Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #420, Really Loose Pockets (HBP 28, Flight of the Prince)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast Episode 420. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Laura Tee: I’m Laura.
Andrew: Micah still isn’t here. Where did he go? Come back, Micah. [laughs]
Laura: Maybe he went to the cave.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: He went back to the cave. But we’re joined by one of our Slug Club members this week, Alexa. Hi, Alexa.
Alexa: Hi, guys.
Andrew: We should warn all of our listeners now, if you have the Amazon device, you might just want to unplug it while listening to this episode.
[Everyone laughs]
Alexa: Yeah, you may want to disable that.
Andrew: Yeah. Wow, I can’t believe Amazon stole that name from you. I would be so annoyed.
Alexa: It’s pretty annoying, but I get some good jokes from people, so…
Eric: I was going to say, I can’t believe Amazon loaned us Alexa for the day. This is so exciting!
Andrew: That is kind of cool. Alexa, start a timer, please.
[Everyone laughs]
Alexa: “Starting a timer.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: This reminds me of… obviously, my last name is Sims, and every other person, when they hear it for the first time, they’re like, “Oh, did you invent the video game?” And at this point, I’m just like, “Yeah, yep, I invented the video game. I’m a billionaire.”
Alexa: If only.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah. So anyway, Alexa, let’s get your fandom ID.
Alexa: All right, so my favorite book is Prisoner of Azkaban; my favorite movie is Half-Blood Prince; I am a Ravenclaw; my Ilvermorny House is Wampus; my Patronus is a polar bear; and the question I have for J.K. Rowling is why did she first call it the “Put-Outer,” and then she changed it to the “Deluminator”? I’ve always been intrigued if she just couldn’t think of a cooler name during Sorcerer’s Stone, and she’s like, “Oh, the Put-Outer; I could probably come up with a better name,” or if it was a prototype.
Andrew: Huh.
Laura: That’s a really good question.
Andrew: I would guess it was those damn American editors who were like, “Oh, Deluminator? That’s too advanced of a word.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: “We need to call it the Put-Outer for the kiddies.” And then Book 2, or whatever book it appeared in next, J.K. Rowling was like, “Well, now I’m successful, I get to do whatever I want.”
Alexa: “And I’m actually going to call it what I wanted to call it, which is the Deluminator.”
Eric: I just always assumed it was referred to as the Put-Outer because that was what we saw it doing, put out the lights. It put out the lights. And because Book 1, it is sort of written more childlike, but also we’re outsiders looking into the wizarding world that we see Dumbledore use this device. It puts out the lights; we call it the Put-Outer. It’s efficient. Later, when it’s time to read Dumbledore’s will, Rufus Scrimgeour can call it the Deluminator all he wants, but in reality, it will always be my Put-Outer.
Alexa: Yeah, that’s a good point.
News
Andrew: So on today’s show, we are going to go through Half-Blood Prince Chapter 28. We also got some Muggle Mail as well. But first, some news items. I had to talk about this; I wasn’t planning on it, but everybody on social media is alight. Everybody wants to talk about this.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: These new Harry Potter shoes from Vans have struck a nerve with people. So people were really looking forward to this collaboration between Vans – the very popular shoe brand – and the Wizarding World, and they released the shoes, and the options are very limited. Each Hogwarts House only has one type of shoe, and each Hogwarts House is a different shoe. And what I couldn’t believe – and I guess I was kind of trolling a little bit – I could not believe that Hufflepuffs get stuck with the slip-on shoes. And not only that, the Hufflepuffs have the worst shoe design of the four. Am I wrong?
Laura: Not at all.
Eric: You know, as a Pottermore Hufflepuff, we love comfort. We love the ability just to slip on some shoes and head out the door, if we really have to go outside. Working in the garden, slip-on shoes, they’re great! We don’t get dirt in our laces, you know… I tried. Okay, yeah, these are bad shoes.
[Andrew laughs]
Alexa: Yeah, they’re pretty bad. And I’m upset that the only high-top options are for Gryffindors, and then they have the mixed House ones.
Eric: I will say, it’s never been cooler to be a Slytherin. The Slytherin… it’s almost like snake scale on the outside, it looks like.
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: These are the coolest shoes I can imagine ever wearing.
Laura: Yeah, the Slytherin shoes are definitely the best.
Alexa: Yeah, they’re pretty cool.
Eric: But because they each chose a different style to represent each of the Hogwarts Houses, I can’t do what I would I guess normally consider doing, which is mix up the Houses. One left shoe in Gryffindor, one right shoe in Hufflepuff. You can’t really have any… if you buy two pair and mix and match, you can’t really do that.
Alexa: Right, because they’re completely different shoes.
Eric: Completely… you’d be off-balance.
Andrew: Yeah, so like I said, I was… I said on Twitter that Hufflepuffs, as usual, got effed with the Vans line…
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: … and some people… in fairness, some Hufflepuffs were like, “Hey, I really like these shoes. What are you talking about? Stop being so mean.” But others… I think one of the biggest problems was that the Hufflepuff shoes also just have the dumbest design. They just slapped on the badger in the toe area, and that was it.
Eric: Yeah, other shoes have the House colors take over the entire shoe, and on Hufflepuff, it’s just the little badger and a little bit of yellow, but it’s a mostly black shoe.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: And the yellow that you see is on the bottom. It’s pretty ridiculous. It’s definitely… there was not as much design time allocated for the Hufflepuff shoe, it seems.
Andrew: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So in some… well, any of you, do you think you’ll be buying these shoes? Anyone?
Laura: I’m considering it. I’m probably going to get the Slytherin ones for Marc…
Andrew: Okay.
Laura: … because I sent them to him, and I was like, “Would you wear these if I got them for you?” And he was like, “Oh, hell yes.” So I’ll probably get those. I do like the Ravenclaw ones. I know, Andrew, you think slip-ons are tacky; I kind of wish they offered them in the slip-on variety.
Andrew: [laughs] Oh, Laura.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Okay.
Eric: You know, even the Snitch shoes – because they also have these Snitch shoes with the Golden Snitch wings on the side – are a cooler-looking shoe than the Hufflepuff shoe.
Alexa: I’d agree.
Eric: In fact, now that I’ve seen this Snitch design, I kind of want them.
Andrew and Alexa: Yeah.
Alexa: And it has the “I open at the close” on the back. Pretty cool.
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: Yeah, and laces, for crying out loud. Laces!
Alexa: Yeah, laces.
Andrew: So I wanted to also mention that Vans did a bunch of other shoes – not customizable, not specific to Hogwarts Houses – but they have some other nice designs there, like that Golden Snitch one, and they have a Death Eater style shoe, one or two others… and then they’ve got a collection of nice House-specific shirts and hats. So the collection overall, I think, is pretty good. It reminds me of what’s available in BoxLunch, those stores that you see in the mall. It’s like Hot Topic, but not goth.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: So check them out, if you want. Also, just want to mention: Universal Orlando is opening a new ride this week at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Hagrid’s Magical… oh, hold on, wait, I have to draw a big breath first.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: [takes a deep breath] Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure. It opens this Thursday. I’m actually in Orlando right now for the opening, and I haven’t ridden the ride yet, but I will be in a couple days, and on next week’s episode, we will talk about it. But it’s very exciting, and thank God for these theme park wars. Disney just opened their Star Wars land over in California, and their second Star Wars land opens here in Florida later this year, so Universal responded by adding a new ride to the Wizarding World. And this is just going to keep happening, where they’re just going to keep being so competitive, and hopefully this is one of several more Harry Potter rides that are going to be added to the parks.
Eric: Yeah, I’m really jealous that you’re there. [laughs]
Alexa: Yeah, I am too.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I will… well, sorry.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Eric, Micah, and I are actually going to come down here in August. And Laura, of course, you’re invited too.
Eric: Yeah, it was supposed to be special! It was supposed to be our thing in August, but you got an invite.
Andrew: What? Well, if Universal invited me, I’m not waiting for you guys. To heck with you guys.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: But yeah, we’ll go down in August and all ride it together. That’ll be fun.
Listener Feedback
Andrew: Let’s jump to emails. Eric, do you want to read the first one?
