’t considered it before, and we’ve all been sitting here being like, “Bunty seems so useless.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: And as this writer says, it could be a classic J.K. Rowling surprise.
Sara: Yeah, I like it too. I think that it gives… I mean, if this does come to light, I mean, it gives Bunty some sort of purpose. She didn’t do anything in the film.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: Maybe Bunty is the boa constrictor that Harry saved in the zoo years later.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: No, I just like the idea that Bunty is a spy, maybe for Dumbledore.
Eric: Yeah, or Grindelwald. The placement of the postcard, the little loose ends that we just take for granted, Kristien was very awesome at pointing out. I love this theory.
Micah: I like the idea that there’s more to her than meets the eye. I don’t necessarily know that she’s a spy, but it wouldn’t be unlike J.K. Rowling, to this person’s point, to include a character that has greater purpose later on in the series, but now we just think them to be relatively meaningless.
Andrew: Right.
Sara: Yeah, that’s true. Maybe she has some crazy backstory or something that isn’t involved necessarily with her being a spy, but something where there’s just, yeah, more to her than the few pointless glimpses that we got in the film.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: She’s just lusting over Newt. Why would J.K. Rowling write this?
[Laura and Sara laugh]
Eric: Why would she intentionally write a character who’s defined by her enamoredness with another character? Surely stuff was cut out.
Andrew: Exactly.
Laura: I do have a question, though: If we were reading this as a book, would we feel the same way about Bunty? Or would we just sort of move past it, because it just felt like fodder for the story?
Andrew: Oh, that’s true, because there are several characters like this, who just have very small appearances in the book.
Eric: But if Fantastic Beasts were a book, what would the point of view be? Would it be third person or first person for Newt? Because if it were third person, we might actually get more insight into each character’s history, but if it were from Newt’s perspective, he is obviously oblivious, so she probably would come across the same way.
Andrew: Now for some actual feedback regarding last week’s episode. Laura, can you read this next email?
Laura: Sure. It’s Katie, and she writes in defense of Snape.
“Hi MuggleCast, I’m a Snape fan and needed to chime in about your discussions on Snape last week. I think comparing Snape to Mundungnus Fletcher or Aunt Petunia is a bit unfair. Mundungus was a low-level thief and a coward who cost Mad-Eye Moody his life. Snape, on the other hand, is very brave and is always one of the first people to run in harm’s way to try and protect people. And yes, Aunt Petunia does the absolute bare minimum for Harry by allowing him to live in her house, but Snape has gone above and beyond the call of duty for Harry year after year by continuously putting his own life in danger in order to protect Harry. Snape sacrificed his own life goals and dreams just to come to Hogwarts to protect Harry. His whole life revolves around protecting Harry! Petunia’s life does not. He seems very self-sacrificial/heroic in that way to me.
You also said Dumbledore might not fully trust Snape with the Defense Aagainst the Dark Arts position, but throughout every single book, we are told how explicitly Dumbledore trusts Snape! In Deathly Hallows when Dumbledore says that he won’t share the secret of the Horcruxes with Snape while Snape so closely dangles from Lord Voldemort’s arm was Dumbledore taking a precaution as Lord Voldemort could have found out by using Legilimency on Snape or a dozen other unforeseen scenarios. Dumbledore was just being cautious of plans going awry, but not because he had any doubts about where Snape’s loyalties lied! Snape was Dumbledore’s man through and through! I think Dumbledore has replaced Lily as Snape’s current best friend lol. Thanks! Love the show!”
Micah: Hmm.
[Laura and Sara laugh]
Laura: I think that’s… I appreciate the optimism. I think that might be giving him a little too much credit? [laughs]
Andrew: You don’t…? Why?
Micah: Well, not to… I’ll jump in for Laura for a second here since she just had to read that whole thing.
Laura: [laughs] Thank you.
Andrew: It’s long emails week here on MuggleCast.
Micah: Yeah, it is. Ten pages at minimum.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: But these are great theories; I really like them. I would argue that when Katie says that his whole life revolves around protecting Harry, and Petunia’s life does not, I would say Petunia’s definitely does. Even if it’s not really intentional on her part, she’s risking the safety and the security of her own family to protect Harry. And I’m not about jumping on the Petunia bandwagon here to downplay the importance of Snape, but I would argue that Petunia does quite a bit for Harry that she otherwise wouldn’t have to do just by letting him live at Privet Drive.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, upending the family unit that she normally would have of just her, Vernon, and Dudley. Maybe they would have had a second kid if it weren’t for Harry. You never know.
Micah: And I don’t think it’s that Dumbledore doesn’t trust Snape with the Defense Against the Dark Arts position; I think it’s that Dumbledore knows the nature of the position, and he knows that it’s been cursed, and he knows that Snape is all too important to his plans to put him into that role right now.
Laura: Right. I also think Dumbledore is keenly aware of the fact that most people have this “Dark side,” or something that they’re really vulnerable around, just because of his involvement with Grindelwald and the Deathly Hallows. And it’s possible that he might think that putting Snape in the Defense Against the Dark Arts position while he’s simultaneously working for Voldemort as a spy – except not really – this could put Snape in a really difficult position should Voldemort start trying to leverage that.
Sara: Yeah, and he could be also worried that Snape was sort of… not relaxed, but I mean, Dumbledore knows the limitations of his own self, and he does have a high opinion of himself, and so to think that Snape could be subject to something similar.
Laura: Totally.
Eric: And he knows the position is cursed, which means if he casts Snape in that position, he would be out within a year, and more dangerous to the world at large. I think that has probably a larger bearing on the overall Snape-never-getting-that-position than any trust issue.
Micah: That’s how I feel as well. I feel it’s more that Dumbledore’s awareness of the curse and knowing that he could lose Snape within a year… we don’t know necessarily what will happen to him, just because there’s been so many different things that have happened to the other professors.
Laura: Right.
Sara: Yeah, because doesn’t that point come up in Book 7 somewhere where there’s some sort of… when Snape does get the Dark Arts job? Or I guess it’s in this book, something about “Do you foresee a time where you won’t need Snape at Hogwarts anymore?”
