Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #460, Loony Lockhart (OOTP 23, Christmas on the Closed Ward)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the wizarding world. I’m J… [laughs] Oh my God, I almost said J.K. Rowling.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah Tannenbaum: I thought you were going to say Joe Exotic.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura Tee: Just do it. Just lean in to it.
Andrew: [in an English accent] I am J.K. Rowling. [back to normal voice] I’m Andrew. Sims.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Andrew: I forget this whole intro.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Yeah, pretty sure I’m Eric. I’m not sure. That’s subject to change.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: We’re going to start today’s episode with an exciting announcement. We had a live version of Quizzitch a couple weeks ago, and we’re going to do it again this week, this Thursday, April 9. Our stream will start at 7:15 p.m. eastern, and the game itself will begin at 7:30 p.m. eastern. It’s going to be a lot of fun. This round of Quizzitch Live will be all fandom-based. I’m calling it Quizzitch Live: The Fandom of Secrets.
Eric: Oooh.
Andrew: Get it?
Micah: That’s well done. I like that.
Andrew: Oh, thank you so much. Laura and I are developing the questions now; it’s been a lot of fun.
Laura: Yeah, so I feel like I’ve kind of taken a time machine back through all of the major happenings in the fandom. It’s been a nice little walk down memory lane.
Andrew: Yeah!
Micah: “In what hotel did Laura leave her pants?”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Not sure that’ll be a question.
Micah: Oh.
Andrew: It will be mainly broader Harry Potter fandom questions. It’s going to be a nice trip down memory lane, and I’m sure in between the questions we’ll be reminiscing about the good old days, so hopefully that warms everyone up.
Micah: I will say, Andrew, that whole Quizzitch Live was so much fun. Almost two weeks ago at this point; I feel like all the days just blend together now. But I really think that people enjoyed it. It was a nice escape for them, but also for us.
Andrew: Yeah, for sure.
Micah: And how are you faring with Laura coming up with these questions? Because I know we talked about this during our hangout, but the questions themselves aren’t necessarily what’s challenging to come up with; it’s the other three choices that you need to try and trick people with.
Andrew: Right. I think it’s all fun, coming up with the questions and the answers. I don’t think it’s too difficult. Maybe I’m just a better quiz writer, Micah, than you are. I don’t know.
Micah: You could be.
Laura: [laughs] Ouch.
Micah: Is Fudge going to join us this week?
Andrew: Yes, yes, Fudge will be here.
Eric: Yay.
Andrew: Fudge is booked. So again, this is this Thursday, April 9. You might need two devices to get the full experience, because you’ll need one window open to play the quiz and another to tune into our livestream. If you only have access to one device, one mobile device, you probably will just need to stick with playing the game itself, but you can always watch our stream after the fact. Anyway, that’s going to be a lot of fun, so join us this Thursday.
Micah: Are they just fandom questions, or will you throw in a book question, movie question…?
Andrew: There will be questions… it’s not going to be the same type of quiz as last time. It’s not going to be questions about the plot, I don’t think, unless we’re referencing maybe a J.K. Rowling interview in which she said something about a plot point, like, “Where did J.K. Rowling reveal that Dumbledore is gay?” Maybe something like that.
Eric: Right, right. How best can people study for this?
Andrew: Um…
Laura: Google.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Go to Archive.org, type in MuggleNet.com in the Wayback Machine, and start browsing 15 years of news stories. [laughs]
Eric: Okay! All right.
Andrew: I’m not saying that’s how I’m getting my questions, but that’s how… that would be probably the only way…
Micah: But that’s how you’re getting your questions.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: No, it’s truly not. It’s seriously not. I’m just sitting here and reflecting on the old days and coming up with things. [laughs]
Eric: That seems easy enough.
Laura: Yeah, that’s what I’m doing.
Micah: This is cool. I’m looking forward to this. I might play.
Andrew: Mm… I don’t know, I feel like that’s a conflict of interest.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Oh, is it?
Andrew: I mean, you could play along as you’re cohosting, I guess.
Micah: Yeah, but just don’t have the Excel document with the answers, and it opened probably is not a good idea.
Andrew: Right as you’re playing, yeah. So anyway, Quizzitch Live: The Fandom of Secrets, this Thursday, April 9. Stream starts at 7:15 p.m. eastern, and the game will begin at 7:30 p.m. eastern. This is free for everybody; you do not have to be a patron. This will be open to the public, so we hope to see you there.
Eric: Directly following TigerCast Live.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: We’re all into Tiger King.
Personality Quiz
Andrew: J.K. Rowling has been back on Twitter, as we’ve touched on a couple of times, and she shared this personality quiz that she took over at OpenPsychometrics.org/Tests/Characters and she shared her results. And it’s really interesting because this quiz tells you which fictional characters you are most like. And we all took this quiz ourselves, since J.K. Rowling took it, and we saw a lot of our friends taking it as well, and what’s cool is that you can actually drill down and only see the Harry Potter characters that you match with. And this test is asking questions like “Are you more indulgent or sober? Cheery or sorrowful? Playful or serious?” And there’s 28 of these questions, and you just bring the slider left or right and you select which you are closer to. Let’s talk about our results. What do you all get?
Eric: Well, I mean, I think it’s important to say that J.K. Rowling got 81% Albus Dumbledore.
Andrew: Oh, yes.
Eric: Which I find hilarious because Dumbledore is very much the vessel by which she communicates directly to the readers in the Harry Potter books.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: More so than any other one character.
Micah: Do you think, though, that that was her highest percentage overall, or that was just for Harry Potter? Because when I took the quiz, my highest percentage was not a Harry Potter character.
Eric and Laura: Same.
Micah: And I thought I was going to have to do the quiz over. I was like, “Oh, crap. I clicked the wrong link or I missed the dropdown.”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: But then I saw you can select from all these different series, so I wonder if Dumbledore really was her highest percentage character.
Andrew: Well, what was your highest percentage? Because she got 81%; my highest was 77.
Micah: Oooh.
Eric: Yeah, mine was 84.
Micah: Okay. My highest percentage, it was 87%; it was Leonard from The Big Bang Theory.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: That is awesome.
Laura: My highest percentage… I was 82% Lady Edith Crawley from Downton Abbey.
Micah: Nice.
Andrew: Oh my gosh! Do you watch that show?
Laura: No, so I have no idea what that means. [laughs]
Andrew: Oh my gosh, you hid that you had a baby. Wow, I didn’t know that.
Laura: Oh. Yeah, that’s fair.
Micah: That’s part of the pants story that we just didn’t continue.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Oh, God.
Laura: I would love to know how that fits into that story.
Eric: My highest percentage is 89, actually.
Micah: Wow.
Eric: Yeah. Hoban Washburn, “Wash,” from Firefly.
Andrew: Okay.
Eric: Followed closely by Kaylee Frye, Kaylee from Firefly. But my top Harry Potter character – next to Hurley from Lost – George Weasley, and then Arthur Weasley.
Andrew: Oh, okay.
Eric: So two of the more…
Micah: It gives you two?
Eric: Well, George is 84% and Arthur is 83%, and then Tonks is also 83%.
Andrew: So my top, at 77%, was a Harry Potter character. It was Tonks.
Eric: There you go!
Laura: Aww.
Andrew: Which kind of surprised me.
Eric: That’s cool. You should just go around now saying “Wotcher” to all of us.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: That actually makes sense to me.
Andrew: Does it? Does it? I didn’t really expect it. I feel like I don’t know Tonks well enough, but now I want to study her more and see these connections that this quiz made. And then George Weasley, Rita Skeeter…
Laura: Oh!
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: A journalist.
Andrew: Ouch.
Eric: They got you nailed, dude.
Andrew: Right, but there was no journalism questions.
Eric: [laughs] Not directly.
Andrew: Then Sirius, and Harry Potter.
Eric: Oh, yeah. Cool.
Laura: So my number one Harry Potter character was – and I have very mixed feelings about this – Cho Chang.
Micah: Nice.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: What does that mean?
Eric: Ravenclaw.
Laura: And then I got Filius Flitwick, Fleur Delacour, Albus Dumbledore, and Hermione Granger.
Andrew: Yeah, Dumbledore should definitely be up there for you.
Laura: What, because I’m a psycho?
Andrew: No, because you’re wise!
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: You’re wise and well-spoken and calm. Dumbledore is… I only match 50% with him, which, I guess I can take that.
Eric: Yeah, it’s the good half. It’s the gay half.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: I was just going to say, yeah, we matched on our gayness and nothing else.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Well, Andrew, I match 69% with Albus Dumbledore, so take that for what you will.
Eric: Nice.
Andrew: Oh, nice. Nice.
Eric: You know who else matched 69%? This Lord Voldemort fan account – another one, Lorde with an E Voldemort – tweeted J.K. Rowling that he got 69% Harry Potter, so I thought that was hilarious.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: Yeah, well, that’s almost 70% Horcrux, isn’t it?
Eric: Yeah. J.K. Rowling is really interacting with these fan accounts lately. It’s pretty interesting to see.