Eric: This one comes from Ali. Ali says,
“I just finished listening to your discussion on Half-Blood Prince Chapter 27, ‘The Lightning-Struck Tower.’ It got me thinking about Dumbledore and Snape’s plans for Dumbledore’s death. It seems clear that Dumbledore was planning to die upon returning to Hogsmeade after retrieving the locket Horcrux, because he asks Harry to get Snape immediately after they arrive. However, it doesn’t seem like Dumbledore was expecting the Death Eaters to be in the school, as the sight of the Dark Mark super-charges him into action. What do you think would have happened if the Death Eaters weren’t there? Do you think that Dumbledore planned to have Harry to witness Snape killing him if he had the choice? If so, I wonder if Dumbledore was concerned at all for Harry’s wellbeing after witnessing yet another death of a friend. Even though Dumbledore is one of my favorite characters of all time, I can’t help but be saddened that we’d have to add another item to the list of effed up things that Dumbledore has done for the ‘greater good.’ Maybe Dumbledore was planning to have somebody else witness Snape kill him – just so Snape could keep his reputation as a Death Eater alive? I would love to know your thoughts!”
Laura: Yeah, I have a feeling that Dumbledore’s plan was for Harry to go get Snape and for Snape to immobilize Harry somewhere away from the tower, so that Snape could then go get Draco and bring him up to the tower and then they could do the deed.
Andrew: And then poor Harry has to… I kind of prefer Harry seeing Dumbledore die, just so he’s the first one to know. Because it also would have sucked if Harry had to find out through some random ass student who’s like, “Dumbledore’s dead on the ground over there!” That would suck.
Laura: Also would have sucked for us as readers.
Andrew: Yeah, totally.
Alexa: Yeah, I always thought that he told him to go get Snape because of the curse, so Snape would have known how to deal with the potion that he drank that made Dumbledore so weak. But I guess… I don’t know if he was necessarily planning to die that particular night, but maybe he knew that Draco was going to keep trying to kill him regardless.
Eric: Yeah, Dumbledore asking Harry to get Snape is perfectly innocent, because he’s injured and he trusts Snape to be able to fix it, because Snape has been helping him deal with his cursed arm all year. And when Harry suggests they go get Madam Pomfrey, Dumbledore is like, “No, I need Snape.” But it’s possible that because of the Dark Mark over the school, he needs Snape for that other reason, and really doesn’t expect to see Draco, possibly.
Andrew: Yeah. Okay, thank you for that, Ali. This next one comes from Jacob. We were talking about the Harry Potter DVD collection options out there, and I thought Jacob had the most succinct answer on this. He said,
“The big crazy box that you guys were talking about in 419 was the Harry Potter Wizard Collection. The Harry Potter Hogwarts Collection, however, includes all of the discs from the Wizard Collection but without all of the gimmicks, and it’s around $140 on Amazon. This collection is amazing: It comes in a really nice photo album-style box. It contains 31 discs which include: all of the movies on DVD, all of the movies on regular Blu-ray, the first two movies on an extra DVD with the deleted and extended scenes included in the movie (like an ‘extended edition’ you’re describing), and the last two movies on 3D Blu-ray as a bonus. It also includes all of the ‘special features’ DVDs that were included with the original DVD releases, which have all of the deleted scenes on them as well.”
Andrew: … on and on and on. So basically, he’s saying he recommends the Harry Potter Hogwarts Collection because it contains basically everything known to man.
Eric: Except outtakes, which have never existed on a disc. A blooper reel.
Andrew: And I remember we used to hope, “Oh, maybe one day there will be another collection that’ll include those.”
Eric: They exist, as far as I’m aware. When I asked David Yates about it in an interview at the theme park in probably 2011 for that Home Entertainment Celebration, he said that they were not only in existence, but coming out on the then-proposed Hogwarts Collection, which did not end up happening. So unless it’s a secret, an extra disc nobody’s discovered yet in one of those “gimmicky” compartments…
Andrew: [laughs] It’s still hidden from everyone.
Eric: … Yates lied.
Andrew: Wow.
Eric: I mean, or didn’t know. But 31 discs for this Hogwarts Collection… I understand it’s definitive, but 31 discs still seems way too many discs. There are eight films… 31 Blu-rays? 31 different discs to arrange all the content? Clearly, nobody’s taken an overhand and just decided to condense and combine some special features from certain other movies’ discs. Do they still have that interactive menus from the first two films?
Andrew: I don’t know.
Alexa: Yeah, they definitely still have those on the DVD, because I was watching it the other day.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: It’s kind of cool that a four-time Harry Potter director lied to you. That’s a cool honor.
Eric: I mean, it was sly. I didn’t even know. I didn’t even catch the lie.
Andrew: He probably just made it up just to please you, because you were probably in your Hogwarts cloak, right? You were clearly a big fan.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Intimidating him?
Andrew: He didn’t want to disappoint you. “Ah, yes, yes, Eric. Sure. You’re going to get outtakes, absolutely.”
Eric: Well, he’s a six-time director now, and I’m pissed. [laughs]
Andrew: By the way, it’s being reported from the Wall Street Journal this week that Warner Bros.’ forthcoming streaming app – and this will be the exclusive home of the Harry Potter movies and the Fantastic Beasts movies – is going to cost $16 to $17 per month, which sounds high, but it will also include HBO and Cinemax, which on their own, cost $15 per month currently. So this isn’t…
Alexa: Ah, so it would actually include all of them.
Andrew: Yeah. This won’t be out till late this year or early next year, so that price could very well change. And it will just be the movies.
Laura: Does anyone actually use Cinemax?
Andrew: No. [laughs]
Laura: I’m just… I’m trying to think about the value here. [laughs]
Eric: And with Game of Thrones being over…
Andrew: I think J.K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike is on Cinemax, funnily enough. [laughs]
Laura: Interesting.
Alexa: I do actually think it’s on Cinemax and not Showtime because I was trying to go watch them.
Andrew: It is; I just Googled it. Oh, man. Poor J.K. Rowling. Why did they put that on Cinemax? It should have been on HBO. I would have watched it then. But yeah, Laura, you’re right; nobody watches Cinemax. All right, well, before we get to Chapter by Chapter, it’s time to tell you about one of our sponsors this week, Scentbird. They are saving me down here in Orlando. Oh my God, I was a sponge in the Magic Kingdom yesterday. Just absolutely a wreck.
Eric: Oh, gross.
Andrew: But I brought Scentbird cologne with me…
[Ad break]
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Andrew: All right, time now for Half-Blood Prince Chapter by Chapter. Chapter 28, “Flight of the Prince.” We’ll start with our Seven-Word Summary.
Eric: Harry…
Laura: I’m trying to decide how I want to take this.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: … chases…
Alexa: … Snape…
Andrew: … down…
Laura: All right, I like how this is going.
Eric: … onto…
Laura: … the…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: What? Why? Down onto the… hmm. I guess I’ll just say grounds.
Laura: Yeah. It could be worse.
Andrew: Could be worse.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Andrew: So Laura, you’re going to lead us through this chapter this week, right?
Laura: Yes.
Andrew: Thank you.
Laura: So for a scene-by-scene analysis, we pick up right where we left off with Chapter 27 with Harry actually feeling like he, too, is hurtling through space, much like Dumbledore did at the end of the last chapter. We kind of see him going through this initial stages of denial in terms of just shock, right? And all he can focus on is finding Snape and Dumbledore, because he feels like he could reverse what had happened if he had them both together, and he even thinks “Dumbledore could not have died.” And I’m wondering, can any of us relate to this? I’m wondering, have we ever had a time or event in our lives that threw us for this kind of loop?
Andrew: Yeah, definitely. Not so much with losing a loved one, but that has definitely happened, and you just feel like… it’s just an out of body experience. Or even a work moment, where you’re like, “Oh, bleep.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: You just have these really out of body moments, very shocking moments where you’re just like, “Wow, this changes everything.” And it’s a terrible feeling. Your stomach drops. It’s just the worst.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. Time itself seems to slow. Reality seems less real. Definitely an experience I think we all have at some point in our lives.