Micah: I think Ron jokes about it in the movie, doesn’t he?
Sara: Oh, maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s it.
Andrew: And we have we have one more email about Snape. This is from Amy; she’s a fairly new listener to the podcast, and it’s her first time writing in. She says,
“I am not a psychologist, but in my experience, those who were bullied as children respond as adults in one of two ways. They either become the bully when they find themselves in positions of power over people they perceive to be like those who bullied them, or they go through the work of realizing that being bullied does not define who they are and they develop empathy for those who are bullied, standing against bullying. Clearly, Snape chose the former, becoming a bully himself. I think it makes him feel better about himself, and he feels justified in doing to Harry what his father and Sirius did to Snape. It is misplaced retaliation. Yet, there is no justification in what he does and the terrible example he sets as a professor and adult. It is inappropriate, unprofessional, petty, and just plain mean to encourage, and exacerbates the problem of bullying that exists in any teenage environment. One of my big issues with the series is I wish Snape’s behavior had been addressed by Dumbledore. As headmaster, Dumbledore should in no way allow Snape to treat students like that. But Dumbledore is obviously a fairly hands-off headmaster in the daily issues of Hogwarts, too focused on the big picture things going on outside of the castle.”
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, he is. I love this email. This is a great point, too, about exacerbating the problem of bullying that exists in any teenage environment! He’s encouraging other kids to do it when they see him bullying!
Sara: Yeah, this is much more in line with how I feel about Snape. I appreciate that Snape was all about the greater good, and there is a lot of self-sacrifice involved, but I cannot get really past how awful he is as a professor, not only to Harry, but all the other… mostly Gryffindors. Well, essentially any non-Slytherins. And I just think he’s so awful, even though he has this redeeming quality in terms of the good versus the bad. That scene in Book 4 where Hermione’s teeth, she gets hit with that curse, and her teeth are growing and growing, and he just says, “Oh, I don’t see any difference.” I mean, that’s horrible.
Andrew: Right.
Laura: Yeah, I don’t know. I also kind of love it, though, from a character perspective, because again, it drives home this point that just because you’re on the right side of the war doesn’t necessarily make you a good person in all other aspects of your life, and that’s just realistic, right?
Sara: Yeah, for sure.
Andrew: Our second sponsor this week is a returning champion, Care/of.
[Ad break]
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Andrew: All right, it’s time now to move on to Chapter by Chapter. This week we are discussing Half-Blood Prince Chapter 22, “After the Burial.” We’ll start, as always, with our Seven-Word Summary, and Sara, since you’re our guest this week, you’re going to start us off. Good luck.
Sara: [laughs] Thanks. My first word is going to be… Aragog…
Micah: … causes…
Laura: … Harry…
Eric: … no…
Andrew: N-O?
Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: … issues…
Sara: … with… good luck, Micah.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: … Slughorn.
Sara: Oh, good one.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s where I imagined it going.
Laura: I like it.
Andrew: Ah, that was the easiest one ever!
Eric: [laughs] We did it.
Micah: It kind of makes sense.
Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks to Aragog, Slughorn is with Harry that night, and Harry gets the memory from him.
Sara: Yeah, he’s an important part of this chapter for being dead in the whole thing.
Micah: Absolutely.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Micah: And an important connection back to Chamber of Secrets that I know we’ll talk about. We’ve been connecting the threads through a number of these chapters back to the second book, and this chapter is definitely no exception.
Eric: Yeah, and I’m glad that you brought that up, too, Micah, because I have a connection to make to Prisoner of Azkaban. This chapter… which I know we all love, right? And Sara, you said that Half-Blood Prince is your favorite book and movie. I think… and correct me if I’m wrong; is this not just such a well-adapted chapter in the book and in the film version?
Sara: Yeah, I think this one is for sure. I think what I like about this movie – and this part in particular, also – is that they keep a lot of the little things in, so it’s neat in the movie that Slughorn is actually taking Venomous Tentacula leaves. And there’s lots of little sort of Easter eggs that are kept in from the books. The line from that Odo song is in the movie, and stuff like that. So I think that you’re right, it is pretty well-adapted.
Micah: Agreed. And I would add to that – and we’ll talk about a little bit later on in the chapter – but the addition of the Francis the fish story by David Yates and David Heyman…
Sara: Right.
Micah: … I thought was really, really well done, and something that could have easily been included in the book.
Eric: Yeah, that definitely feels like canon, and it’s one of the rare instances where the films sort of inform and penetrate our hearts in that way.
Micah: Yep.
Eric: But speaking of penetrating hearts, Hagrid is very upset. The chapter opens with them finding out that Aragog has died. And you know what I love? And this is something that, as an American child who got this book when it came out, really, really loved seeing the letter that Hagrid sends them has teardrops on it, actually, in the book, and this is something that I just adore. It only occurred… they did this once before in Prisoner of Azkaban, when Beaky was sentenced to death. And it just breaks my heart to see Hagrid’s untidy scroll that… it’s damp. It’s moist. The book calls it out. But to be able to visually see the graphic design and the typesetting and the characters really, really adds to, I think, the experience of reading these books.
Sara: I’m glad that you included this image, because as a Canadian, I have the British versions of the books, and so we don’t get this. And this is actually… you’re right. This is really, really nice with the tears. It really sort of brings across some more of that emotion that Hagrid is feeling about his oldest friend having died.
Eric: I mean, I can’t believe our luck that we got a British or Canadian guest on to talk about this, because in the British books – correct me if I’m wrong – everything is the same typesetting. So even the Hogwarts letters, it’s all… I think it’s Adobe Garamond, but it’s not…
Sara: They’re just in italics. Yeah, it’s the same font; it’s just in italics. Letters, newspaper clips, all that stuff…
Andrew: No chapter art.
Sara: There is no chapter art, no.
Andrew: We have all the fun over here.
Sara: I’m pretty attached to my books, though, so don’t go carving up the Canadian and British versions.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: No, no, no, and it’s just… anecdotally, it was just a nice way to grow up. That’s pretty much where I was going.