Micah: So on my end, I was actually surprised, too. Laura, you mentioned him, but my highest match, 86%, was Professor Flitwick.
Eric: Nice!
Laura: Oh, there we go. Ravenclaws in the house.
Micah: Followed by Cho Chang.
Laura: Ohh! Are we the same person, Micah?
Micah: I think we are.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Then Hermione Granger, Minerva McGonagall, and Albus Dumbledore.
Eric: All good company.
Micah: With Slughorn actually not that far behind Dumbledore. But I was actually most impressed by the Game of Thrones one, which was Samwell Tarly. I felt that was a nice…
Laura: Hey, that was my number one for Game of Thrones too!
Micah: Oh, boy.
Laura: Oh my God.
Andrew: You two are the same person.
Laura: I know! My mind is exploding right now.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: But I find it interesting; isn’t Flitwick Head of Ravenclaw House?
Laura: Yeah.
Micah: So we’re both Ravenclaws. I think this just proves it.
Andrew: So you can take this quiz for yourself. It’s a lot of fun; it’s like a Buzzfeed quiz on steroids. We’ll have a link in our show notes.
News
Andrew: Speaking of J.K. Rowling, she launched Harry Potter at Home. Did we talk about this last week? I guess not.
Eric: Yeah, we mentioned the launch, but there was nothing other than the audiobook, I think.
Micah: No.
Andrew: Oh, that’s it. Okay.
Micah: It launched during the week. We mentioned it during one of our coffee chat hangouts.
Eric: Okay.
Andrew: Right, and these weeks are eternities now.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: So yeah, HarryPotterAtHome.com. Nothing to excite us very much. This is more for people who might be reading Harry Potter with their kids for the first time; there’s some introductions to the books and the characters, kind of like reading companions. So it’s nice to see that she’s doing this, but not really of interest to us, not something we could use. Of note, though, Stephen Fry’s reading of Philosopher’s Stone is available for free on Audible and elsewhere, so if you’re looking for an audiobook, you can listen to Stephen Fry’s reading of the first one for free. Eric said they should have named it HarryPottersHouse.com.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: That’s nice, Eric. My old fan site. They could have because…
Micah: Do you still own that?
Andrew: No, and Warner Bros. does now, so they actually could have done that if they wanted to.
Eric: Oh, man.
Micah: Oh. They took it from you?
Andrew: Yeah, they stole it from a teenager.
Micah: Did they pay you?
Andrew: No, of course not.
Micah: Oh, that is just…
Eric: Andrew is sitting on a healthy sum.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Yeah, instead of Harry Potter at Home, Harry Potter’s House! Just be like, “Yeah, come on over to…” But I guess people shouldn’t go out, so it sends the wrong message.
Andrew: When 11-year-old me was buying that domain name, I just had a feeling that one day they would need a domain name like that, and yes, I did sell it to them for $2 million.
Micah: Wow. That’s how you’re living in that luxury condo in Chicago.
Andrew: Luxury condo. [laughs]
Micah: But it’s funny because during the week, I had a coworker who Slacked me that J.K. Rowling had just announced Harry Potter at Home, and said that she stole the idea from me because we actually at work launched a series called Junior NBA at Home, which is at-home basketball drills and exercises that kids can do.
Andrew: Nice.
Micah: And so clearly she is needing to offer some royalties, I think, for this idea.
Andrew: [sighs] Okay, all right, the NBA started everybody staying at home. J.K. Rowling stole from the NBA. I get it, Micah.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Micah: No, but I wonder how long this was in development and how quickly they fast-tracked it, because this seems like something that they probably would have eventually rolled out anyway, so I think maybe their hand got forced a little bit by everything that’s been going on.
Andrew: Maybe, yeah.
Micah: Because it doesn’t seem all that complete to me.
Andrew: Well, yeah, so that would tell you that maybe they kind of rushed it, but rightfully so. I mean, just create something quick with some resources for people who are reading Harry Potter for the first time.
Micah: Yeah, I think it’s great. I know there’s some games and puzzles in addition to the Stephen Fry Sorcerer’s Stone, so it is actually really cool for kids.
Andrew: Of interest to all of us, the Beedle the Bard audiobook is now available. We mentioned this previously; it features Evanna Lynch, Jude Law, Warwick Davis, Bonnie Wright, and other actors. Eric, I think you’re the only one who’s listened to it, right?
Eric: Yeah, it’s 94 minutes. It just came out the other day; it’s a really quick read. As you know, the Beedle the Bard book was not that large, but it’s really well done. Of note is that there’s sound effects that go along with every story, so you’ve got these all-star casts reading the stories, but then you also have just extra little sound effects that put you in the world of each of the characters of each of Beedle the Bard’s stories. And then also just the way they’ve switched off between various actors, like for instance, Jude Law as Dumbledore – whose, Dumbledore’s notes are all throughout the book – comes back at the end of every chapter or at the end of every story to talk, and it switches between his notes and whenever J.K. Rowling… I had forgotten J.K. Rowling actually directly addresses people. That’s read by Sally Mortimer, who played, as we found out, Madam Pince in the Harry Potter films. She didn’t really get any lines or anything in the Harry Potter films. I now want, listening to this, a Madam Pince miniseries. I think it would be great.
Andrew: [laughs] Okay.
Micah: What kind of miniseries? What are you looking for?
Eric: Just hanging out in the library doing administrative stuff, helping students out. It just… she seems like a nice woman.
Micah: Sounds…
Andrew: Sounds really boring.
Micah: … exciting, yeah.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: You’ve got to spice it up; some restricted section activity or…
Eric: Eh, yeah, maybe.
Andrew: The Tales of Beedle the Bard audiobook is now available on Audible, so please check that out. And finally, just wanted to mention – Eric caught this – that the Lego Harry Potter collection on PlayStation 4 is only $6 right now.
Laura: Wow.
Andrew: Super cheap.
Eric: Yeah, we’re talking mega cheap. This is not only Years 1-4, but Years 5-7 as well. Both LEGO games.
Andrew: Yeah, they’ve done this recently; they combined both games into one. It’s also available for Nintendo Switch and Xbox, but I looked at Switch and they still list it for $20, so I think PlayStation is doing a special deal. Yeah, $6 is very well worth it. Micah and Eric – and maybe you, too, Laura – are obsessed with that Lego Harry Potter game.
Laura: Actually, I’ve got the LEGO games for… I’ve got the Marvel and Star Wars ones, but I don’t have the Harry Potter ones, which I’m going to be downloading as soon as we finish this episode.
Andrew: This is your chance.
Eric: Laura, this is your time. I would go so far as to say this is deal of the decade, seriously. So if the decade is ending… it’s just hours of entertainment. We’re talking at least 60 to 100 hours you could lose in this game while quarantined.
Andrew: For only $6!
Eric: Yep.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: So this is available through April 14, so get on that. I was wondering, is the panel doing anything Harry Potter-related during quarantine?
Laura: So I got a couple of Harry Potter Legos sets for Christmas, and I’m going to build the one that I haven’t done yet. It’s Hagrid’s Hut.
Andrew: Nice.
Laura: So I’ll do that, and I’ll add it. So I’ve got two sections of Hogwarts Castle, plus the Knight Bus and Hagrid’s Hut that will be joining them.
Micah: That’s really cool.
Laura: So yeah, looking forward to that.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s great. Post a picture on our Instagram so we could see your work when you’re finished.
Laura: I shall.
Andrew: Yeah. I really want to do a Lego Harry Potter set now, but they’re all sold out everywhere online. I would… I’m ready to do that giant castle. That’s what I want to do.
Eric: Oooh, yeah.
Micah: And where’s it going to go, though, once you’re done?
Andrew: Well, you said I have a fancy condo, so I guess I can find a place.
Micah: That’s true. It’s going to get its own room, right?
Andrew: You are such…
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: It’s a two-bedroom condo. People are probably thinking I have a mansion; I don’t. I’ve played Harry Potter Wizard’s Chess a couple times with Pat during quarantine. They have a chess set that looks like it’s straight out of Sorcerer’s Stone, obviously not the gigantic pieces. And that’s cute if you like chess, so I recommend that. Probably not as difficult to buy.
Micah: Is Pat okay? Because clearly if you’re on the show, you’ve been winning Wizard’s Chess.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: “Knight to E5!” I do like shouting them out like I’m Ron in the movie.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: I do have several Harry Potter puzzles unopened from the New York Puzzle Company, so I think I’ll be jumping in there within the next day or so. There’s one that’s 1,000 pieces; it’s called “The Flying Keys.” I’m not looking forward to that one.
Eric: Ohh.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Those puzzles, some of them are really difficult just because if there’s not a whole lot that’s happening in the scene, the way that Mary Grand-Pré drew a lot of these scenes, they’re really dark color palettes, so you don’t know what fits together.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: Speaking of sold out, just looking at New York Puzzle Company’s website, all these puzzles are also sold out. And a lot of people have been playing puzzles to pass the time; puzzle sales are through the roof right now, no joke.
Micah: And just one other thing, going back to Lego Harry Potter: We did talk with Arthur Parsons, who had a lot to do in the development of that game – huge Harry Potter fan – on Episode 243.