Laura: Yeah, it’s almost movie-esque when this happens. When you think back on it… I’ve had a couple of occasions like this. I remember when I was in high school, I found out while I was at school that one of my really good friends’ mother had died, and I had been really close with her. And I literally found out because somebody came up to me in the hall and told me, and it was like everything around me just stopped.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Laura: And it got kind of blurry, and it was just the weirdest experience. So when I was reading this, it definitely resonated with me. We also see Harry sort of in denial about Dumbledore being dead, because it’s like, “This is Dumbledore, right? He’s larger than life. He can’t be dead.” Have any of us had reactions like this to big figures dying? I know a good example for me, honestly – and it’s very pertinent for this podcast – Alan Rickman.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Laura: In my head, I still don’t think of him as dead.
Andrew: Right. Yeah, because in the case of Alan Rickman, we all grew up watching him, so in a way, he was kind of like a father figure, whether you watched him only in the Harry Potter movies or you watched him in other movies as well. But yeah, you definitely feel this way losing a loved one, or maybe just seeing another celebrity die, like maybe take Michael Jackson or Prince. These iconic figures that we look up to suddenly go too soon in a lot of cases, unfortunately.
Eric: The new Aladdin movie is out, and I hear very good things, but I’m still not over Robin Williams’s death.
Andrew: Yeah. Right, exactly.
Eric: So that’s a good point. As to what Harry kind of gets, this inkling that he could reverse what happened if he could only get Snape and Dumbledore back together, I wanted to ask the question: Can he actually reverse it? I know we think there’s no spell to bring people back from the dead, but Harry has this sort of sixth sense about what has just happened, and I’d like to believe it’s all complete denial, but something about the writing tells me maybe there was something Harry could do, or maybe the process can be reversed, if only Harry specifically gets Snape back to Dumbledore. We know it’s never going to work out, and Snape wants nothing to do with it, but can we speculate? Is there something maybe that Harry could have done?
Alexa: A Time-Turner?
Eric: Well, a Time-Turner, or I was thinking maybe split his own soul and give half of it to Dumbledore so Dumbledore could come back. But maybe then he’d have Voldemort’s soul and it would be a big problem.
Andrew: [laughs] Well, and I think also, Harry, in this moment, is just in denial about the situation…
Alexa: I think so too.
Andrew: … so he’s like, “No, this can’t be. There must be a way to undo this.” And I mean, unfortunately there isn’t.
Laura: Yeah, he’s like, “Damn them for destroying all the Time-Turners.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Alexa: Except one.
Laura: Yep. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, good old “Two-spells Harry” is going to fix everything, he thinks. It’s a shame.
Laura: So after this happens, Harry is running through the hallways trying to get to the grounds so he can chase after Snape, and the first person he’s able to identify in all the fighting he comes across is Ginny, which I thought was really nice. It’s a kind of nice connecting the threads moment. In Book 2, Harry goes to rescue Ginny; in this case, she is here backing Harry up and fighting Death Eaters. So I thought that was a nice moment. But she’s fighting Amycus, which is a little awkward, because he becomes the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher the following year.
Eric: Yeah, and he calls her pretty. He calls her pretty too. It’s kind of, “Eugh, sleaze.”
Andrew: And this is the sickening part of the next book. You’re watching Hogwarts be taken over by these awful people, and this is just foreshadowing that.
Laura: Yeah. And I kind of forgot how literally bloody this scene was, and I’m wondering if it’s because my recollections of the book had sort of been overridden by movie-isms, but there are literally unidentified dead people on the floor while all of this is happening, and Harry notices that his sneakers are slick with blood. And as I was reading this, I was like, “Whoa. Holy crap, this is dark.”
Andrew: Yeah. No, you’re right.
Alexa: And he steps over one of the people.
Laura: Do we ever find out who these people are?
Andrew: No.
Eric: I mean… yeah, it’s Neville and Flitwick are the people who are bloody, but they’re going to be totally okay. We see them in the hospital wing later. And the only other person that was said to be dead was Bill. I think it’s just a way of… J.K. Rowling is very descriptive and making it seem like it’s a big deal, but ultimately – and maybe this is why it’s not in the film – nobody dies in the end. There’s really no… it’s not a zero-sum kind of game, because it’s a big deal the Death Eaters are in the castle, but it would be a bit repetitive to do this in Book 6 and then have a Battle of Hogwarts in Book 7. So because nobody dies in the end, maybe that’s why it was left out, except to say J.K. Rowling is trying really hard to show you that there are big stakes, that it’s a big deal that the Death Eaters could get in. But because of Ginny and all of them taking Felix Felicis… she even says, “Oh, without your potion, I’m sure we would have died, but the spells just seemed to miss us.” It just kind of… in the end, the stakes were very low, or the results were very, very low, and I think J.K. Rowling is just being clever about hiding that.
Alexa: I still think I would have liked to see a little bit of this in the movie, though.
Andrew: I would have too.
Eric: Oh, same.
Andrew: And I actually specifically remember the filmmakers had said they didn’t want to add this because they knew there was going to be a battle in number seven, so they didn’t want both of them ending with battles, which really doesn’t make sense to me because it’s still a movie. It doesn’t matter how many movies there are; you need a big ending. And Half-Blood Prince‘s ending is pretty tame.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: I put a note in here for us to talk about the ending of the movie a little bit later, but I agree. And when I was rereading this, I was like, “Wait, this is way more intense than I recall the movie being,” but we can get into that in a little bit. So I have a question, and I thought it was a question that might appeal to you, Andrew: Why are random students just out and about while all this is happening?
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.
Laura: This is just yet more evidence of the fact that Hogwarts can be kind of a security nightmare.
Andrew: A security nightmare, Laura.
[Laura laughs]
Alexa: Definitely not the safest place.
Andrew: No. Well…
Laura: So here’s my question: I cannot believe that there wouldn’t be a system in place to say once Hogwarts’s protective enchantments and such have been breached, the common rooms should just lock down and prevent students from leaving.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I totally agree with you. I guess the students were just curious, like, “Oh, what’s that noise? Let’s just go see what the noise is.” But wow, even from… just as a student, that’s really dumb of you, I think. Well, I don’t know. Maybe I guess naturally I would go see what the ruckus was about as well. But yeah, there should be something like… you should see the gates closing down on the common rooms, the portraits are locking themselves up, nobody out, everybody has to stay in… yeah, it does seem really dangerous. Hopefully this was something fixed in the post-Dumbledore era.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Hopefully. I mean, clearly… I don’t think he totally anticipated the Death Eaters to be there, but at the same time, I would think that something as simple as like, “Hey, if a Dark Mark is ever cast on Hogwarts grounds, shut everything down.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Right, a simple event spell.
Alexa: “Retreat to your dorms.”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Well, and you think about what’s happened in previous books at the castle. Even just on that stuff alone, there should be some security measures put in place. I mean, the Basilisk, for starters.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, I would agree. And I’m just trying to think… if they locked all the common rooms down, Hogwarts would be short its defenders, right? We wouldn’t have students who could go and fight on behalf of the school. But then the bad guys would just overrun Hogwarts, and there’d be more of them? So I’m trying to think what the best result for everybody is, because I think Dumbledore is probably relying on the people who can get out of the rooms to fight and save the school.
Alexa: Yeah, and we’re not even sure that these are all students that are part of the DA like Ernie, but they’re just random students.
Laura: Yeah, I mean, when Harry pushes past Ernie, he’s with a gaggle of Hufflepuffs.
Eric: So now we’re geese to you, Laura?
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: No! I think they literally use that word.
Eric: Oh, that’s pretty funny.
Andrew: And I think in the scene J.K. Rowling even wrote on that in the rush of the moment, all the Hufflepuffs put on their Vans slip-on shoes and headed downstairs.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: It’s so easy and convenient to just slip on.
Andrew: [laughs] That’s true.
Laura: You know what? Yeah, if you’re in the moment of your school being invaded by Death Eaters, and you’ve got to slip on some shoes real quick that are going to be comfortable and have traction so you can run across those bloodied halls, those slip-ons come in clutch.
Alexa: Comfort and efficiency.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: I’ve got to look at the tread of these Vans, because if there’s a big pool of blood and the tread isn’t that great, I’m just going to slide along and fall on my ass.
Laura: [laughs] I think “Comfort and efficiency” should be the new Hufflepuff slogan.
[Everyone laughs]
Alexa: Loyal, comfort, and efficient.