Sara: Yeah, no, it is very nice with the tears, especially.
Andrew: I’ll say something good about the UK/Canadian versions of the book: They’re more portable. They’re smaller, physically.
Eric: That’s true.
Sara: They are smaller, yeah.
Laura: I also like the cover art better on those versions.
Eric: Gasp! You traitor.
[Laura and Sara laugh]
Sara: All right, we’re not starting a thing, Eric.
Micah: Don’t go telling Mary Grand-Pré. Though I will say, Hagrid’s penmanship is on point.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: I think it probably took him a month to write this.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Highly doubtful he would actually write like that.
Micah: So Andrew, you noted how you thought that overall, this was one of the funniest chapters of the series. It’s just very… despite the dark component of it with Aragog having passed, it’s kind of lighthearted.
Andrew: It is.
Micah: Especially given that Harry has taken the Felix Felicis. Obviously it gets a little bit more deep as we get towards the end of the chapter, but for the most part. And I thought it was – going back to what we were talking about earlier – really well adapted in the films.
Andrew: Yeah, and I guess that’s part of the reason why, when I was rereading it, I was like, “Oh, this chapter is so fun,” because I’m thinking about the scene in the movie, which I actually rewatched last week as well.
Laura: Right, and Dan was so funny in that scene, too.
[Sara laughs]
Andrew: He was, with the pincers.
Sara: Yeah, right. [laughs]
Micah: He’s like, “I finally get to act.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: That’s really it, yeah. He really shines, for sure. And I mean, even in the book, just the mood, like you guys are saying… the only thing that I think it needs in the chapter is basically just that drum beat. [imitates cymbals]
Andrew: Right.
Eric: As he’s going around, because it’s very smooth, very fluid. And the soundtrack in the movie captures that as well. Just the unusual circumstance that they have this potion that alters reality itself or probability and can favor whoever takes it is a really cool bit of magic. It’s a cool introduction. So I just love this chapter and the adaptation, for sure.
Andrew: Another funny part of it was just Ron and Hermione’s – and Harry’s – reactions to Hagrid inviting them down to Aragog’s funeral. Hagrid is just completely clueless when it comes to Aragog’s treatment of the trio, [laughs] and they’re just flabbergasted that they would get an invite, and that, to me, was really funny to read.
Sara: Doesn’t Ron say something like, “Believe me, being dead will have improved Aragog a lot” or something?
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Right.
Sara: That’s a pretty good line.
Laura: I also love how Hagrid seems kind of clueless about the fact that the only reason Aragog’s children didn’t eat him is because Aragog told them not to.
[Eric and Sara laugh]
Laura: And he even had a hard time getting Aragog’s carcass out of the woods…
Andrew: Eugh, yeah.
Laura: … because they wanted to eat him. [laughs]
Eric: Oh, yeah!
Micah: Well, Ron and Hermione both come up with excuses as to why they will not go down to see Aragog, but I think that puts Harry in a great position to take the Felix Felicis and go and get Slughorn’s memory. But yeah, as we mentioned at the top of the chapter discussion, there are a lot of threads to connect here with Aragog, because he’s quite possibly one of our biggest ties to Chamber of Secrets. We obviously meet him in the second book; he was the monster that was falsely accused of attacking Moaning Myrtle – this was all thanks to Tom Riddle – and it’s interesting that he should factor so prominently into Harry getting the Horcrux memory from Slughorn. Obviously, this is not done by coincidence. But one of the other things that also came to mind, just kind of looking through these threads, is that there’s a good chance that we’ll find out more about this particular story in Fantastic Beasts.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: You think so? Hagrid coming in possession of Aragog?
Micah: Not only coming in possession of Aragog, but I think we will be at Hogwarts at a time when the Chamber of Secrets will be opened, and maybe we’ll get a little bit more backstory into how that all came to be.
Laura: Yeah, that would be very cool. I just had a thought that I wanted to share with you guys that’s kind of connecting the threads-ish, and it might be a bit of a stretch, but I want to hear y’all’s reaction: So Harry was able to destroy Tom Riddle’s diary with the Basilisk fang, and in this case, he’s able to get access to the Horcrux memory that he needs by offering up Aragog’s venom to Slughorn. In both cases, it’s this venom that sort of plays a key role in getting Harry what he needs.
Sara: That is kind of neat, especially because they’re both towards him defeating Voldemort, and Voldemort is so almost venomous-seeming, sort of all this snake allusions, and he needs snake venom from Nagini to survive before he has his body and stuff like that.
Eric: I love that.
Laura: I just like how J.K. Rowling has all of these little, tiny connections. I mean, obviously Aragog is a big connection, but if you really drill in on that, there’s even more going on under the surface, which is what I love about her as a writer.
Eric: And speaking of Aragog, let’s not forget he directly tells, I think, Harry and Ron he came to Hagrid in the pocket of a traveler, and Newt keeps lots of little thingies in his pockets. Little friends.
[Laura and Sara laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, people have picked up on that. I think that would be a super cool connection. I’m just not sure there’s room for this? But I guess we’ll see.
Laura: If there was room for Yusuf Kama…
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Maybe Yusuf was the traveler.
Eric: Oh my God.
Micah: There was room for Bunty.
[Andrew laughs]
Sara: That’s true.
Eric: So do we think that because that exists, that’s J.K. Rowling’s promise to us that there’s room for all this other stuff that was already set up?
Andrew: [laughs] “J.K. Rowling’s promise to us.”
[Sara laughs]
Andrew: It’s a wink. “Don’t worry, y’all. I’m going to fit it all in.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: Well, I’m going to give a shout-out here to Ron for coming up with the bright idea of using Felix Felicis, and that’s how Harry is going to get Slughorn’s memory. It’s kind of one of those moments, similar to last chapter, where your head kind of hits the desk a little bit because… just like Harry couldn’t for some reason figure out that Draco was using the Room of Requirement until it just kind of smacked him in the face, it’s kind of the same thing in this chapter with the Felix Felicis.