Eric: Nice.
Micah: And that’s on our Wall of Fame. I know we’re always talking about older episodes; the Wall of Fame is a great place to go for new listeners – or even listeners who have been with us for a while – to check out some of the episodes that we consider to be standout.
Eric: Yeah, that’s a good quarantine suggestion. And if anybody’s still on the fence about this Lego Harry Potter, because he talks to us… I think it was to me…
Micah: It was to you, yeah.
Eric: … about how you can play as pretty much any character you can dream of from the Harry Potter series. There’s hundreds of playable characters, including Fang, including Scabbers, ones you wouldn’t expect in that game.
Andrew: Fun.
Listener Feedback
Andrew: All right, it’s time for some Muggle Mail now. We got a couple of voicemails.
[Voicemail plays]
“Hey MuggleCast, this is Roshni. I’m calling about your latest discussion and what you guys were talking about with Moody and how what he said about Harry was really sort of unkind and hard for Harry to hear, and I think we forget sometimes that this Moody doesn’t actually know Harry very well. The Moody that Harry got to know was actually Barty Crouch, and so if you think about the real Alastor Moody’s interactions with Harry, they’re very limited, so in a way it makes sense that he has a less affectionate opinion of Harry than the others in the room do. Of course, that does not excuse the others of not saying anything in response to him, but it does explain why Moody would say something like that. Anyways, just wanted to point that out. Thanks.”
[Voicemail ends]
Andrew: Thank you, Roshni, who I believe is also listening live right now.
Laura: Yep, totally right.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s a great point. I would have loved a scene where they just sat down and caught up.
Eric: Yeah, like, “So who are you? Who is Mad-Eye? Why is Mad-Eye?”
Andrew: “And get a load of the fake you. Can you believe all these things he did last year, and I fell for it all?”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: What’s so interesting about that, though, is there is a level of kindness to Barty Crouch, Jr. that we see that we don’t necessarily see in Mad-Eye.
Eric: He’s a good guy.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Despite the whole Azkaban thing.
Eric: Yeah, all that whole… what he did with Neville’s parents.
Micah: And his own mother.
Laura: But he does admittedly do a really good job in Goblet of Fire of building a rapport and building trust with Harry.
Andrew: Right.
Laura: So I think Roshni is totally right here.
Eric: It is funny because talking about how regular Alastor is not Barty Crouch, he’s also not the guy who recommended Harry become an Auror. I wonder what real Moody’s opinion on whether Harry would make a good Auror. He’d probably take one look at Harry’s grades and go, “No, you absolutely cannot be a good… you could never be an Auror.” [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, good point.
Micah: Mad-Eye is just, though, all business, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t really think he’s there to get to know people; he’s all about just the mission at hand. That’s kind of how he strikes me, and I think Harry gets close enough to other characters anyway. It’s just probably a bit disappointing to hear somebody who he thought to be friendly talking about him this way, but that’s what you get for spying on adult conversations.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: True.
Eric: All adults secretly hate you.
Micah: I mean, Andrew, didn’t that happen to you one time when you pulled out the Extendable Ears in front of your parents talking with your friends’ parents? And they were like, “We all knew that kid Andrew was bad news.”
Andrew: Yeah. Well, I don’t think my parents called me bad news…
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: … but parents, of course, talk behind your back, and they worry about you, and they say things they wouldn’t say in front of you because they don’t want to hurt you. I’ve definitely spied on my parents before. We all did as kids. It was fun. It’s what you did.
Micah: Right.
Laura: Not to the extent that you did, Andrew.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: How do you know how much I spied on my parents?
Laura: Because you’ve talked about this.
Eric: You did talk about it. [laughs] Picking up the phone, listening in on phone calls.
Andrew: Oh, right. Good thing my parents don’t listen to this; I don’t think I want them to know all that.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: They did join Quizzitch, didn’t they? Or they joined something that we were doing last week.
Andrew: They did, yes. So during our next Quizzitch Live, please do not share that information. Thank you. Here’s our next voicemail from Katie.
[Voicemail plays]
“Hi, MuggleCast. This is Katie. I just wanted to call in with a crackpot theory on the last chapter. So in the last chapter, Harry makes eye contact with Dumbledore and he has this very strong feeling of wanting to attack Dumbledore, and it’s almost like he wants to bite him. And so I know that we understand that to mean that since Harry is connected to Voldemort as a Horcrux, Voldemort hates Dumbledore and wants to attack him, but I thought it was a little weird that Voldemort would want to bite or have the snake-like reaction to Dumbledore. I know that Voldemort spent a good deal of time as a snake, but it just still seemed odd to me. So what I was considering was perhaps Harry was actually still connected to Nagini since she is also a Horcrux, and maybe Nagini saw through Harry’s eyes and saw Dumbledore and wanted to attack him. So thus far, we haven’t really seen why Nagini would hate Dumbledore, but the fact that she teams up with Voldemort suggests that she may actually dislike him, and I thought that we might actually see that in Fantastic Beasts. If Dumbledore has to, for some reason, take down Credence, who Nagini seems to love or care for, maybe that turns Nagini against Dumbledore and eventually leads to her teaming up with Voldemort. Just wanted to hear what you guys think, and thank you for all that you do. Bye.”
[Voicemail ends]
Andrew: I love this. I love this so much.
Eric: Love this theory.
Andrew: I want to send this to J.K. Rowling and have her implement this.
Micah: Yep.
Andrew: I want Nagini and Dumbledore to have a tussle in Fantastic Beasts so it kind of connects to what we just discussed in last week’s episode.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: I think this is a great idea, and it might not even be that Dumbledore harms Credence, but it might be that she looks to Dumbledore to save her from her affliction, and he either chooses not to or can’t. She might blame him for the fact that she eventually succumbs to being a Maledictus overall.
Laura: Yeah, and I think there’s also going to be an element here of her not having a choice.
Eric: Right.
Laura: I don’t see Voldemort being like, “Hey, if you want to team up, join forces, just let me know.” I could see him being like, “No, you’re mine now.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Well, also, as a snake, if you are forced to no longer be human, really, the only person that would make you feel human is someone who can talk to snakes, a Parselmouth. So it might be that her association with Voldemort is based solely on wanting to feel something, anything human again.
Micah: It’s a great connecting to threads, though, here by Katie, between Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts.
Laura: Yep.
Micah: I think we’re going to get more of this as we go through and analyze the series. I don’t know, again, how much J.K. Rowling was thinking about Fantastic Beasts and who Nagini really and truly was when she was writing Order of the Phoenix, but I think it’s fun for us to theorize, especially now that we have so much more information on her, and at least the nugget that J.K. Rowling had always known that Nagini was human at some point. I also just want to throw out there I think it’s Harry just being really pissed off.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Maybe it’s just transference, and the fact that he just had a dream where he was a snake and that’s just fresh in his mind. And let’s not forget, he is super pissed at Dumbledore too; Horcruxes aside, he’s not very happy with him. So I think we’ve all experienced something similar, where we’ve gotten angry with people and we want to hit them or do something along those lines, and I feel like that’s what Harry is doing in this moment.
Andrew: I agree. It does make sense, and it checks out, but I think this theory also checks out, and it would just be such a cool tie-in to the Fantastic Beasts series that now I want that to happen. By the way, Eric, bad news about Madam Pince: Apparently she’s really mean in Hogwarts Mystery, says JY and Roshni. So I don’t know if we want to… well, maybe we do need to redeem her in your spinoff series that you’re thinking about.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Yeah, yeah, redemptive arc. That’d be great.
Andrew: [laughs] A redemptive arc.
Micah: Her and the trolley lady.
Andrew: [laughs] No, I like the trolley lady in Cursed Child. Keep her that way.
Eric: Me too, me too.
Andrew: One more piece of feedback regarding last week’s episode. This is from Kamie. “Embedded spines are akin to quills, like a porcupine. Also, why is there no maternity ward at St. Mungo’s?” Good question.
Eric: I think childbirth is probably a lot easier for wizards and witches. It’s just a simple Expulso Charm when the time is ripe.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: And no beds, no hospitals necessary.
Andrew: Expulso Charm. To be clear, this just creates an explosion. What about Accio? “Accio baby” when it’s time.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: That sounds messy.
Andrew: [laughs] “Get ready! Accio baby!” And finally, this is from Bella.
“This is Bella from Australia. I am probably one of your youngest listeners. I am 12 and I am writing in today for homework. I am not going to school at the moment because of COVID-19, but we are supposed to write a letter or email to someone so I decided to write to you. We have to include a question or theory in our letter and I was thinking about how Harry Potter would be different if Harry was called Harriet (a girl instead of a boy). Just wanted to know what your guys’ thoughts were. Thanks again, Bella.”
Laura: Oh, yeah. I think Harry’s range of experiences would have been very different if he were Harriet, just from sort of… not to say that he would have received less abuse by the hands of the Dursleys; I don’t think that would have been true, but I think it might have been different. Some of the bullying he experienced might have been different.
Micah: Do you think Petunia would have bonded with Harriet more because of Lily?