Andrew: Vans is forcing that one on them, so you might get it. But maybe… I think J.K. Rowling also wanted to just write a chaotic scene here, and that’s why she sent so many students down into the battle zone. Because if they weren’t there, I guess it wouldn’t have been as crazy, in a good way. Just visually, it sounds better, I think.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Well, I think that’s the justification for a lot of situations where students end up in the middle of places they shouldn’t be at Hogwarts. The story just wouldn’t be as good if they weren’t there. So I think we can all suspend disbelief and accept this, but at the same time, from a practical standpoint of people who have attended schools…
[Eric laughs]
Laura: … it’s like, “This is not how this would happen.” We’ve all done lockdowns. Come on.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Laura: So Harry manages to gain on Snape, and he realizes that Hagrid is also trying to help as well, which is so sweet. But then one of the Death Eaters sets Hagrid’s hut on fire, and I forgot about this until I read it, but Fang was still inside it!
Eric: Yep.
Alexa: Yeah, because Hagrid says something.
Laura: Yeah, and the way Hagrid says it, he’s literally like, “Fang’s inside there, you…!” and he starts fighting them. If somebody set my house on fire with my dog inside, that would not be my response. I would just let out this blood-curdling scream and then kill whoever did it.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Alexa: I would definitely lose it.
Andrew: I mean, yeah, of course. I just love that you felt like you had to say that, because yeah, very much so.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: Well, just the way he responds to it is kind of… it made me laugh a little bit, because he’s literally like, “Fang’s in there, you -” and then it cuts off as he starts trying to fight them. And I was like, “No, I would be freaking out way worse than that.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Alexa: Hey, but Fang made it.
Laura: He did, he did.
Eric: Hagrid carried him out. It’s very sweet. A very, very sweet scene. I was trying to figure out who the hell this Death Eater was…
Laura: Yeah, me too!
Eric: … because he’s just referred to as the big blond Death Eater. And I guess that’s fine, because in the moment, if Harry doesn’t know him, that’s it. We’re seeing this story through Harry’s eyes, so that’s all we’re going to get. But I did Google it – thank you, Google – and it says Thorfinn Rowle is the Death Eater that set Hagrid’s hut on fire, so you can send your hate mail to him.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Alexa: What a jerk.
Eric: I mean, I don’t think he knew that the dog was in the hut. He just is going for show.
Andrew: In fairness, yeah. I mean, Laura, with that in mind, would you still destroy him?
Laura: Yeah, it’s my house.
Alexa: Yeah, he probably didn’t care.
Eric: Yeah, he also probably didn’t care.
Laura: So I don’t think somebody who is malicious enough to be like, “You know what? I’m going to set that person’s house on fire for no reason…” I don’t think we can give them the benefit of the doubt of being like, “Oh, but he didn’t know there was a dog inside. He didn’t know there were small children in the house. Come on, let’s cut him some slack.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: And then later, Harry is like, “Well, I guess we should put your hut out. We should put some water on it.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: And then Harry needs to remind Hagrid of the water spell, and I’m like, “Really, dude? You have gardens. You work outside. How do you not know the water spell?” I can’t suspend my disbelief for that one. I think J.K. Rowling needs to rewrite that.
Alexa: I mean, maybe it’s just that he was freaking out because Fang almost died and his house is on fire, and he just was a little anxious.
Andrew: Well, okay.
Eric: Yeah, like, “Fire? Fire? But we have no wood!” Kind of like Hermione.
Andrew: That’s fair, but I feel like the ongoing thing with Hagrid is he’s not the brightest bulb in the box, so to me, this was more about Hagrid just being dumb and not well-read.
Eric: I was going to make the point that it’s been 53 years since he’s been to school, but he lives at a school, and your point about gardening totally proves it. He should know the water spell.
Andrew: And it’s to conjure an element of Earth. That’s a big one that you should know.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Alexa: Yeah, and he can give someone a pig tail, but can’t remember water?
Eric: Well, that was an accident.
Andrew: Right. And what if you go out into the Forbidden Forest for a day? Shouldn’t you have that spell ready to go so you don’t have to carry water bottles and whatnot? I just can’t believe this at all.
Laura: I do wonder how much Hagrid uses magic on just a daily basis, because isn’t his wand snapped and he has it in the umbrella?
Eric: I mean, I’m pretty sure this is the first real confirmation that Hagrid’s wand now lives in his umbrella, or whatever’s left of it does, because we see him use it to help put out his house. But I don’t get the impression altogether that he uses it very much.
Laura: Yeah, well, just based on what happened when Ron’s wand was busted, we know that if you’re using a broken wand to perform magic, it doesn’t work as you would expect it to. So I would think that would disincentivize Hagrid from using magic, because it’s like, “Well, it’s probably not going to work the way it’s supposed to most of the time.” And Hagrid just seems like one of the characters in the series who’s sort of become accustomed to living in the wizarding world and not being able to perform magic on a regular basis.
Eric: And yet he still calls Filch “Ya sneakin’ Squib,” or whatever. That rings uncomfortable for me.
Laura: Yeah, well, everybody carries their own set of prejudices, I suppose. So moving on, Harry tries to use the Cruciatus Curse on Snape, and Snape quickly knocks Harry back on his ass. Was this sort of the first piece of evidence where we as readers were thinking, “Oh, maybe Snape is actually good; maybe there was some rhyme or reason behind what he did”? Kind of wondering, “If he really was evil, why not kill Harry? Or at least hurt him worse than just knocking him back off his feet?”
Andrew: Yeah, I think it was a good sign. And I know you’re about to mention this, but I think it is relevant now: Snape does bring up to other Death Eaters, “No, we can’t kill him, because he is the Dark Lord’s to kill, to fight.” So he was lucky in that he had that excuse to use in these scenarios…
Laura: Yeah, definitely.
Andrew: … and so he could play the bad guy, but also like, “Oh, but I don’t want to kill him.”
Laura: Yeah. And throughout all of this, he is still taking the opportunity to talk smack on Harry’s dad to Harry.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, and so that’s why we can’t help but feel so conflicted over him.
Laura: Well, I’m wondering, is this useful for him to do this?
Andrew: No, because his other dad just died! And now he has to bring up…
Laura: [laughs] “His other dad.”
Andrew: Yeah, really! He was a father figure to Harry, Dumbledore was. And Snape is just kicking him when he is down. It’s awful.
Eric: I think this scene is better read slowly and outside of the context of the happenings of the book, because this stuff about James Potter using his own spells against him is profound. It means something. You can tell that Snape cares about the idea that his own spells would be used against him, yada, yada. But in the book, when it’s happening in his reveal, it seems quick and hollow, and I don’t think any of this information – or even Snape’s taunts – land properly, because we are still blinded by needing to get Snape, needing to prevent him from leaving, needing to put Hagrid’s house out, and so a lot of the information… even when Snape comes out and says, “It is I, the Half-Blood Prince!” and then disappears and is gone, you’re just like, “Holy crap.” All this information was dumped real quickly, and now you don’t have any time to really process it. I think the internal workings of Snape’s mind are laid bare here. We see his rage. We see how much he hates being called a coward. But there’s no… it does seem kind of like he’s just getting another jab in at James, when really, I think the underlyingness of his psyche right now is he’s just performed the least cowardly act anyone can be called upon to do, and is still putting up this front to the entire world about his true allegiances, while having to kill his own best friend and mentor, and this piss-ant Harry is getting in the way and throwing his own spells at him? He’s going to react to that.
Laura: Yeah, definitely. Do we think that this is Snape sort of trying to stay in character so that Harry doesn’t suspect that there was an ulterior motive going on here? Or is he literally just deferring to his base nature?
Alexa: I think that he was just being himself. I mean, we know how much he hates James, and he’s still going to hate him regardless of his bigger mission of trying to protect Harry until the end. So I still think he gets some sort of sick satisfaction or joy out of taunting James in front of Harry and kind of saying, “Oh, you’re doing the same thing your dad did.” I don’t think it’s right, but I think it’s just generally how much he hated James.
Laura: Yeah. And I think this could also be Snape being very literal about the promise that he made to protect Harry. He’s like, “I’ll protect him to the extent that I won’t let him die, but that doesn’t mean I have to be nice to him.”
Andrew: Right.
Laura: “I don’t need to protect his mental state. That’s not my job.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: “Somebody else can take care of that.”