Andrew: Right. You’re saying that he’s going to get lucky?
[“Get Lucky” by Daft Punk plays]
Andrew: Thanks, Daft Punk.
Eric: There’s got to be a YouTube version that’s the movie mixed with that sound. There’s got to be.
[Andrew and Sara laugh]
Eric: If nobody’s done that yet…
Micah: We’ll find it.
Andrew: You see Harry slowly walking out onto the Hogwarts grounds as this plays.
[“Get Lucky” by Daft Punk plays]
Andrew: “I got it. I got it figured out, y’all.”
Eric: Oh my God.
Micah: That’s what they should have sang at Aragog’s funeral.
[Andrew laughs]
Sara: There you go.
Andrew: I don’t think Hagrid would be able to carry much of a tune.
Micah: But Sara, were you going to say something?
Sara: Oh, when you were reading this for the first time – I know it’s going way back – but to me, it didn’t even occur… I had forgotten about Felix also, so the way that J.K. Rowling writes, she gets you obsessed with whatever Harry is obsessed with, and so it didn’t… I wasn’t waiting for him to use Felix. I wasn’t sitting there reading, “Come on, Harry. You’ve got the Felix Felicis. Use it already.” I was just as sort of… I had the same reaction to the word “lucky,” really, that Ron did.
Andrew: And I guess we as readers don’t know how effective Felix Felicis would actually be in this type of situation. They are rolling the dice here.
Laura: Well, especially because we’ve seen Ron be so successful just because he thought that he had taken it…
Andrew: Right. [laughs]
Laura: … so it raises the question: If you just believe that you can, what’s the point of even taking Felix in the first place?
Eric: I think, too, it’s possible that Slughorn… if Harry had not worn him down so much by not… if Harry had taken Felix sooner, would he have had the same results and success? I think is a question, because it’s also as much about how Harry has been persistent, I think, that weighs into Slughorn understanding, and Harry being able to reason with him of “This is important, and I need this from you.”
Micah: Right.
Andrew: Harry, by the way, is initially hesitant to use the Felix Felicis, and there’s this paragraph… Laura thought this was gross, but I actually thought it was really romantic.
Eric: Me too.
Laura: What?!
Sara: No, I’m with Laura.
Andrew: J.K. Rowling writes, “The thought of that little golden bottle had hovered on the edges of his imagination for some time; vague and unformulated plans that involved Ginny splitting up with Dean, and Ron somehow being happy to see her with a new boyfriend, had been fermenting in the depths of his brain, unacknowledged except during dreams or the twilight time between sleeping and waking.” He’s having these thoughts that, “Oh, one day I can use the Felix Felicis to get with Ginny.” And he doesn’t have much time to think about it, but occasionally he does, and it makes him happy.
Laura: This is weird.
[Sara laughs]
Andrew: Don’t you ever dream, Laura?
Eric: About girls?
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I mean, sometimes, but… [laughs] I don’t understand this mentality of wanting to tip the scales to make somebody fall in love with you. That’s weird. That’s two steps away from giving her a love potion.
Sara: Definitely.
Laura: Not into it.
Sara: Just use your nice charms, Harry.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I didn’t see it as making her fall in love with Harry, more as just setting things on the right track. Because they clearly have feelings towards one another already.
Sara: I mean, that does happen for him with his bumping through the portrait whole thing.
Andrew: Right.
Sara: So he’s still… it does happen.
Eric: Yeah, in a way, Felix absolutely is still setting up the situation. Yeah, I wouldn’t call it romantic thoughts, but I think that in the way to be a kid in love, and you’re like, “Wouldn’t it be nice if everything in the universe worked out that way,” right? I think it’s probably innocent, but I think that also it happens so infrequently in the books… if you were to say Half-Blood Prince is the book about love and all these hormones, you’d be right. But still, within this book, we can go entire chapters without hearing about Harry’s inner monster. So I think that this was just a way for J.K. Rowling to be like, “Yep, he’s been thinking about Ginny the last couple months. Don’t worry, people. I’m just not going to obsess over writing about it,” because she is, as you said, Sara, too, balancing what we as readers should be obsessed with. So she’s just… this little thing about “He’s been dreaming about Ginny when he wakes up,” or whatever, is kind of a nice way of saying that’s still going on.
Micah: Definitely. But I think before we jump into him fully taking the Felix Felicis, it is worth noting that he does make one last ditch attempt to get Slughorn by himself, and a situation does present itself with all the kids at the Apparition test, so it’s a very small Potions class that Harry attends. And he does notice that Draco is looking a little thinner and paler than usual, and that kind of gets him into good spirits. But after producing a amazing potion at the sort of… I don’t know. He uses the Half-Blood Prince book yet again to his advantage. He notices that Slughorn dips out very, very quickly once the class concludes.
Laura: So I have a question here: Do we think that Slughorn has spent the last few months running away from Harry because he knows that Harry has the Felix Felicis…
Eric: Probably.
Laura: … and is like, “Ah, crap.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: He should have thought about this way sooner. He should have given somebody else the Felix Felicis, even though Harry won that little competition, because he should have known that this would happen. So yes, I think so, Laura.
Eric: I think so too. I think his resolve was… if one person didn’t forget that Harry had Felix, it should probably be him. So yeah, I think his resistance – his ridiculous, outrageous avoidance of Harry – is not only very justified because he doesn’t want to be a bad person, or be revealed to be the bad person that he has been, but because he gave Harry the potion that’s going to work against his favor.
Micah: Yeah, and he brews a potion called “Euphoria,” which I think is definitely foretelling of what’s about to happen when he takes the Felix Felicis, because he feels euphoric. I mean, it’s almost like… I don’t know necessarily what to compare it to. It’s kind of like Jim Carrey when he puts on the Mask in the movie The Mask…
[Eric and Sara laugh]
Micah: … where he’s just filled with this “I can do anything I want to do, whenever I want to do it” now.
Eric: “Sssssmokin’!”