Andrew: Oooh.
Laura: I don’t think so.
Micah: And think about the Snape relationship there. Wow, that would change things.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Yeah. Oh, that would’ve been very uncomfortable. Yeah, if Snape had been like, to an underage girl, “Look at me.”
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: It’s a great question, I think, that Bella asked, and let’s not forget that J.K. Rowling had to change her name, essentially, when publishing the series because they didn’t think it would sell as well if her name, Joanne, was on the front cover. And remember, this was a much different time. That sounds crazy to say because it’s only the ’90s, but it’s a much different time that this was being written in versus today, and people’s mindset – not to say that they’re not still biased in certain ways – but I think that also probably had influence on who her main character was. Though I will say, I think Hermione really does shine through more at times than Harry does.
Laura: Oh, yeah. I have felt for a very long time that Hermione is the strongest of the trio, just in terms of the balance that she brings, the glue that she provides that holds everything together. None of the events in the Potter series would have turned out as positively as they did if Hermione had not been there to get Harry on the right track.
Micah: Totally.
Eric: Yeah, I would agree with that.
Micah: And I think we’ve done episodes just by themselves on the strong female characters that exist within the Potter series. Hermione is just one example.
Andrew: You know, Twilight author Stephanie Meyer did a gender-bent Twilight. Maybe J.K. Rowling should do the same with Harry Potter.
Eric: I am trying to find… on Archive of Our Own, there are shorter fanfics that address this exact topic. One is if Harry was a girl; the other is if Harry was born a trans girl. It’s stories that basically take the place of each other, and it kind of goes through his relationship with Petunia each time, or with Snape each time. Exactly what we’re talking about. And I’d love to credit the author, but I can’t seem to find it at the moment, so I’ll have to ask some friends of mine.
Andrew: Okay. Yeah, maybe we can include that in the show notes if you find them.
Laura: Yeah, for sure.
Eric: Yeah, check for that.
Andrew: That’s a great question, Bella. Thanks for writing in with it.
Laura: Yeah. And hope you and your family are staying safe.
Micah: Just one note on what Kamie asked about St. Mungo’s: It is the Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.
Andrew: Ah.
Micah: So just in and of its name, maybe that’s why it doesn’t have a maternity ward.
Andrew: Yeah, so they have a separate hospital.
Laura: Yeah, so there’s probably a sister hospital called St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maternity and Delivery, or something like that.
Micah: There you go.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: For Accio-ing the baby out of you. [laughs]
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Andrew: Okay, it’s time for Chapter by Chapter, and this week we are discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 23, “Christmas on the Closed Ward,” and we’ll start with our seven-word summary. Ready when you are, Laura.
Laura: Oh, God.
Micah: That’s two words, Laura.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Harry…
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Andrew: … heads…
Eric: … to…
Micah: … see…
Laura: … Arthur…
Andrew: … in…
Laura: [whispers] Hospital.
Andrew: It’s you, Eric.
Eric: Oh, wait. Is it already…?
[Seven-Word Summary music ends]
Andrew: We lost.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Oh, darn! Um… recovery.
Laura: There we go.
Andrew: Well, the time ran out, though, so it’s “Harry heads to see Arthur in.”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Come on.
Andrew: Hopefully we find out where he headed. [laughs]
Eric: Can we please just add “recovery”?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: For some reason I thought it was on the fifth letter and not the sixth, and that took all the time.
Andrew: Henceforth if we run out of time…
Micah: It’s over.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: It’s over. [laughs] I think that’s great. “Harry heads to see Arthur in.”
[Eric laughs]
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Andrew: So I think we’ve been excited to discuss this chapter because, in part, of the connections between this chapter and one in Chamber of Secrets, and we’re going to do something a little different this week, because, again, [laughs] I know everybody loves all the changes happening in the world right now.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: We’re just going to embed Connecting the Threads within our Chapter by Chapter discussion.
Micah: Right. Yeah, and there were three main themes that really stood out to me, and I would love to get Laura’s thoughts on this, too, since she is the master of connecting the threads. The first is possession by Voldemort, and we’ll get into that more when Ginny raises her hand and said, “Hey, by the way, I was taken over by Voldemort in Chamber of Secrets, Harry, don’t you remember? So lose the attitude”; the importance of house-elves, Dobby and Kreacher both; and then of course, our favorite Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Professor Lockhart.
Laura: Yep. Yeah, these were all things that I noticed as well, and we’ve got scattered throughout this discussion, but this chapter is really cool and different because it does have so many throwbacks to Book 2, and at least when I’m doing this, I’ve never seen this many throwbacks to the same book in one chapter that wasn’t the sister novel, so for instance, how Prisoner of Azkaban is to Order of the Phoenix. So this is a really fun one.
Micah: Definitely. But the chapter itself starts out with Harry riding back from the first visit to the hospital, and it’s almost like there’s this Horcrux takeover that happens. One of the quotes from the book says, “He ran his hand over the back of his own, wondering what it would feel like if Voldemort burst out of his skull. He felt dirty, contaminated, as though he were carrying some deadly germ, unworthy to sit on the underground train back from the hospital with innocent, clean people whose minds and bodies were free of the taint of Voldemort.” These are pretty powerful quotes, and it’s terrible that Harry is feeling this way.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s almost like what we see when you’re bitten by a werewolf. He just feels diseased, and he’ll never be able to get it out of him.
Eric: Yeah, it’s terrifying.
Laura: And I think it’s interesting that Harry has this reaction while they’re on the way back from the hospital because I don’t think it’s uncommon, if somebody is really sick, to have some of these feelings.
Andrew: But I think it’s also because he just saw his work. He saw what he, so to speak, did to Arthur, so he’s disgusted by himself.
Micah: Totally. And following this, though, he really goes into what I consider to be full nervous breakdown. He’s racking his brain. He thinks he is the weapon that Voldemort is after. He wonders if Voldemort is listening to his thoughts right at that moment. He’s concerned he’s providing access inside the Order of the Phoenix headquarters; he’s concerned because of that that Voldemort may know where Sirius is. So my question is, will somebody help this kid? And this goes back to Dumbledore, and even the listener email that we got about his reaction to seeing Dumbledore’s face. Dumbledore is not helping him. Nobody is really trying to give him the solace that he needs until Hermione shows up a little bit later in this chapter.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: It’s also, though, a big question, who would get through to Harry at this point? Because we do see that when people try to get close to Harry, especially in this chapter, he pulls extra hard at not letting them do that. It’s kind of one of those things where somebody… he really does need a father figure, someone who can just push forward, push through and break through the barriers here, somebody to care about him who’s actively going to not let him hide away.
Andrew: But he’s also having this nervous breakdown because he has nobody to talk to, and we see later in the chapter how Harry’s mood can improve when he does get talking to people he can trust. Later in the chapter, there’s this line after he talks to Ginny and Hermione: “What they were all saying was not only comforting, it made sense… Without really thinking he took a sandwich from the plate on the bed and crammed it hungrily into his mouth.” He got his appetite back all of a sudden because he let his feelings out, and he got to speak to other people. And we all experience this too in our own lives; you’re letting something boil inside of you. You need to let it out. You may not know who to let it out to, and once you get talking to somebody you trust, you feel better. Therapy can be one way; friends can be another. But that’s what Harry needs right now, and that’s why he’s having this breakdown.
Laura: It is fair to point out, though, he is self-isolating; it’s not like he’s running around to everybody in Grimmauld Place being like, “Please help me. Please talk to me. I’m having these awful thoughts.” And I would say the level of engagement that he’s gotten from people has been pretty respectable. I mean, Mrs. Weasley has tried multiple times to get the kid to eat, and he literally goes and hides from her so he doesn’t have to talk to her. Ron comes and tries to wake him up, and he just rolls over and goes back to sleep. Folks try to engage with him when he’s on the train, including Mrs. Weasley, who asks multiple times if he’s okay, and I think that Harry just wasn’t at a point where he was comfortable verbalizing any of this. He was so uncomfortable with it, but he also didn’t want to say the words out loud.
Andrew: I mean, I go through this a lot. I quite often do not want to let it out. I don’t want to reveal my feelings in a particular moment, just because that’s the type of person I am. So Harry’s feelings here and how he doesn’t want to talk, even though he really should, really resonated with me.
Micah: Yeah. And I like the point that Laura made about social isolation because I think that’s even more important. Tying it back to real life and what’s going on right now, somebody who had mentioned that while we all should be social distancing, we shouldn’t be socially isolating, and I think that’s really important. But to get back to this chapter, I also wonder if does it have something to do that Harry has never had true parental figures in his life, so he doesn’t have somebody that he really does trust in? He’s never established that sort of bond with anybody. Because if you think about the Dursleys, they would never be there for him in a moment like this. So I wonder, aside from Ron and Hermione – who right now he’s obviously not happy with – the only other person I could think of is Sirius, but then Sirius doesn’t take things all that seriously. [laughs] And Dumbledore… it all goes back to Dumbledore and how Dumbledore is treating him. This is not what Harry should be going through. He should have a resource, and the only resource he ends up with is a portrait.