Laura: But see, the thing that I find interesting through all of this is that he’s still teaching Harry. I know that when I first read the book I didn’t really read it this way, because again, like Eric said, I was so blinded by everything that was going on in the wake of Dumbledore’s death. But he says to Harry, “Blocked again and again and again until you learn to keep your mouth shut and your mind closed, Potter!”
Eric: Yep.
Andrew: But funnily enough, Harry just does not care about that right now…
Laura: Nope. [laughs]
Andrew: … and hopefully he’s committing this to memory, but he’s not really paying attention to what Snape is saying.
Eric: I would really love to have seen this matter. I would really love to have seen learning nonverbal spells and practicing Legilimency to be a big deal in defeating Voldemort. It’s not, but Snape is doing the absolute best he can to teach Harry, and that’s why I kind of read a lot of this a little differently. Snape has to still find a way to be the big bad that Harry thinks he is. He has to still find a way, otherwise Harry might not believe that he’s such a bad guy and won’t tell the rest of the Order of the Phoenix what happened and all this other stuff. He has to absolutely become the villain now, and so taunting Harry is the tried and tested way of getting to Harry’s heart and emotions, getting in his head, without actually killing him or firing spells that hurt him.
Alexa: Yeah, and I just thought about it, but I mean, thinking on that aspect, he’s telling Harry to still shut his mind, because Harry is really bad at shutting his mind. So Snape almost has to be the big bad villain, because if Harry doesn’t think that Snape is all bad, then he could let Voldemort into his head and it could ruin everything.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Well, and that’s supported later in Book 7 when we find out that Dumbledore asked Snape to give Harry the sword of Gryffindor, but he explicitly was like, “You have to give it to him without him knowing it was you, because he’s really bad at keeping his mind closed, and Voldemort will find out.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Alexa: Right.
Eric: Oh my God. Well, and it wasn’t until this reread that I really noticed, but his whole… this mind closed thing, it’s not just that Snape is extremely good at blocking spells, because he is. Everything that Harry wants to shoot at him, he immediately reflects, and I’m like, “Oh my God, he does it nonverbally. He’s really good at blocking.” But it is also that Harry’s mind is so open that Snape can literally read what he’s about to do before he even does it. So it’s the one-two punch of why Harry could never succeed against an actual grown wizard, until he does.
Laura: Definitely. So following this moment, Snape is able to write off killing Harry based on Voldemort’s orders. We see him telling the other Death Eaters, “No, the Dark Lord wants him.” What if, sort of in an alternate universe, someone else did kill Harry against Voldemort’s commands? What do we think would happen? What would Voldemort do if he found out that somebody else killed Harry?
Alexa: He’d be pissed.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: He would kill that person.
Eric: [laughs] Yeah.
Andrew: I guess Voldemort would be a little glad that he was dead. It would save him some time. He could go on vacation a little earlier than he was hoping.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: But yeah, I think he would absolutely be pissed.
Laura: He could go back to Albania?
Eric: Yeah, I was going to say, that’s Voldemort’s vacation spot.
Andrew: [laughs] Back to Albania, baby. His nose would grow back.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: He would look human again. No, but yeah, he would absolutely be pissed. And then also, just like, what about us as readers? “Oh, surprise, there aren’t seven books, actually. I was lying to all of you the whole time. There’s actually going to be six.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Or all of Book 7 is an epilogue.
Laura: I think this would be interesting just because it would call the legitimacy of the prophecy into question. I could see a Death Eater… say a Death Eater kills Harry, or a Death Eater is led to believe that they’ve killed Harry; I feel like that could be an interesting turn of events too. But I could see that person being like, “Well, wait. Only Voldemort is supposed to be able to do this, and I just did it. So was this kid really the Chosen One? And was the prophecy between he and Voldemort real?”
Andrew: Right.
Laura: Because Dumbledore has talked about this time and time again, which is that the only reason the prophecy is legitimate is because Voldemort takes it seriously. If he had chosen to never act on it, nothing would have happened.
Andrew and Eric: Right.
Andrew: In this very book, he was emphasizing that.
Eric: I just always think the spell would just rebound again. Whoever casts a death curse at Harry would see it ricochet, like it did when he was a baby. I don’t know what’s changed to make that not the case. I think Harry is possibly functionally immortal.
Laura: Interesting.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s a bold claim.
Eric: I kind of view it as the fact that nobody successfully gets off a Killing Curse that hits Harry between now and into “The Forest Again,” when he is killed by Voldemort, but we know he survives that. I wonder if it’s just luck and good writing that that didn’t happen, because I think it would have rebounded again.
Laura: Hmm.
Eric: No proof for it. I just kind of always thought that was the case.
Laura: Maybe this is another question we can ask J.K. Rowling.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: This is Eric’s one question to ask J.K. Rowling.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Yeah, probably. My one of many.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: So then after this, we get the big reveal. It says, “He -“ and this is referring to Snape “- was no longer sneering or jeering; the blazing flames showed a face full of rage. […] ‘You dare use my own spells against me, Potter? It was I who invented them – I, the Half-Blood Prince!'”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: “I!”
Laura: [laughs] Sorry, the way I read that came across not…
Eric: Let’s do that as Micah voices, everybody.
Andrew: I thought that was good, Laura.
Laura: [in a deep voice] “I, the Half-Blood Prince.” My Micah voice.
[Alexa and Laura laugh]
Laura: “And you’d turn my own inventions on me, like your filthy father, would you?” So what did we make of this scene when we first read it? Were we shocked?
Andrew: Well, I can’t really remember, to be honest with you. I guess reading it in this moment, you’re like, “Oh, yeah. Okay. This all makes sense now.” I don’t know.
Eric: For me, it reads… the intentionality behind it all, like the idea that Snape knew throughout the year as he was seeing Harry use these spells, that it was him. For me, it just calls back to the Sectumsempra thing. Snape knew then, and didn’t say anything, that it was his own spell. So I just remember my jaw dropping.
Alexa: Yeah, I think I was pretty shocked, but in the sense that things that had happened earlier on in the book – like the Sectumsempra spell and the Levicorpus – all of it kind of came together and made sense with him being the Half-Blood Prince.
Laura: Definitely. And what do we make of Snape’s reaction to being called a coward? Harry is like, “Kill me then. Kill me like you killed him, you coward.”
Andrew: Yeah. So first of all… oh, sorry.
Laura: Snape is very visceral in his reaction here.
Andrew: Yeah. First of all, it’s really sad that Harry is just mentally at a place where he’s encouraging Snape to kill him. That’s just awful; he’s feeling that low. But this is an important moment, because I think it’s also giving Snape Marauders flashbacks. And I was doing some reading on this chapter – when we do these Chapter by Chapter discussions, I like googling the chapter to see what other discussions have been out there – and I found this LiveJournal entry written before Deathly Hallows was released, and it brought up the good point that this was a scene for the “Snape is good” people. They used… they pointed to this one because, as this person wrote on their LiveJournal, “Dumbledore has, in some way or another, ordered him to kill him, and Snape is doing the bravest possible thing by obeying him and killing the only man who ever showed any faith in him. Snape is enraged because he is absolutely not a coward. He is anything but a coward. He had to do one of the hardest things in his life: kill Dumbledore.” So for Snape…
Laura: Yeah, and he can’t tell anyone about it either.
Andrew: Exactly. So that’s why he’s all caps-ing right now. And you’ve got to feel for Snape in this moment, too, because he wants the truth out there; he just can’t yet, at least to Harry.
Eric: Right.
Alexa: Yeah, and that kind of… I think it also goes back to being a coward is probably the worst insult for Snape to hear, especially coming from Harry, because everything he’s risking and continues to risk is to protect him, Lily Potter’s son. So it’s just… for him, he’s like, “I just killed someone that I love who had faith in me, but this is coming from the kid that I’m doing it for.”
Laura: And you also had another good point here, Alexa, about Hermione?
Alexa: [laughs] Yeah, my girl.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Alexa: Yeah, I just remember when I first read the chapter, I remember thinking, “Oh my goodness, Hermione was freaking right on point. Why do they always dismiss her thoughts?”
[Eric laughs]
Alexa: She may not have gotten it quite right, but she had Eileen Prince, and I mean, that was pretty much right on point.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: She was on track.