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: But he’s also guided. That’s the other piece that I wanted to talk a little bit about, was how exactly does this potion play with your mind? It seems like you almost have a little bit of a voice in the back of your head.
Andrew: Yeah, and Rowling describes it as lighting a few steps along the path that you’re supposed to take. I really love that. We all experience this when we just have a feeling about something, and I guess when you take Felix Felicis, the feelings are more enhanced in terms of what you are supposed to be doing in any given moment.
Sara: And maybe trust those feelings more, because you know that you’re on Felix.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: There’s definitely something to be said about confidence. And I know a good analogy would be Ron with his Quidditch. He only thought he took it, and he did better at Quidditch; his confidence, his stamina, they were all there. When you’re actually on Felix, it’s like going into a job interview, and if you behave, or if you feel within you that you’ve already gotten the job, there’s something psychologically that you appear more confident to your interviewers, you give more thoughtful, insightful answers, and it’s all about attitude, and people really respond to confidence in those kinds of settings. So Harry, having this potion light the way for him, is able to behave in a way where a lot of the stuff he might muck up due to his anxiety over getting the memory from Slughorn is gone. He has zero anxiety inhibiting his actions, and I think that is something that works in his favor, because he’s bold enough to bring up his dead mom and things like that. So I think it’s weird, because it’s magical and psychological factors at play.
Micah: Definitely. And I think that… Laura, was it you that asked the question about the placebo effect when Ron is talking about…
Laura: Yeah, exactly.
Micah: … how he was feeling, even though he didn’t take it. I’m not sure Harry could have used the same strategy with Slughorn without being on Felix Felicis.
Andrew: No.
Micah: It just seems like he tried and he tried and he tried and he tried so many times that it just wasn’t going to work. He needed something that was going to be in his favor.
Laura: Well, and I think part of it, too, is that his heart was never truly in it before he took the Felix Felicis. All of his attempts are sort of half-hearted, which is an interesting parallel to Malfoy, who seems to be making these half-hearted attempts to complete this mission, and it’s taking a really nasty toll on him.
Andrew: He also received help from alcohol too.
Sara: Right. [laughs]
Andrew: Maybe he didn’t need the Felix Felicis at all. Maybe it was just the alcohol that got Slughorn to fess up.
Laura: Maybe, oh my God.
Sara: Yeah, the Felix just brought him to Hagrid’s, and then let him do that nonverbal spell, and then the mead did the rest.
Laura: Yeah. Maybe Dumbledore drank some Felix Felicis before he went to the orphanage…
[Andrew and Sara laugh]
Laura: … and that was where he got the divine inspiration to give the orphanage principal the gin.
Eric: Yeah, Felix is really just a gateway drug to get more people to buy alcohol.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: It’s funny that you brought that up, though, Laura, because now I’m thinking about it, there’s been a consistent trend of getting people drunk in this book.
Sara: To get information.
Eric: I’m glad that got brought up, because another part of my favorite part of this movie is the “All hands on deck, Granger,” when Slughorn shows up in Three Broomsticks and is already wasted and he spills some on her. I just think it’s a fun actor moment between the two characters. There is definitely some kind of a theme. But Hagrid has been getting drunk and revealing things he shouldn’t for years. This is Book 1 with Norbert and Fluffy.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Both things happened in pubs. Shady things happen in pubs.
Laura: Yeah, and also it’s worth bringing up that a couple of chapters ago, when Dumbledore was showing Harry the memories in the Pensieve of Tom Riddle coming back to Hogwarts to try and get the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, he mentioned that he had all this intel, and that’s what happens when you’re good friends with the local bartender. [laughs]
Andrew: Right. We’ve got a new pitch for Buzzfeed: “42 times alcohol played a big role in the Harry Potter series.”
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: No, it’s got to be an odd number. It’s got to be 41 or 43. [laughs]
Andrew: Sure, sure.
Micah: There you go. So on the way down to Hagrid’s, Harry overhears Slughorn and Professor Sprout. It’s a bit different in the movies, and Sprout is obviously not there, but this sort of begins in this chapter to paint a very nasty picture – in my mind, anyway; I don’t know how you guys feel about it – of Slughorn. And he claims that he wants these Venomous Tentacula leaves for his third year students. I’m not sure I believe that, given what follows.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: What makes you think that? [laughs]
Micah: What are your thoughts? Because we’ll get into it a little bit later; we can start talking about it right now, but Slughorn clearly has a side hustle that is going on here with all these rare, magical things that he’s acquiring throughout the chapter. And then he does something, or he reveals something later on that… I don’t know. Better not tell Hermione about, because it’s definitely illegal.
[Andrew and Sara laugh]
Micah: How does Dumbledore let it go on? I don’t know.
Sara: Hands off.
Andrew: This, to me, just adds to the humor of the chapter, honestly. Slughorn is being a double agent here. He’s coming up with this fake sympathy for Hagrid’s dead spider, and in the meantime, he’s getting these valuable things out of Aragog. I think it’s… to me, it was just funny. And yes, it makes him a bad person, but still, it’s funny.
Micah: Well, not only that… I mean, yeah, the Venomous Tentacula, the Acromantula venom… he definitely works the room when he’s in Hagrid’s hut to eventually get the unicorn hair.
[Eric and Sara laugh]
Micah: And not only that; before they sit down to drink, he’s like, “Oh, Harry, don’t worry. I’ve been using house-elves as poison taste testers, so you don’t have to worry. We’re good.” What?
[Andrew and Sara laugh]
Laura: Well, and I think this is hilarious because at the end of the chapter, when he gives Harry the memory, he’s like, “Please don’t think bad of me when you see this.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Too late.
Laura: And I’m like, “Oh, I’m glad you’re worried about that now.”
Micah: No wonder Dobby hasn’t been sleeping; he’s been drinking mead when he’s not trailing Draco, and probably has severe anxiety about getting poisoned.
Andrew: And Slughorn probably has this new business going on for the rest of his life where he just gets Hagrid drunk and then takes all of his valuables from him.
[Eric laughs]
Sara: Yeah, exactly. The unicorn hair… he’s scouring to see what other sort of treasures Hagrid has.