Laura: Yeah, and it’s equally rough because in the last chapter, Harry tried to talk to Sirius about this, and Sirius just kind of brushed it off. I don’t think that it was mal-intentioned; I just think that it was ignorance. But the impact was the same.
Micah: Right. I wonder, would Lupin be a good person here? Andrew, you mentioned the werewolf piece before, in terms of probably, he’s experienced some of these things.
Andrew: Yeah, I think so. I think he would be a perfect person, and we already know that Lupin can successfully talk to Harry and have a meaningful conversation with him.
Eric: Yeah. I just have such a… I mean, my heart breaks because Harry has grown to learn not to rely on people for his emotional… that’s kind of why he’s such a mess in this book; he’s had to go it alone for so long.
Laura: Yeah. Kind of a connecting the threads moment that I wanted to bring up is this idea of social isolation. Ginny does this in Chamber of Secrets, and it’s actually because she’s being possessed by Voldemort, so she loses large periods of time and doesn’t remember where she’s been, but Harry is making the conscious decision to pull away from everybody around him, so I thought that was a really interesting parallel between those two characters.
Micah: Totally. And he actually makes a similar move that we’re about to talk about in Prisoner of Azkaban, where he packs up his stuff and leaves the house, and that’s exactly what he’s trying to… obviously, that’s on Privet Drive, but he’s about to try and do that here at Grimmauld Place, but he’s stopped by Phineas Nigellus Black.
Laura: And that’s a fun conversation.
Micah: It is.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: I love that dialogue.
Andrew: [laughs] Typical…
Eric: One of the few light moments of the chapter.
Andrew: It’s one of those things… so Phineas freaks out at Harry, being like, “Oh, you adolescents and your issues, and you think the world’s against you” and all that.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: This is like… when we’re reading this as a kid for the first time, we are definitely team Harry here, being like, “Um, Harry is right. You’re wrong, Phineas.” But reading this now as an adult, Phineas was totally the one who was right.
Eric: I think that’s exactly true. I mean, there’s nuance there, but for the most part, when Phineas tells Harry to stay put, or “This just in from Dumbledore: Stay put,” I mean, Harry is ready to go out. And I don’t think Harry properly understands the danger that he’s in, the level of danger now that Voldemort is really running things in this world and every day is getting stronger. If Harry were to leave Grimmauld Place, pretty much the only safe place for him, it would all be gone. It would all be over. And so Phineas has this difficult conversation with him, but it’s needed because it ultimately… it keeps Harry still. He’s not happy about it, but he’s no longer risking his darn neck.
Micah: Yeah. And it’s funny that it’s Phineas Nigellus Black who talks to Harry in this way and really points out the fact that Dumbledore has never led him into harm, given that Phineas was the portrait that everybody was the most upset with just a couple of chapters ago.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, and we have to talk about the fact that this portrait is sitting in Harry’s bedroom, so Dumbledore is keeping an eye on him.
Micah: Creepy.
Andrew: Creepy, yeah. Harry realizes that Dumbledore is just keeping an eye on him. I am not kidding when I say this: When I was a kid, I had this issue where I would turn around the photos in my bedroom because I did not want them looking at me when I changed clothes. [laughs] Legit.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: The hanging photos? You would turn…? How did you…?
Andrew: I would just place them down. I would just place them down so they couldn’t look at me. I don’t know if this… maybe the Harry Potter books made me think that these photos could actually watch me.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: I don’t know, but I seriously would do this. And I’m thinking about if you’re Harry, you have no privacy! And since this is a children’s show, I won’t get into why you might need privacy, but… oh my gosh, I would throw that portrait out the window.
Eric: This is a children’s show?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: There are also very just, I think, child-friendly reasons why Harry would need privacy in this moment. He’s going through something really difficult mentally, and he may need the space to break down, to cry, to throw things around the room, whatever it is that gets this tension out, and he can’t even have that privacy.
Micah: And it’s just the luck of the draw that Ron and Harry end up in this room, right?
Eric: Oh.
Micah: Or is Ron even there with him? Or does Harry have his own room?
Eric: Ron is here because he snores at night.
Micah: Oh, okay.
Eric: It’s listed in this chapter.
Andrew: Yeah, and they’re opening Christmas gifts together in the same room, I think.
Micah: I wonder if Dumbledore tells Molly, or whomever is in charge there, “When Harry gets here, he needs to be in the room with Phineas.”
Andrew: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, this was totally the plan. And I’ve come to the conclusion that the wizarding world is a privacy nightmare.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: I hadn’t reflected on these portraits before, but thinking about it now, they are everywhere. You are always being monitored. This is worse than a cell phone. It’s terrible. Or maybe a cell phone is just as bad, because there’s cameras in these things too. Who’s watching us?
Eric: [laughs] Yeah, I mean, what if somebody surreptitiously has another portrait of themselves painted somewhere else, and they can go report on everything they watch you do from the walls? You’re exactly right. Who’s getting that information?
Andrew: I don’t like it.
Eric: Man, if Google or Facebook were a wizarding world company, they would paint portraits of pretty much every painting out there and then collect all the data from those portraits, what everybody in the world was doing.
Micah: True. So Harry eventually is able to find a way to sit down with everybody. There’s a bit of paranoia before then even with Ron, about saying Ron doesn’t want to spend time with him because of what Moody said, and I think this is just the general feeling that Harry has about everybody who was there and who was listening. But Hermione eventually shows up and that kind of helps to calm the situation. She’s given up her vacation and she’s going to spend the holidays there. And once they all finally get together and sit down, Ginny gets real, and she says to Harry, “By the way,” hand raised high in the air like Hermione usually does in class, “I was once possessed by Voldemort too, so why aren’t you checking with me in terms of what the symptoms are?”
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.
Micah: So this was another really strong connection to Chamber of Secrets.
Andrew: And also just an example of how Harry isn’t thinking of who he can go to for help. Ginny should have seemed like a really obvious choice.
Eric: Yeah, but it just serves to tell Harry that he hasn’t exhausted all options, and even provides, I think, key comfort. It’s after this conversation when Ginny asks him, “Do you have a memory loss? Do you have moments of time when you don’t know where you’ve been?” And Harry is like, “No,” and he’s… well, immediately internally, then, he’s like, “Oh my God, I’m not the weapon. I’m not possessed, or I’m not…” He’s just able to… it’s a weight off of his whole body. But I don’t think we can blame him for not knowing who to reach out to because of his age. I think that this is the age where you just take everything internally, and you don’t ask for help.
Laura: I think it’s also a pretty common anxiety symptom. I know, speaking personally, if I’m going through bouts of anxiety, I get very insular and don’t think to ask for help, and then if somebody offers it and says something really logical, that unravels my entire theory of what horrible thing I think is going to happen. I have a similar reaction to what Harry does here. It’s like immediate relief.
Micah: Definitely.
Andrew: Yeah, I agree with that.
Micah: I also found it odd that these two were both possessed in some way by Voldemort, but yet they end up getting married, so I wondered if that was a common thing that they bonded over.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: “Hey, babe, you remember when you were possessed by Voldemort?” And Ginny is like, “Actually, no.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: “But I’ll pretend I do for you.”
Micah: “Go back to bed, Harry.”
Eric: Oh, gosh.
Andrew: I guess… yeah, I mean, they can bond over that, though. That could bring them closer together. They both understand that they went through something horrible.
Eric: Well, I think the point is… and this is why I like Ginny for Harry, pretty much comes down to this scene, is she confronts him about it. She’s like, “You listen. You’re not asking me. What’s up with that? I have valuable… I can help you; you just need to let me in.” And he’s shocked. He’s stunned. He never thought about this, and it’s just… that’s it. Harry doesn’t think and Ginny is doing his thinking for him, and that’s why I think they’re a good couple.
Micah: I mean, the one thing that I would say is it’s not entirely accurate, and Ginny is only speaking from her own experiences.
Eric: Right.
Micah: But we should presume that there are other ways that Voldemort could possess somebody; they don’t necessarily have to have the same experience that Ginny had. But I think that it’s just two sides of the same coin, right? That Voldemort uses the diary to possess Ginny and Harry is able to connect through his own Horcrux within him to Nagini, which is another Horcrux, so it’s all part of the same Horcrux system, is what I’m trying to say.
Eric: Yeah, for sure. Big thing for me, too, is Harry, I guess, in this conversation with the group is still talking about whether or not he was transported from his bed at Hogwarts to become the snake. He’s freaking out about all these sorts of possibilities, and Hermione still is like, “One of these days you’re going to read Hogwarts: A History, and you’ll find out that you can’t Apparate or Disapparate from Hogwarts.” And I’m thinking but… okay, Hermione needs to stop with this, right? These books are almost super focused on how to get in and out of Hogwarts, and Apparition/Disapparition is truly strictly the reason… the way that you can’t. But house-elves do it all the time; they have a different kind of magic. We’ve got in the next book vanishing cabinets getting in and out of Hogwarts. Hermione needs to open her mind, broaden her horizons, as to how Harry could have been transported to London and back instantaneously. I think there’s plenty of magic that could account for that that has nothing to do with Dumbledore’s ban on Apparition.