Eric: Yeah, classic Rowling-ism, to have all the info, but it comes too late.
Laura: So how do we feel? I know, Andrew, we talked about this a little earlier, but how do we feel about the movie treatment of this scene?
Andrew: I actually watched the movie recently. I did find the end of the movie on a whole just one big downer. It’s not very exciting; it’s just sad. Even this… I like the Snape moment where Harry is chasing him for a moment, and “I am the Half-Blood Prince,” but the book is much better, as always. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah. I wish that we had seen more of the dialogue that happened in this scene, especially the rage Caps Lock “Don’t call me coward” bit. I really think that Alan Rickman would have been able to carry that well and convincingly.
Andrew: And also because of how important it is to the story.
Laura: Yeah, definitely.
Eric: I’m glad it’s not in the movie, because I’m glad he’s not talking about “Your filthy father did this, that, the other thing,” because the Marauders subplot was cut from the movies, so there’s really not that connection there to be made about much of anything other than Snape being the Half-Blood Prince.
Andrew: There’s some Marauders in the movies.
Alexa: Yeah, you get a little bit of it in Order of the Phoenix during his Occlumency lessons, so you get a little bit of it, but it’s not… I don’t know if you get enough of that plot in order for a large amount of dialogue to be present. I don’t know if a lot of people would be able to connect the dots.
Laura: I feel like… didn’t they have Snape at a couple of points in the movies make disparaging remarks about James Potter, though?
Alexa: I think so.
Andrew: Yeah, I would guess so.
Laura: I can’t remember… because I know they definitely did it in Deathly Hallows – Part 2 for the memories, but I can’t remember if he had done it before that, like during his Occlumency lessons with Harry.
Eric: Hard to say.
Laura: I feel like if they were going to, that’s where they would have done it. But even so, even if they had left out all the Marauders stuff here… because I think, Eric, you’re right that that is a subplot that was very poorly… well, it wasn’t used at all, and that’s unfortunate. But I think that they still could have leaned on the idea of Snape reacting badly to Harry calling him a coward. I guess I’m just wondering if from a moviegoer perspective, if that would have been too on the nose and tipped people off to Snape’s allegiances.
Eric: Right.
Laura: Maybe that’s something that is easier to accept in literary format than movie format, which I’m cool with. But I agree with Andrew; this whole scene in the movie felt kind of anticlimactic.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s kind of how people feel about Crimes of Grindelwald. It’s like it leaves you hanging a little bit. You just want more at the end.
Laura: Yeah, definitely.
Andrew: [laughs] We do get an identity reveal at the end of both movies. That’s nice.
[Alexa and Laura laugh]
Andrew: “I am the Half-Blood Aurelius Dumbledore.”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Yeah, but at this point you’re just kind of numb from the loss that you’ve suffered.
Andrew: Exactly.
Eric: It doesn’t really fall with the weight… of a Hogwarts headmaster onto the grounds.
Andrew: Wow.
Laura: So after all of this, Harry approaches the base of the tower where Dumbledore’s body is laying, and this is such a heart-wrenching scene. I mean, Dumbledore is all splayed out and weird, and his limbs are all messed up from the fall, and there’s blood coming out of his mouth, and Harry notices the locket on the ground because he’s leaning on it… and hats off to Dumbledore’s really loose pockets, apparently, that allowed that to fall out.
[Alexa and Eric laugh]
Andrew: He needs some zippers on those. Doesn’t matter now, but could’ve used zippers.
Laura: Really convenient for the plot. Thank you, Dumbledore.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Well, somebody… yeah, I guess. I mean, if I was Harry, I would have probably at some point wanted to go through his pockets to check out what he’s got on him.
[Alexa and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Is that morbid?
Alexa: Just to see if he has any cool stuff?
Eric: I was going to say, if Harry doesn’t… yeah, yeah, the Put-Outer. What other cool gadgets of his own making…?
Andrew: Or a heart necklace with Harry’s picture in it.
Laura: Aww.
Eric: And then Grindelwald’s on the other side.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: And Harry is like, “Why is Johnny Depp in here?”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I mean, if Harry didn’t find the locket now, he’d have to loot Dumbledore’s corpse later, so it’s probably best that it was out. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, and also just for pacing, I feel like the moment… you know what? This is part of the reason why I think the end of the movie kind of felt anticlimactic, because they don’t make this RAB reveal until later when he, Ron, and Hermione are up in the tower, whereas I think it’s so much more poignant for him to be by Dumbledore’s body, looking at the inside of this locket, and realizing, “Holy crap, this is not a real Horcrux. This is fake news. What am I supposed to do with this?” It’s sort of like he… in that moment, you feel like Dumbledore died for nothing.
Eric: I don’t disagree, but at that point, Harry himself has no emotions left to give. The book says he feels nothing. We know he doesn’t really feel nothing, but that’s how I think as a reader you’d feel, or I feel, because it’s just like, “If it was all for nothing, what’s the point then?” And you can’t help but just kind of be angry at the plot at that point, I think.
Alexa: Yeah, and with the RAB thing, it’s just kind of… in the book it says, “Without even thinking about it, Harry opened the locket.”
Eric: And he just kind of crumples it up and throws it away. I don’t mind that they moved the place where you find out about it, because it’s clearly not something you’re going to get an answer to in this book. It’s very much like a “Here’s the seed that is going to be explored later” kind of a plot point, so I don’t mind if it’s revealed in front of Dumbledore’s corpse or later at the end of I guess the movie on the Astronomy Tower or wherever they are.
Laura: Yeah. I guess just to me, when you read that, there’s that sense of hopelessness that comes with right before all of the major events of the following book. Harry is at the lowest low; “Our leader in this resistance is dead, and it was all for nothing” in that moment. And so I guess that feeling elevates the feelings that you have later in Book 7 when they do have some success, and when they also have some failures. So I feel like that low moment really helps to establish the arc of the next book, and that’s why I’m disappointed that it wasn’t included in the movie.
Eric: I think that’s really fair. The movie at this point is gearing up to omit all of Dumbledore’s funeral.
Laura: Yep. [laughs]
Andrew: Ohh, I forgot about that too.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, which is really amazing, and I can’t wait to read it and figure out all the people that show up, because it’s tons of people from other books we haven’t heard from in a real long time. But I actually noticed something while reading that I wanted to bring to your guys’ attention. So we know in the movie, instead of doing Dumbledore’s funeral, they have this very touching… I forget if it’s McGonagall that starts it, but all the witches and wizards hold their wands up, and the wand tip lighting thing, it’s now become a staple of the theme park anytime something opens. “Lift up your wands, light up the sky.” Very, very touching way. I think it works for the movie, how they just kind of light their wand tips and do this. But I was wondering… so it’s not in the books, but there is something in the books. So here’s the quote: “Harry pulled out the fragment of parchment -“ this is RAB’s note “- opened it, and read by the light of the many wands that had now been lit behind him.” So people are just lighting their wands because it’s dark on the castle grounds, right? People are…
Andrew: It’s a crime scene now.
Eric: Yeah, they’re trying to figure out…
Andrew: These aren’t wands; they’re police flashlights.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: They’re trying to figure out what’s going on, so all these wands are lit behind Harry because people just want to see. But I wonder if in the adaptation they didn’t take that to mean, because there’s all these wands that are lit behind him, that people are lighting their wands almost as if in tribute.
Andrew: Maybe.
Eric: I wonder if the genesis of that idea doesn’t come straight from this quote.
Andrew: It could, yeah. Visually, it’s a very striking thing to see on screen, so I’m glad that they, whoever came up with that, did. It’s something that even fans do now too. I mean, you say it’s for big ride openings, but…
Eric: Theme park. You’ll be doing it this week, I’m sure.
Andrew: Probably.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: I’ll be like, “No.” No, but in all seriousness, when there was that terrible Pulse nightclub shooting here in Orlando, one of the people who died was a Wizarding World employee, and I know J.K. Rowling, which I thought was great, paid tribute to him on Twitter. But also, there was a tribute to him in the parks, just a fan thing, and they all pointed their wands at Hogwarts at dusk or something like that, and it was a super sweet moment. There’s photos of it. That type of thing has really resonated with fans, actually, so it’s great on multiple levels.
Eric: I’d forgotten about that.
Laura: Yeah, that’s a good point.