Eric: It’s honestly not that much different than Tom Riddle with Hepzibah Smith. “What kind of secrets you got locked away in this room of yours?”
Sara: I mean, there’s no murder.
Eric: There’s no murder. It’s true.
Andrew: It isn’t murder, but that’s next for Slughorn. He’s going to kill Hagrid if Hagrid starts putting up a fight.
[Sara laughs]
Laura: I feel like Slughorn is just a better educated Mundungus Fletcher.
Eric: Well, we’re comparing every character to Mundungus Fletcher, aren’t we? Snape…
Laura: [laughs] We’re going to get an email next week: “In defense of Slughorn.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: But Slughorn needs that money.
Micah: What do you think it says, though, about…? I know we’re saying that it’s kind of funny to read these things, but does it say something about Slughorn’s character? We’ve seen how he is quite the collector, but does this bring out even more, some could argue, of his Slytherin traits?
Sara: I think he’s just kind of selfish and a little bit slimy.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: He’s an opportunist.
Sara: He’s just… he doesn’t care that Hagrid’s lost his oldest friend, he’s worried about getting the venom before it dries up, and he’s just interested in what he can get out of this from Hagrid. And when they’re talking about the unicorn hair, it’s so… the difference between… the contrast between Hagrid’s approach to the unicorn hair, saying it’s really useful for binding up bandages to help injured creatures, and Slughorn says, “Hang on, do you know how much you can get for that? What are you wasting it on creatures for?”
Micah: Right. So would we do this for somebody?
Andrew: Oh my gosh, of course not! Yes, I would.
[Eric and Sara laugh]
Andrew: It would be so risky to me, though, to do it in this particular scene, because if Hagrid caught you… now, of course, in the movie, Slughorn does it right in front of Hagrid, and Hagrid doesn’t mind it. But Hagrid, I think, would get so mad at you if he caught you doing this secretly, [laughs] and he’d beat you to death, so I probably wouldn’t have the guts to do it. But it also makes sense to me. This stuff is just going to go in the ground. Why not extract it and sell it? [laughs]
Micah: But I think… doesn’t he actually break off one of Aragog’s pincers?
Sara: In the movie, yeah, he breaks off a leg, I think.
Eric: Yeah, oops. [laughs]
Andrew: He’s got to crack him open like a coconut to get that juice out.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Wow.
Laura: I’d do it for science.
Micah: Well, that’s what he’s claiming he’s doing it for.
Laura: Yeah, I know, but I actually would.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Well, Harry and Slughorn make their way down. Harry goes there first; Slughorn needs to go change or something to that effect. And the burial itself is actually very quick, and Slughorn, he’s pretty eloquent. He says some nice words about Aragog, despite not knowing him at all, and helps the actual burial process. So there are some redeeming qualities to him, but it’s only because he knows that he’s going to be able to get some Acromantula venom that… who knows what he’s going to do with or sell it for. And I know we asked over on Patreon, on the Lynx Line, what song would you use to pay tribute to Aragog? It was always something, I think, that we did in previous episodes, going way, way back. When a character would die in the series, we would play a song for them. So what kind of answers did we get?
Andrew: So the top one seems to be “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper. That was from Amanda. That one got six votes. Oh, actually, the top one was from Catherine, who I know. She says, “I mean, from Hagrid’s perspective, ‘I Will Remember You’ by Sarah McLachlan would be appropriately moody.”
Sara: Nice. [laughs]
Andrew: “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie. “If anyone wanted ter find out some stuff, all they’d have ter do would be ter follow the spiders.” That’s a good reference there. Amy said “Candle in the Wind.”
[Eric and Sara laugh]
Andrew: So a lot of standard death songs, in my opinion.
Micah: What about “Spiderwebs” by No Doubt?
Sara: Nice.
Andrew: [laughs] Micah, I have a hard time imagining you listening to that song, but okay.
Micah: It’s on the radio.
Andrew: “Bad Blood” by Taylor Swift. That came in from Andy. But the one that received the top vote was Catherine’s, “I Will Remember You,” so I think just to say farewell, we should listen to this for a moment and reflect on the life of Aragog.
[“I Will Remember You” by Sarah McLachlan plays]
[Andrew weeps]
Eric: “Your body will decay… but your memory lives on…”
[Laura and Sara laugh]
Andrew: As Sarah sings this. Hagrid in the background, cracking open a pincer. Or sorry, Slughorn.
[Eric makes pincer noises]
Andrew: “Nothing to see over here, nothing to see.”
Eric: Ah, that bass line.
Sara: It’s very nice.
Andrew: Reflecting on all the times Aragog tried to kill the trio. So touching.
[Sara laughs]
Andrew: Thanks, everybody, who participated over at Patreon.com/MuggleCast.
Micah: Yeah. I still vote for “Spiderwebs.”
[Sara laughs]
Eric: That’d be great.
Andrew: Sorry, Micah.
Micah: So the scene shifts to inside of Hagrid’s hut, and as part of the initial conversation, I think Slughorn refers to Ron as “Rupert,” and I don’t think that’s by accident.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: No.
Micah: We’ve talked about it before on the show.
Andrew: Yeah, I think we have. It’s interesting to me, though, because obviously by the time the book came out, the movies were very, very, very popular, as was the fandom, the franchise on a whole. But J.K. Rowling extremely rarely actually references the real world, so for this to happen is kind of surreal to me, honestly. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I think it was an intentional nod. I think we all probably do. And I like it, but I also like how rarely this sort of thing was used.
Sara: Yeah, imagine she accidentally referred to Harry as “Dan” or something.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Right.
Sara: You can really only do it with “Ron” and “Rupert” because they’re similar. [laughs]
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: So I guess that’s why it’s okay.
Sara: “Dan. I mean, Harry, Harry.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: And in the movies, though, isn’t it his last name that Slughorn always messes up?
Eric: Witherby, Weasel… yeah.
Sara: Yeah, I think there’s a Wembley in there or something.
Eric: [laughs] Wembley.