Andrew: But she was still wrong, though, and Ron brings up the best point of all that he watched Harry that whole time shaking in his sheets. So I see your point, but also, now’s not the time to be scaring Harry into thinking that maybe he actually was transported to London and back really quickly.
Eric: True, true. Yeah. Well, Ron’s piece of evidence absolutely is, I think, definitive and helps.
Andrew: Yeah. And again, that’s something that would have been a great question for Ron. You shouldn’t have waited for Ron to tell you that. You should have asked him, “Hey, did you see me disappear for a moment?”
Eric: Yeah, I agree, actually.
Micah: Yeah. But this is that conversation, to Laura’s point, where everything just starts to come together and Harry starts to realize what is actually truth versus what he’s just been making up inside of his head for the last day or so. He’s building up his own anxiety, right? He’s starting to think about things that probably don’t have a whole lot of level of truth to them, but it’s just because he’s not talking with anybody else that he’s not rationalizing what’s going on. And this chapter, though, is called “Christmas on the Closed Ward.” Andrew, I think you had some thoughts about Christmas at Grimmauld Place despite all the decorating that Sirius has done.
Andrew: Yes. So of course, Sirius’s decorating is wonderful, and I really like that. I love presents and Christmas, but I love opening and exchanging them together. I don’t like that they exchange gifts separately in separate rooms, and then they congregate and they’re like, “Oh, wow, thanks for that,” and “Oh, this was cool, too.” They talk about it all after the fact. That’s no fun.
Eric: Yeah, where’s the common area where you can all open gifts, take turns, and talk about it and be social? That’s how we did it.
Andrew: Yeah. Do it in front of Mrs. Black’s portrait. It’ll be a great time.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: She’ll shout at you.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I mean, this is how they do it at Hogwarts when they’re there for Christmas…
Andrew: They shouldn’t, though.
Laura: … so I wonder if this is just a wizarding world tradition.
Andrew: I don’t like it. I don’t want to go to the wizarding world anymore. Not for Christmas, at least.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: What if their tradition is that Father Christmas comes in quietly, leaves your presents at the foot of your bed, so that they’re there waiting for you when you wake up?
Andrew: And then scoop them up and bring them into a common area where you can all open together! That’s so much fun! I was just a little disappointed because that’s my favorite part of Christmas, opening gifts together.
Eric: I agree.
Micah: Yeah. Well, one person who will be surprised to get a Christmas gift is Kreacher; Hermione has been hard at work making something for him. And just talking about Kreacher in this chapter again, there’s a strong tie back to Chamber of Secrets with Dobby, and Sirius notes the fact that he’s a bit concerned that Kreacher is missing, because he has this exchange with Harry, and they haven’t seen him since Sirius dismissed him, and Harry asks a really important question of Sirius, which was, “Do you think he took your words literally when you told him to get out?” And then he goes into explaining how Dobby was, for most of Chamber of Secrets, betraying the Malfoy family by leaving the house, but he had to punish himself as a result. So who knows if that’s exactly what Kreacher is doing right now?
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Micah: So this should set off some big alarms on the reader’s part, and I think Sirius himself is really getting a bit worried.
Laura: As he should.
Eric: Yeah, I think so too. Sirius just, unfortunately, seems to be a little out of his depth about how to handle this. I mean, this is something that it’s a potential security leak, the fact that Kreacher… and he plays it off all cool; he’s like, “I bet we’ll find Kreacher in a couple days just snogging my mother’s bloomers up in a room.” And he really tries…
Andrew: “Or dead.”
Eric: [laughs] Yeah, but it’s a real big security issue, and I think at this point, Dumbledore absolutely should have been notified. Dumbledore has a way with house-elves, I think, just like Dumbledore has a way with merpeople and pretty much everybody else, and he might have been able to soften the eventual outcome of what has happened if he were informed.
Laura: It’s also really interesting to get this comparison between Dobby and Kreacher. I get the sense that Dobby is perhaps a much younger house-elf than Kreacher is, because Kreacher just seems that he’s been so abused, so maligned for so long that he’s too far gone at this point to turn around, whereas Dobby had the potential to see, “Oh, you know what? I don’t really like the way I’m being treated, and my family is talking about trying to kill this 12-year-old boy. I feel like I should do something about that.” And I feel like Kreacher, at this point, has just been so conditioned that that might not be a thought that would even occur to him.
Micah: Yeah, I like that. It’s really not until they unravel the whole Regulus Black storyline that Kreacher turns the corner and we see him running into the Battle of Hogwarts with a frying pan, I think, in Deathly Hallows. But yeah, no, I think it’s a great point right now. I think he’s just too far gone, and it’s scary that he is worshiping Bellatrix Lestrange, Sirius’s cousin, and has a picture of her as well as some other Black family members set up in this den, this really just disgusting hole that he’s living in, and that Sirius is not thinking enough to try and get him a place that’s a little bit more… I don’t know what the right word is, but habitable.
Eric: It’s weird because there’s another failing of Sirius’s, which is that throughout all of the time that the two have spent with each other, Sirius really fails to realize how much Kreacher loved his brother, Regulus. And Regulus is really the unspoken character in all of these goings-ons, because we know how closely he’s associated with the Horcruxes and the defeat of Voldemort. But Sirius could really have bonded with Kreacher over Regulus, or at least found some kind of a common thread of humanity. And you don’t have to give him clothing, but like you’re saying, Micah, Sirius could have either asked Kreacher if he was fine living behind the furnace, or if there was some kind of better suited quarters or something. They have all this time together, but it’s all spent in bitterness and resentment versus finding their commonality. So I would just say, if people are quarantined with people they don’t really like during this time, see if you can find a… just try once to be like, “Hey, we probably both loved our brother, so check it out.”
Laura: I think this is also a commentary – and we’ve seen it several times throughout the books, and also, this is another throwback to Chamber of Secrets – of how house-elves… I mean, they’re slaves. This is treated with complete normalcy by a number of otherwise good people in the wizarding world. The Weasleys don’t ask any questions about this; Sirius doesn’t ask any questions about it. In fact, he’s happy to treat Kreacher like crap because he also associates Kreacher with his miserable childhood. Dumbledore has house-elves working in the kitchens and then sort of the justification for it oftentimes seems to be like, “Well, these are much better conditions than they would have elsewhere.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: And it’s like, if you were to take that argument, which people certainly have, and apply it to real instances of slavery, then it really illuminates how messed up this practice is.
Eric: Right.
Micah: Totally. And it makes you actually wonder if Kreacher was treated better by the Black family than he is currently being treated by Sirius. I wonder if he even lived in that space prior to Sirius showing up, or that just became a place for him to stash all of these things that he considered to be of importance. It’s actually, to me, also very reminiscent of Sorcerer’s Stone when we’re first introduced to the fact that Harry lives under the stairs, and you have Kreacher, who is in a somewhat similar position to how Harry is treated by the Dursleys. All right, so let’s make our way to St. Mungo’s. It’s only in the title of this chapter, and took us a bit of time to get there, I think.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: But we meet a lot of interesting characters, some of whom we’ve met before. And we can briefly mention the fact that they go in and see Arthur. Arthur is getting an earful from Molly because he tried some Muggle remedies to heal his wounds; he tried stitches, and the stitches don’t seem to be working very well. Typical Arthur.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And while I think we could probably spend a lot of time talking about Arthur’s love of all things Muggle, let’s talk a little bit about what Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione find as they make their way to the fourth floor in St. Mungo’s. They’re actually trying to go up to the fifth, I believe, to just get some tea.
Andrew: The gift shop that’s at the top.
Micah: Yeah, go to the gift shop. Buy some St. Mungo’s swag.
Andrew: Yeah, remember this wonderful time where they were visiting the hospital.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And they run into their old pal, Gilderoy Lockhart.
Andrew: This was a surprising cameo. We thought we were done with him, right?
Eric: I’m so glad we weren’t.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: He’s kind of a terrible person, though.
Eric: Oh, he’s absolutely horrible, and this raises a lot of questions about what the wizarding world at wide knows about what Lockhart did. I mean, Harry himself in this chapter finds it a little bit difficult to feel sorry for Lockhart. Lockhart still kind of doesn’t know who he is. He has a little bit of correspondence; bless Gladys Gudgeon for really docking her ship with him and not moving on.
Micah: What do you mean by docking the ship?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I mean, she really… not docking the…
Andrew: Being a good caretaker.
Eric: Putting the bet on the… well, she writes him weekly.
Andrew: Oh, that’s the fan. Yeah, sorry.
Micah: I think he and Gladys had a thing before this all went down. Just my thought.
Andrew: No, I think Lockhart just has a super fan who really wants to stay in touch.
Eric: Still, after all these years. But apparently, according to this witch who watches over him, nobody visits Gilderoy, so the fact that they are here, she’s like, “Oh, Gilderoy has visitors!” and she invites them in. So apparently he’s lonely or whatever, but we can’t feel bad for him because he tried to wipe Harry and Ron’s memories and took credit for actual witches’ and wizards’ work. And here’s the thing…
Andrew: And wipe their memories.