Connecting the Threads
Laura: So wrapping things up, I thought we could connect some threads. These were things that I noticed, but if there were any instances that y’all noticed, please feel free to speak up. So the first one I brought up was that Harry, Ron, and Ginny all make appearances during the books’ climactic scenes, whereas Hermione does not, just like in Chamber of Secrets. I was kind of wondering why is she not here fighting alongside all of that?
Andrew: Oh, Laura, give her a break.
Laura: No, no, I’m not…
Andrew: No, that’s a good point.
Laura: I’m not crapping on her.
Andrew: [laughs] I’m kidding.
Laura: I’m just wondering what happened that Ron and Ginny were like, “Okay, we’re going.” I can’t imagine if Hermione was there that she would have been like, “Nah, I’m not doing that.”
Andrew: Right. She would definitely be one to head into the action, so yeah, I don’t know. That’s a good question. Maybe she’s teaching Hagrid the Aguamenti spell.
[Alexa and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Although he’s in the scene too, so I guess not.
Laura: Maybe she was asleep.
Alexa: But don’t we know that she also drank some of the liquid luck, the Felix Felicis? So maybe she was just away from Ron and Ginny.
Laura: Maybe.
Eric: She had a sudden lucky urge to go to the bathroom on the second floor.
[Alexa and Laura laugh]
Alexa: Away from the action.
Laura: She drank it, and then Felix was like, “You should just stay in and study.”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: “It’s a good night for that.”
Andrew: I heard you say she went to bed, Laura. I like that answer too. Maybe she was just in bed.
Laura: [laughs] I like to think about all the Hogwarts students who just slept through this whole thing and then woke up the next morning like, “What the f?” Because that’s what would happen to me. I could sleep through a nuclear blast and it would not be a problem, and then I would wake up in the morning and be like, “Why is it nuclear winter outside?”
Andrew: And it was late at night, so it makes perfect sense.
Laura: So another point is at this point in Chamber of Secrets, sort of in the ending chapters of the book, Harry unknowingly has a real Horcrux, whereas here, he knowingly has a fake one.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: That hurts. It’s like, “Ouch.”
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.
Laura: And then in Chapter 17, “The Heir of Slytherin,” in Chamber of Secrets, Riddle says that Dumbledore has been driven out of the castle by the mere memory of him. Just to kind of go over what was happening there, Dumbledore had been banned from the school by the Board of Governors – which included Lucius Malfoy – voting on that. And it’s just interesting that here Riddle is saying, “Oh, I drove Dumbledore out of the school just by using my memory,” and now Dumbledore has literally been driven out of the school.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: And then in Chapter 18 of Chamber of Secrets, “Dobby’s Reward,” Harry and Ron each received 200 House points for Gryffindor because of rescuing Ginny from the Chamber of Secrets. And this is another one that hurts: In this chapter, Harry passes the Gryffindor hourglass, and it’s broken, and all of its rubies are falling out.
Eric: Aw.
Andrew: Damn, Laura.
Laura: So at one end of the series, they’re gaining points, and at the other end of the series, they’re losing them.
Andrew: Did you Google for these? Or did you find all these yourself just from memory?
Laura: I looked up some Wikis for summaries, and then if I saw something that seemed like a good hook, I pulled the book out and flipped through it.
Andrew: Wow, nice. You rock.
Alexa: That’s pretty impressive.
Andrew: Yeah, I’m impressed.
Laura: I love doing these. I’m a huge fan of frame narratives, which is what this is, so I love the idea of each of the books corresponding, and then having the Book 4 as the centerpiece.
Eric: I wonder if those rubies have any monetary value, if any of the kids could now get rich grabbing some.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: Maybe.
Andrew: You would think they’re worth something.
Laura: Are they real rubies, though?
Andrew: No, but it’s still like, “Ooh, a collectible. This was in the…”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Alexa: In Hogwarts.
Eric: You see them selling them on the wizarding dark web.
Laura: Andrew, I could totally see you doing this.
Andrew: Stealing them and flipping them for some cash?
Laura: This is your Slytherin nature coming out for sure.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Hey, I’ve got to pay for those Slytherin shoes somehow.
[Alexa and Eric laugh]
Laura: And then finally, in Chapter 18 of Chamber of Secrets, it’s revealed that Lucius Malfoy was behind Dumbledore’s dismissal from the school, as well as depositing Tom Riddle’s diary into Ginny’s textbooks. And I thought that these deliberate attempts are an interesting parallel to Draco’s also deliberate yet halfhearted attempts to kill Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince.
Eric: Oh, yeah. In Book 2, Lucius is working directly against Dumbledore, and in Book 6, Draco is directly working against Dumbledore.
Laura: Right.
Eric: That’s kind of cool.
Andrew: Those are great. So if you have any feedback about today’s discussion, send it on in – MuggleCast@gmail.com – or use the contact form on the website. And we’re about to get to MVP of the Week and Rename the Chapter, but first…
Laura: First, we wanted to hear a quick word from one of our sponsors, ThirdLove.
[Ad break]
MVP of the Week
Andrew: Okay, so it’s time now for MVP of the Week, and I honestly could not think of who to give it to.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: I just… yeah, nobody deserves it this chapter. I’ll give it to Dumbledore’s dead body, just because, man, that sucks to be all disheveled and have an arm broken and you’re just laying there.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Alexa: Oh my gosh.
Andrew: I mean, this iconic wizard is now just in shambles, and everybody is just staring at this mess, this cold mess on the ground. Poor guy. So Dumbledore’s dead body for having to deal with that.
Alexa: Oh, man. Well, I was kind of ton between two. The first I decided was going to be RAB for just mic-dropping all over Voldemort, even though Voldemort doesn’t really know.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Alexa: But I mean, the dude figured out a pretty decently guarded secret, and I think he’s definitely the MVP. And then second, I just put the other members of the Order for not dying like Dumbledore did.
Andrew: Oooh. Yeah, finally we found something that people can be better at than Dumbledore was. [laughs]
Laura: Living.
Andrew: That’s really mean.
Laura: That’s pretty savage.
Andrew: Yeah, it is.
Laura: I love it, though. I gave mine to Snape for being able to hold it all together. I don’t know if I could have done it, you know?
Andrew: Yeah. Well…
Laura: It’s tough. Andrew, if you came to me and you were like, “Hey, at the end of this year, I will need you to kill me, because I’m going to die anyway,” first of all, I wouldn’t agree to do it, but if I did, I would have a really hard time in the moment actually pulling it off.
Andrew: Right.
Laura: Because I care about you that much.
Andrew: That’s very nice of you, Laura. I thought you were going to say you were going to ask me, “Can I just do it now? Can I just kill you now?”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: The sooner the better.
Laura: No. I mean, would I still get paid?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: You get bonus for doing it sooner. Bonus cash.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: And Eric?
Eric: I also gave the MVP to RAB, for reasons already stated by Alexa.
Andrew: Okay. Yeah, the RAB answer was probably the best one.
Rename the Chapter
Andrew: Now rename the chapter. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 28, “RAB in, HBP out.”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: It’s funny how one mystery is solved and another immediately begins after that, although Harry doesn’t really care in this moment.
Eric: Yeah, that’s great. I named mine after Hagrid in this chapter. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 28, “Thick Skin Required.” We know that Hagrid’s giant skin seems to give him extra protection against Rowle’s spells.
Laura: Eric, is that “thicc” with two C’s?
Andrew: Oooh.
Eric: Um, no?
[Alexa and Laura laugh]
Andrew: It’s very trendy.
Eric: I’m going to be non-trendy in this particular area. It’s making me feel weird.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: I bet Hagrid’s coats help as well. I feel like he wears multiple layers of clothing at all times.
Laura: Yeah, doesn’t he wear moleskin coats or something like that?
Eric: Yeah, and they have little creatures inside them, so maybe they’re taking the brunt of all the spells.
Alexa: Yeah, they seem pretty thick, too.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Is that with two C’s, Alexa?
Alexa: I don’t know. Maybe.
Laura: Anytime I read that word when someone writes it online, I read it as “thick-ck.”
[Everyone laughs]
Alexa: Giving an extra emphasis to the second C.
Laura: Yes.
Andrew: I just think of it in a sexy way. “Thiiiicc.”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: “Yeah, Hagrid’s thicc.”