Micah: And I actually like Jim Broadbent a lot. I think he does a really good job playing Slughorn.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: For sure.
Micah: Well, now it’s time to just get piss drunk if you’re Slughorn and Hagrid.
[Sara laughs]
Eric: Finally!
Micah: Harry is smart enough, thanks to Felix, that little voice in the back of his head telling him, “You know what? Just fake drinking. Don’t let anybody catch you, but let these other two just kind of kick back and get wasted on some mead.” And the conversation turns relatively quickly, and it gets really deep. It gets to Harry talking about losing his parents, and Slughorn can’t really bear to hear the details. And I think there’s a level of guilt, right? Even before Harry further guilts him into revealing the memory about what happened with Tom Riddle? I think… do you believe that Slughorn feels any responsibility for what inevitably happened to James and Lily, particularly Lily?
Eric: It’s like Hermione said right before Harry went off and they went off to Hogsmeade. Hermione says that “This all comes down to Voldemort, doesn’t it?” And they had these other classmates where their younger brother was bitten and killed by a werewolf, and they’re like, “It all comes down to Voldemort,” and Slughorn has enabled Voldemort to become what he has. And I think in no small way, Slughorn is acutely aware of the idea… he’s found a way to live with himself, comfortably, even, having given that knowledge to young Tom Riddle, but he has refused all year to Dumbledore to come clean about his role, and I think that shows that he is still harboring some guilt over not just Lily, but I think the entire state of the world today. This is the man who, like it or not, told Voldemort how to survive past death, and I think he does bear a lot of guilt for that.
Andrew: Yeah. I think Slughorn makes it pretty obvious that he does feel guilty, and that’s why he hasn’t wanted to come clean for… he doesn’t want to come clean with this memory because he knows it makes him… he says himself, I think, that it makes him look really bad.
Laura: Well, and I think he’s more concerned with that than he is with anything else.
Sara: Right, yeah, how he’ll look. Again, getting back to him being selfish, because if he wasn’t worried about that, he obviously would have handed it over by now, because he recognizes that he did great damage, and hopefully he also recognizes that he could help, but he’s so worried about how he’ll look that he withholds it.
Eric: This is why the Francis the fish moment is so brilliant in the film, because it connects also Slughorn’s love for Lily, and that Lily’s skill at Potions, which came up again in this chapter, and is still so prevalent in these books, gets mentioned all the time, to the point where I’m really wondering how much Snape and Lily bonded over potion-making between the two of them. But it just connects directly Slughorn and his emotional level to Harry’s emotional level. They meet in the middle there over love of Lily, and that really unlocks Slughorn’s worse nature to be a better person.
Andrew: Yeah. And also this line, “You’d cancel out anything you did by giving me the memory.” Was that the Felix talking? Because that was genius.
Eric: [laughs] That is manipulative. It’s so bad.
Andrew: Is it? I thought it was smart. And manipulative, but that’s okay.
Eric: Well, yeah, people yearn for that emotional catharsis, and Harry is, in a sense, giving up any kind of anger, and releasing… forgiving Slughorn, basically. And Slughorn, to his credit, admires Harry enough and respects him, and knows he’s the Chosen One and all that, to take his absolution as the world’s absolution for his misdeeds, and that’s what makes him give up the memory.
Andrew: I think Harry is right, though. Slughorn did make this mistake, and now the way to correct it is by helping him and Dumbledore.
Eric and Sara: Yeah.
Sara: I think it’s a really good point for Harry to have made, to sort of really assert himself that this is what he needs, and come on, Slughorn. Hand it over.
Micah: Definitely. And I agree that Francis the fish was one of the more tear-jerking moments in the series, as Slughorn is explaining that the morning that he came down and Francis wasn’t there was the morning after James and Lily – well, particularly Lily – had been killed by Voldemort. So Harry is successfully able to get Slughorn’s memory, and now we’ll see exactly what the conversation was between him and a young Voldemort.
Andrew: Dumbledore is going to be so pleased. And that is the chapter. Our final sponsor this week is a new one for the show, HelloFresh.
[Ad break]
Rename the Chapter
Andrew: So now let’s rename the chapter. Mine is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 22, “DUH! Part 2.”
[Eric and Sara laugh]
Eric: As a reminder, “DUH! Part 1” was what chapter, Andrew?
Andrew: Last week.
Eric: Oh, yeah. Okay.
Andrew: Because they had those “Aha” moments concerning the Room of Requirement.
Micah: Well done. I went with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 22, “It Isn’t Lavender.”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Poor Ron.
Micah: We didn’t touch on that, really, at all in the chapter, but there are quite a few moments when the trio are together and Ron is ducking out of the way, and he’s just a little nervous that Lavender is coming around the corner.
Sara: Well, and Felix breaks them up, too, so that’s good for Harry also, because he was getting pretty tired of their shenanigans.
Eric: I renamed the chapter Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 22, “Felix, Take the Wheel.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: I love this.
Andrew: That is what happens, really. Lighting the path.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, the chapter called… I just… it blows my mind that the chapter called “Felix Felicis” is just when Harry gets it, and it has nothing to do with him using it or really anything else, so I think this one should have brought it back.
Laura: All right, I did mine as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 22, “Chapter 14’s Convenient Literary Clue Placement.”
Andrew: [laughs] And Sara?
Sara: And I went with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 22, “One Lucky, Two Drunk.”
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Love it.
MVP of the Week
Andrew: Now the MVP of the Week. Eric, who’s yours?
Eric: Mine’s going to go to Slughorn. It took a lot of magic and exterior circumstances, but Slughorn finally did the right thing, so now the plot of the book can move along. Hurray!
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I said Aragog, for not letting his children eat Hagrid.
[Sara laughs]
Micah: I went with Ron, for coming up with the idea to use Felix Felicis.
Eric: You’re giving a lot of MVPs to Ron, aren’t you, Micah?
Micah: Yeah, back to back weeks for Ron.
Andrew: I gave it to Felix Felicis. I was the last one to put something in here, and I think that’s the most obvious one.