Eric: Well, yeah, we don’t know if they were ever found and un-memory wiped, if all is right in the world. Because Harry knows what happened.
Andrew: Another spinoff series, tracking down all these people and then un-wiping their memories.
Eric: Because Harry should have told Dumbledore, and Dumbledore should have handled it.
Andrew: Are we supposed to feel bad for Lockhart? Is that what J.K. Rowling wants from us? Because he’s surrounded by people who have lost their minds – and we’re about to talk about the Longbottoms – and then here’s Lockhart. No friends, no family. He’s still in terrible condition. I don’t know if I’m supposed to feel bad or not. And I guess J.K. Rowling would say, “Well, that’s up for you to decide.” I don’t know what to think. I can’t make up my mind if I should feel bad for him or not.
Laura: I think that this, like many things, is an area where it is possible to accept multiple truths. So do I think that Lockhart is a pretty bad person who did pretty bad things while he still had his wits about him? Absolutely. Is this also incredibly sad? Yep. It’s possible for both of those things to be true. You can feel bad for somebody, but also accept that they were not the best person.
Eric: Do we think if Gilderoy did get his memories back – say, through therapy and whatever he’s doing here, and St. Mungo’s, whatever treatment plan they’ve got him on – if he got the full extent of his memory back, do you think that he would do things differently? Or do you think that… because with that comes his cunning, and do you think that he would try and seek the fame he once had by basically doing a comeback tour, and still do basically the same horrible things to other people?
Andrew: I think he would go back to his old ways, yeah. He might want to seek revenge on Harry and Ron. [laughs]
Eric: That’d be a little dangerous, Lockhart busting down the door a couple years down.
Andrew: Yeah. If he never recovered from this, I would probably feel sorry for him, just because he kind of had a short life, and it was a life of lies. And maybe he had lost his way early on through no fault of his own. So I like your reasoning, Laura, but I think at the moment, I’m still not going to feel bad for him until we learn more about Lockhart. J.K. Rowling, please tweet about him.
Laura: You’ve just got to approach it with nuance. That’s all.
Micah: Yeah, he still does have a bit of his ego, though.
Andrew: He does.
Micah: That’s without question. He knows that he’s famous in some respects, and he still likes to sign autographs.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: He wants some help. So again, another throwback to Chamber of Secrets, when Harry had detention, right? He had to help Lockhart sign all of his fan mail.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: But speaking of J.K. Rowling, though, Andrew, she did have a little bit about his name origin; not as much about what happened to him post-Order of the Phoenix, but she did say, “I found [him] on a war memorial. I was looking for quite a glamorous, dashing sort of surname, and Lockhart caught my eye on this war memorial, and that was it. Couldn’t find a Christian name. And I was leafing through the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable one night. I was consciously looking for stuff, generally, that would be useful and I saw Gilderoy, who was actually a highwayman, and a very good-looking rogue.” So that’s how Gilderoy Lockhart came about.
Eric: Pretty sure the term highwayman means scoundrel, grifter, person who is not totally honest.
Micah: Absolutely.
Eric: Lives off the road.
Micah: And before we get to talking about the Longbottoms, I just wanted to mention that we get another mention of Broderick Bode, and he has a gift that somebody sent for him for the holidays, and it is what we learn to be a mini Venomous Tentacula. And I’m wondering, in what world does the nurse think the plant described sounds like it’s safe to put next to a patient?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, this is an utter failing. This is horrifying to see it happen. And this person who’s overseeing the ward is just like, “How nice, flowers. This person never gets flowers.”
Micah: It’s not a flower, though. It doesn’t… I don’t even think it… I forget the description; I didn’t put it in here, but it doesn’t sound like flowers.
Eric: It’s more cactus-y, I think, or leafy. Like, “How nice, aloe.”
Laura: I do wonder… and I think we did get a couple of comments about this, of people comparing these lack of security measures to our own real lives, with the example of 9/11; folks bringing up the fact that there were a lot of things that you used to be able to do that nobody even really thought about pre-9/11. If you were flying, you could take your whole freaking family out to the gate with you to watch you get on the plane.
Andrew: [laughs] That is so nuts. I never flew… I didn’t fly until 2006, so the thought of that is just mind-blowing to me. I’ve never known another way. You leave your family at the security gates.
Eric: Yeah, and I do remember doing that. I do remember going all the way to the terminal just to see a friend or family off.
Laura: Yeah, I used to go wave at the pilots when I was a kid.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: And I mean, by the way, the gates are crowded enough with passengers. I can’t imagine all these extra people hanging around these gates, so I’m glad that they added this rule. Unfortunately, it came at the cost of 9/11, obviously.
Eric: I think you’re right, though, and this is… I brought this up last week, but Mungo’s is so innocent it hurts, right? They just have never seen this kind of warfare before.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s a good point. So maybe after the Battle of Hogwarts, maybe after Voldemort is back, that reveal happens. Maybe then they check the plants, Micah.
Micah: Maybe then, yeah.
Andrew: Security lockdown on them plants.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: And I don’t think it… at least, it’s not lost on me that we’re in a ward where people have essentially lost their minds, and for the first part of this chapter, Harry kind of thinks he’s losing his mind, and I think this is a good reality check for him.
Andrew: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Puts things in perspective.
Micah: So let’s talk about the Longbottoms. This is a big surprise for… not necessarily the reader, but for everyone else that’s there with Harry. Harry obviously knows about what happened to Neville’s parents. But we’re introduced finally – we’ve heard a lot about her – to Augusta Longbottom, Neville’s grandma, and I think she’s everything we expect her to be and then some. And I do think that she cares very deeply for Neville, although it comes across in a hardened sort of way. But she’s also very proud of her son, Frank, and I don’t really know what to make of her feelings towards Alice. It’s kind of like that mother-in-law relationship, mother-in-law/daughter-in-law. But I don’t want to say that she seems less impressed with her, but I think the way that she talks about her son is… I don’t know. Did you get that sense too?
Eric: I agree completely, yes. It’s definitely her own blood, her own son, that she has the most affection for. And she tells Neville not to be embarrassed, and it’s kind of a shame because Neville is going through some stuff. He obviously is so surprised to see all of his Hogwarts school chums there. He wishes he could melt into the wall. You really feel for Neville.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, of course. This deep secret, something he is clearly embarrassed by, has now been revealed with no warning at all. And when you’re this age, you’re deathly afraid of these types of things being revealed because… I guess one reason he’s afraid is because he doesn’t want it getting around the school, because people might make fun of him.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: Would that be a reason?
Laura: I don’t get that sense.
Andrew: No?
Laura: Because Augusta basically tells him, “You shouldn’t be embarrassed,” and he says, “I’m not.” I think he doesn’t want people to pity him.
Eric: Oh.
Andrew: Yeah, it makes sense.
Eric: That could be a bravery, right?
Laura: Mhmm.
Micah: But doesn’t Neville almost go after Draco and Harry stops him, and it ends with Harry getting detention?
Eric: Yeah, because Draco is all talking about people who’ve been meddled by magic. I forget what… this was a couple chapters ago.
Micah: Right. So yeah, we all really feel for Neville in this moment. But one other connection/throwback to Chamber of Secrets that I wanted to talk about is that Augusta, when she meets the trio and Ginny for the first time, it’s very, very different than Lucius Malfoy’s evaluation of the trio and some of the Weasleys. I know we pulled the clip from Chamber of Secrets the movie, so I think we can probably play that clip first, and then we can talk about how Augusta looks at the kids.
[Audio clip plays]
Lucius Malfoy: Mr. Potter. Lucius Malfoy. We meet at last. Forgive me… your scar is legend, as, of course, is the wizard who gave it to you.
Harry: Voldemort killed my parents. He was nothing more than a murderer.
Lucius: You must be very brave to mention his name… or very foolish.
Hermione: Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself.
Lucius: And you must be Miss Granger. Yes, Draco has told me all about you, and your parents. Muggles, aren’t they? Let me see, red hair, vacant expressions, tatty secondhand book… you must be the Weasleys.
Arthur: Children, it’s mad in here…
[Audio clip ends]
Andrew: “Vacant expression, must be a Weasley.” [laughs] That was a weird one.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Yeah, so if instead you look at Augusta, her response is: “‘Ah, yes,’ said his grandmother, looking closely at Harry and sticking out a shriveled, clawlike hand for him to shake. ‘Yes, yes, I know who you are, of course. Neville speaks most highly of you… And you two are clearly Weasleys,’ Mrs. Longbottom continued, proffering her hand regally to Ron and Ginny in turn. ‘Yes, I know your parents – not well, of course – but fine people, fine people… and you must be Hermione Granger?’ Hermione looked rather startled that Mrs. Longbottom knew her name, but shook hands all the same. ‘Yes, Neville’s told me all about you. Helped him out of a few sticky spots, haven’t you? He’s a good boy,’ she said, casting a sternly appraising look down her rather bony nose at Neville, ‘but he hasn’t got his father’s talent, I’m afraid to say.'” So she takes a dig at Neville at the end there.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: But two very, very different appraisals of pretty much the same people.