Eric: That’s what I’m talking about, yeah.
Laura: See, and if only Madam Pomfrey had given him that kind of recognition, instead of just treating him like he was three people standing in the hospital wing.
Andrew: Oh, God, yeah.
Laura: So mean. All right, I would do mine as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 28, “#FakeNews Horcrux.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Alexa: All right, and I did Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 28, “Chasing Snape and Draco.”
Laura: It’s true.
Eric: Snape really does a good job in this chapter at keeping Draco out of the whole battle.
Andrew and Alexa: Yeah.
Alexa: Grabbing him and saying, “It’s time to go, get out of here, keep going…”
Eric: Presumably he’s blocking curses fired at Draco or himself the entire way down the stairs.
Andrew: Yeah, exactly.
Alexa: Yeah, and Draco gets away unscathed.
Eric: Completely, yeah. We don’t even know that he gets a bruise or draws blood at all, so that’s pretty massive success on Snape’s part.
Andrew: Well, we have one more sponsor this week. They are for everyone listening, because everyone is a Harry Potter fan who might want to show off their passion for the Wizarding World. I want to tell you about the Wizarding World Figurine Collection from Eaglemoss Hero Collector. They are officially authorized by Warner Bros., and they offer a slew of brand new Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts figurines. From Harry to Newt, Dumbledore to Voldemort, the Occamy to a Dementor, every figurine has been sculpted in a classic movie pose at 1:16 scale. So maybe you could buy the Dumbledore one and drop him off a tower if you wanted to. Bring it to life. [laughs] Each character comes with a guide so you can learn a little more about them, which is a really unique touch in the merchandising world. I have not seen that with any other Harry Potter merchandise. I took some pictures for our social media channels the other day, and I had a lot of fun opening them up and putting them together in certain scenes, and they look great on your shelf. You can collect every figurine in the Wizarding World Collection and create this landscape of characters; it’s really cool. Sign up for the collection at HeroCollector.com/Wizards and get your first figurine, which is a spell-casting Harry Potter as seen in the Battle of Hogwarts, for only $9.95 with free shipping. Do it now, and Hero Collector will add Hermione Granger as a year one student for free. And what’s more, you get a free exclusive art print; it’s included with every shipment, and then thereafter, two new figurines with detailed character guides and art print will be delivered each month for only $15.95 plus $2.45 shipping each. And as a subscriber, you’re also eligible for special offers and free gifts personalized to the Hogwarts House of your choice. Plus, you may cancel your subscription at any time, so there’s no longterm commitment. For details and to take advantage of this special offer, visit HeroCollector.com/Wizards and get collecting.
Quizzitch
Andrew: So it’s time now for Quizzitch.
Eric: Yes, last week’s question: Who did Draco mistake for being dead? We remember at the top of the tower, Draco is like, “Yeah, somebody’s dead down there. Don’t know who.” Well, it turns out that it is Bill Weasley, who is very much alive, but we don’t really find that out yet. It’s actually answered in next week’s chapter. But the correct answer is Bill Weasley; that’s who Draco thought was dead. Issy Marcantonio, over on Twitter, answered and said, “Yay, you guys are back! You go off air for two weeks, and I have an ear infection for two weeks. Suspicious.” Anyway, this week’s Quizzitch answer is Bill Weasley. I thought that was funny.
Andrew: Well, it’s been proven by the FDA that we actually are good for your ears. We clean you out.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: And other Quizzitch successful answers came from Steph, Sara, Hayley, J.K. not Rowling a.k.a. Julie Ann C., Sarah Davis, Daniel Etok, Jason King, Lourdes, Fluffy McNutters, Karin Fröjdh, Marlena, and Grindy & Voldy. So congratulations to all those winners. Next week’s question also comes from the next chapter, and it is: From whom does Lupin learn that Dumbledore has died? Who tells Lupin? Or who does Lupin hear it from that Dumbledore is dead? And submit your answers over to us on Twitter, hashtag #Quizzitch, at @MuggleCast.
Andrew: What if social media existed in the Harry Potter books? And Harry makes this post about Dumbledore dying, like, “RIP, I loved you so much,” and that’s how Lupin learned about it?
Eric: And Lupin does the wow face emoji?
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: “Wow, can’t believe he’s dead!”
Eric: The wow face react.
Alexa: “Whoa!”
Laura: What do we think the hashtag would have been?
Andrew: #Rippledore.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: RIP Dumbledore, Rippledore… what do you mean, the hashtag for his death?
Laura: Yeah, you know there would’ve been one.
Eric: #Dumblegone.
Andrew: [laughs] #Dumbledead.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Wow, we’re really mean. I’m sorry if anybody gets upset by how we make fun of Dumbledore dying.
Laura: It’s all out of love.
Andrew: It is.
Alexa: Yeah, we all love him.
Andrew: Speaking of social media, do follow us on Instagram. When the new Hagrid ride opens up later this week, I will be making some posts on our channel, Instagram.com/MuggleCast. And in addition to covering cool events like the one happening this week, we also post clips from the show, so you can check out what we were talking about before you actually listen to the episode. And we also post memes and what’s going on in our own lives in relation to Harry Potter, so check it out. Username MuggleCast on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We would also love your support on Patreon; you’ll receive instant access to installments of bonus MuggleCast, early access to our show via the weekly livestreams – thank you to everybody who is listening live on this Sunday morning – and MuggleCast throwbacks. For example, Eric recently posted the show doc for Episode 100, which was super cool. And also, you guys… so I recently became an uncle, about a year ago now, so not so recently, but my nephew encountered a Harry Potter toy for the first time, and my mom actually took a picture and sent it to me.
Laura: Aww.
Andrew: And it was really cute seeing my nephew look at Harry Potter for the first time; that’s kind of special. So I posted that photo on our Patreon. Your support goes to keeping the show rocking and rolling. We’ve been able to do so much with the funds we have raised through Patreon. I had mentioned before we started recording, I think, that we’re actually going to a podcast convention in Orlando in August, because we said, “What can we do to be extremely hot this summer and want to die?” And we said, “Let’s go to a podcast convention in August in Orlando, Florida.” So that’s what we’re doing. [laughs] But it’ll be a fun opportunity for us to get together and learn more about podcasting and network and stuff like that. So these are the types of things that your support goes to. And of course, because of the Patreon, we are weekly again. Alexa, thank you for supporting us on Patreon.
Alexa: Of course. I love listening to you guys every week.
Andrew: Cool. Well, we really appreciate it. Listeners, it might be safe to plug in your you-know-what again, if you did that already. If you had to unplug it. And yeah, we hope you had a good time on the show today.
Alexa: Yeah, I had a great time. Thanks for having me, you guys.
Andrew: Absolutely.
Laura: And you were great.
Andrew: Yeah, you were.
Alexa: Thank you.
Andrew: Alexa told us she had a podcasting mic ready to go because she once almost did a podcast herself. [laughs]
Alexa: Yeah, almost, and then decided against it.
Eric: What would it have been called? What would it have been about?
Alexa: The what about, don’t know. What it was called, we had an idea about calling it something like “Legends in Our Own Minds,” because I think I’m way cooler than I probably actually am.
[Eric laughs]
Alexa: But yeah, ended up just too busy. Couldn’t do it.
Andrew: Well, that’s okay. I feel like a lot of people probably go that way. They’re like, “Let’s start a podcast!” And then they’re like, “Oh, we don’t have the time, actually.”
Alexa: Yeah, it’s crazy how much work actually goes into putting a decent podcast together.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, you said you were impressed with our show doc. I was like, “Oh, thank you.”
Alexa: Yeah, it’s very organized. Love it.
Andrew: [laughs] I’m an outline guy, personally. Love the outlines. All right, well, if you want to get in touch with us, a reminder, you can call us; 1-920-3-MUGGLE. That’s 1-920-368-4453. Just try to keep your voicemail around a minute, and call us from a quiet place, and ideally don’t use Bluetooth, because those tend to sound bad, and we want to play a good-sounding recording on the podcast. You can also email us, MuggleCast@gmail.com, or use the contact form on our website. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Laura: I’m Laura.
Alexa: And I’m Alexa.
Andrew: Bye, everybody!
Laura: See you.
Alexa: Bye.