Sara: And I said Harry, sort of for a similar reason. He got the memory, he finally sorted it out, even I guess maybe it was Felix who really did the heavy lifting… but Harry.
Andrew: All right, next time we will discuss Chapter 23, so if you have any feedback regarding that chapter or this week’s discussion, feel free to email it in – MuggleCast@gmail.com – or you can give us a call. 1-920-368-4453; that’s 1-920-3-MUGGLE in the United States. Or use the contact form on MuggleCast.com.
Quizzitch
Andrew: It’s time for some Quizzitch, which I know we are now integrating into our social media channels.
Eric: [laughs] We are absolutely. Our social media manager, Jule, has now made it possible to play Quizzitch on our Instagram, which is at @MuggleCastPod. Crazy feature; we’re asking the question in our story, and then people are submitting via the story feature, and then we’re getting all these replies.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: So now we’re playing Quizzitch on Twitter and Instagram here, so I’m going to read winners of both, which is great. So last week’s question was: Professor Slughorn gets plant leaves from Professor Sprout. What group of students does he say they are for? Micah covered this in the recap. His third years, supposedly. His third year students are going to be dealing with the Venomous Tentacula leaves. So correct answers were sent in on Twitter: Jenniffler, Septa Moon, Catherine Jones, Lara Catherine, Fluffy McNutters, PotterHobbit, Tara, A Man Has No Name…
Micah: Oh, here we go.
Eric: Yeah, there we go. Game of Thrones season tomorrow. Erika, Justice for Aragog, Count Ravioli, SuperMandy, Hayley Hansen, Sarah Davis, and Stacey Davis. And then over on Instagram… and everybody should follow us on Instagram if you’re not already, and absolutely be playing this with us there, because it’s actually really cool to visually see everybody’s answers. But the correct answers on Instagram were from La La La Roxo, Dustin Hicken, Hufflepuff Alumni, Danielle Morgan Esposito, Chels Thompson, Ollie B., JMC Degon, GirlOnFire90, Mac IA, Pensieve Puzzle, Esther Willa, Samwise1541, Lissa Linnay, CorbKen, and Michael Not Eric.
Andrew: [laughs] What? Okay.
[Sara laughs]
Eric: Tons of people! We’re going to… I mean, this is going to be its own podcast. It’s just Quizzitch winners every week.
Andrew: I know, I know. I wonder if we’re going to have to do something about this.
[Andrew and Sara laugh]
Eric: Yeah, no, I completely agree. This is a new thing we’re testing out over on Instagram. Maybe we’ll just name the… whoever submits more… if we battle Twitter and Instagram, we’ll be like, “The winners of…” I don’t know. Anyway…
Andrew: That’s not a bad idea. Or we can just feature all the answers in a story post on Instagram, maybe.
Eric: Exactly, exactly. So we’re figuring it out. But anyway, thanks for listening to all those winners. Congratulations to all the people who won. Next week’s question: Who tells Nearly Headless Nick about Dumbledore’s whereabouts in the next chapter?
Andrew: Instagram.com/MuggleCastPod is where you can follow us there. We’re closing in on 2,000 followers, so thanks, everybody, for following us over there. Turns out people are actually listening to the show, so good stuff.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: You can see what we are up to now. Our social media is officially rolling.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Our social media presence on Instagram is officially rolling, I should say. We are posting show clips so you can get a preview of what you will find in our latest episodes, so we’re making it super easy to hear some highlights right within your social media feeds. Again, Instagram.com/MuggleCastPod. We’re also at Twitter.com/MuggleCast and Facebook.com/MuggleCast. Of course, we are also on Patreon; that is where you can get lots of exclusives, including our signed album art, our forthcoming 2019 physical gift… we also recorded a bonus MuggleCast last week; Eric spoke about MinaLima, the graphic designers behind the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts series. They visited Chicago, so he recapped their appearance here. I’m going to England next week, and honestly – I’m not kidding – the number one thing I’m looking forward to doing is going back to House of MinaLima in London. It is a must-do if you go there. It’s a free exhibit of all of their Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts graphic art, and you can buy any of it – for a lot of money – but you can buy it. It’s just super cool. Everybody, if you ever go to London, you have to stop by there. It’s right around the corner from the Cursed Child‘s Palace Theatre. And of course, when you do pledge on Patreon at the Slug Club level, you will have the chance to cohost MuggleCast, just like Sara did today. Thank you so much for joining us today, Sara.
Sara: Well, thanks very much for having me. It was really fun.
Andrew: Hope you had a good time.
Sara: I did.
Andrew: Cool. And we appreciate your support over on Patreon, and keep us posted on Addison’s growth. Let us know when you officially get her hooked on Harry Potter.
Sara: I will, yeah.
Andrew: Serious question: What do you think is the right time to introduce a child to the Harry Potter series in terms of reading the books? What age?
Sara: I don’t know, because I’m such a new mom, but… [laughs] I don’t know. I’m going to read them to her well before she’s ready, I’m reasonably certain.
Andrew: [laughs] Because you can’t wait.
Sara: I read them to my wife’s stomach while she was pregnant, so I mean, there’s no telling here.
Andrew: [gasps] Are you serious? That’s so beautiful.
Sara: Yeah, it was pretty nice. We didn’t get through the whole book, but we started. [laughs] I bought the illustrated editions, though, so I’m really excited to read those with her, for sure.
Andrew: That’s going to be the way to do it with kids.
Sara: Yeah, I think that would be really cool.
Andrew: Yeah, my nephew’s about to turn 1. Shares a birthday with Eric, unbelievably.
Sara: Fun.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: And I’m debating when to buy them the illustrated books. I’m thinking another couple years. I think we still have some time. All right, well, that wraps up this week’s episode. Eric and I have to run off to Star Wars Celebration.
Eric: [laughs] Yes, we do.
Andrew: Thanks, everybody, for listening, and thanks again, Sara. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: I’m Laura.
Sara: And I’m Sara.
Andrew: Bye, everybody!
Eric: Bye!
Laura: See ya.