Laura: I wonder when he later went on to become a professor, if he was like, “Yeah, Gran. Look at me now.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: “Look how far I’ve come.”
Micah: “You want some Venomous Tentacula?”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: Yeah, so I just thought that was a really cool connection between Order of the Phoenix and Chamber of Secrets. I know we spend a lot of time comparing it to Prisoner of Azkaban.
Laura: Yep. No, it’s a really cool contrast between these characters. And it’s also like… did y’all ever have this moment when you were kids where you would meet your friends’ parents that you’d never met before? You’d been friends with this person for years, you meet their parents, and it’s kind of weird?
Eric: [laughs] Yeah.
Andrew: Yes.
Laura: That’s the feeling I got in this moment. I was like, “Oh, this is so weird.” Also, a fun connection is that we finally meet Augusta Longbottom, but we actually first saw her fashion choices in Prisoner of Azkaban.
Eric: That’s right.
Laura: When Neville was fighting the Boggart, yep.
Andrew: And they’re noted here. I loved that.
Micah: Yeah, vulture hat.
Andrew: And of course, they did a great job with that in the movie too.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Micah: So just a few other things on this chapter, particularly with the Longbottoms: The gum wrappers, the bubblegum wrappers that Alice is handing to Neville at the end of the chapter, there were so many theories back in the day about what those gum wrappers had inside of them. Were there little messages?
Andrew: What?
Micah: You don’t remember that?
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Eric: Yeah, absolutely. Because the question is whether or not Frank and Alice really do have their faculties about them. If Mungo’s is… we talked about Lucius Malfoy and the Death Eaters contributing to Mungo’s, and Mungo’s having these security holes about how you can get a killer plant in if you want to. But it’s possible that Frank and Alice, these renowned Aurors – because you hate to see them so reduced – that what if they’re either locked in, meaning that the mental capacity… they’re secretly in there, but unable to express themselves in an outward way, in a vocal way, that what if Alice is communicating with Neville through these gum wrappers? Like, if you unwrap them and there’s a message there, some kind of…
Andrew: “Here’s how to defeat Voldemort.”
Eric: Well, yeah, clue or puzzle or something, but I think it was born out of the desire to not see this man and wife reduced to this disability and succumb to the spell damage for the rest of their adult lives.
Micah: Yeah, it was definitely one of the more popular theories post-Order of the Phoenix that was out there.
Andrew: And of course, it ended up not being true, and to bring it back to this chapter…
Micah: Right. I think… yeah, J.K. Rowling actually commented on it. I forget exactly what she said, but she…
Andrew: Well, and weren’t there gum wrappers on the old JKRowling.com website?
Eric: There were.
Micah: Yeah, on her desk, I think.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: I think the credit for that theory, where I remember hearing it, is The Ultimate Unofficial Guide to the Mysteries of Harry Potter by Wizarding World Press.
Micah: So just final piece on this chapter…
Andrew: Well, and we should just mention… I mean, the gum wrappers, Neville held on to them just because he wanted something from his mother, right? And it’s sad.
Eric and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: No, it’s heartbreaking. So the final piece of this chapter that is sort of a big reveal – at least for Ginny, Ron, and Hermione – is that Bellatrix Lestrange is responsible for putting Frank and Alice Longbottom here at St. Mungo’s, and Hermione immediately makes a connection back to Kreacher and how Kreacher has this photo of her inside his little hidey hole…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: … and is essentially praising her, and clearly has a very fond affection for her.
Eric: What a great connection. It’s so subtle, but it really underscores where Kreacher is right at this moment. And it’s a tough moment for Hermione to reconcile what she now knows with the reality, when you can say something on paper, but when you’re faced with the reality of it, here are the victims of Bellatrix Lestrange. And Hermione wants to say all house-elves are good, all house-elves are victims, all house-elves deserve freedom, but we later find out what Kreacher does with the little bit of warped freedom that he does have, and it’s causing characters we love to die.
Micah: So before we move on to the Umbridge Suck count, I just wanted to call out one other cool nugget that I found while reading. It’s when they’re walking up the stairs, and apparently in the stairwell is all these different portraits, and one of the portraits is basically hassling Ron as he’s walking up the stairs.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And it is implying that he has spattergroit, and he’s like, “No, dumbass, it’s actually just freckles that I have on my face.” And I just thought that this was funny because we know that in Deathly Hallows, the ghoul in the attic is actually charmed or whatever into having spattergroit or symptoms of spattergroit, and that’s the story that is spun about Ron and why he’s not at Hogwarts.
Eric: Yeah, good foreshadowing.
Andrew: Do we want to hear exactly what J.K. Rowling had to say about the gum wrappers? I found the quote.
Eric: Oh, you found it.
Micah: Sure.
Andrew: This was from the MuggleNet/Leaky interview post-Half-Blood Prince. So that book came out, and everybody was still talking about the gum wrappers. [laughs] “That idea was one of the very few that was inspired by a real event. I was told what, to me, was a very sad story by someone I know about their elderly mother who had Alzheimer’s, and the elderly mother was in a closed ward. She was very severely demented and no longer recognized her son, but he went faithfully to visit her twice a week, and he used to take her sweets.”
Eric: Ohh.
Andrew: “That was their point of connection; she had a sweet tooth, she recognized him as the sweet-giver. That was very poignant to me. So I embroidered the story. Neville gives his mother what she wants, and (it makes me sad to think of it) she wants to give something back to him, but what she gives back to him is essentially worthless. But he still takes it as worth something because she’s trying to give, so it does mean something, in emotional terms.”
Micah: There’s a lot of nostalgia in this chapter. Time for the Umbridge Suck count, and I can only find one moment to up her count…
Andrew: Phew, thank goodness.
Micah: … and that was that she was upset that Harry and the Weasleys got permission to leave school early to go visit Arthur.
Andrew: Yeah. What the heck? This is a milestone because now, according to our tally, Umbridge has sucked 50 times!
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Andrew: Let’s play it 50 times!
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
[Micah laughs]
Laura: No.
Eric: You do that in post.
Andrew: We’ll be back in five minutes.
[Eric laughs]
MVP of the Week
Andrew: It’s time for MVP of the Week.
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Andrew: I’m going to give it to Augusta Longbottom for giving the trio the compliments that they all deserved. She was very sweet.
Eric: I’m going to give it to Harry’s new present from Hermione, the homework diary that threatens to him, like, “Do it today or later you’ll pay!” and “If you’ve dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s, then you may do whatever you please!”
Laura: I swear, Hermione is a great friend, but she’s a terrible present giver.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: You don’t think Harry needs a homework diary?
Laura: No.
Micah: Not right now. I will give it to Ginny for just keeping it real, making Harry realize that he’s not alone.
Laura: And despite her horrible taste in Christmas gifts, I’m giving it to Hermione for being the one who dragged Harry out of Buckbeak’s room and really got him to pay attention to his friends.
Rename the Chapter
Andrew: And now let’s rename the chapter: Order of the Phoenix Chapter 23, “Forgetful and Fraudulent.”
Eric: I borrowed a quote from Phineas Nigellus Black: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 23, “The Poor Puffed-Up Poppinjay.”
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 23, “Lockhart, Longbottom, and Bode, Esq.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: And I went with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 23, “Gum Wrapper Conspiracy.”
Eric: Really drawing attention to it.
Andrew: I want to change mine to “Accio Baby.” Chapter 23, “Accio Baby.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: If you have any feedback about today’s discussion, send it on in, MuggleCast@gmail.com, or use the contact form on MuggleCast.com. We’d love to hear if you have any feedback about today’s episode or any thoughts on the next chapter, Chapter 24 of Order of the Phoenix.
Quizzitch
Andrew: It’s time now for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: Last week’s question: What present for Christmas does Harry give to Ron? The correct answer was a broom compass. Correct answers were sent in by Terri Gan, Jenny Beez, Tara, Count Ravioli, Less than Stance, Erika, Caleb, Reese, and Viyana. Next week’s question: Who teases Harry first about taking remedial potions with Severus Snape?
Micah: Great question.
Eric: Submit the answers, as always, to us over on Twitter, at @MuggleCast with hashtag Quizzitch.
Andrew: And don’t forget, Quizzitch Live: The Fandom of Secrets, this Thursday, April 9. Stream starts at 7:15 p.m. eastern and game begins at 7:30 p.m. eastern. Tune in. Open to everybody.
Chicken Soup for the MuggleCast Soul
Andrew: It’s time for a Chicken Soup for the MuggleCast Soul. Micah, we did a survey recently and everybody raved about your voice, so I feel like you should read this Chicken Soup for the MuggleCast Soul.
Micah: All right, this comes from Stephanie, who says,
“Hey, MuggleCasters. Been listening since 2006 and I feel like you’ve been there for every major life event, both joyous and less so. You were with me on my way to gymnastics meets when I was little, traveled around the world with me as I got older, and more recently have kept my spirits up as I ran half marathons. You’ve also been with me through my parents’ divorce, fights with friends, organic chemistry, bad college hangovers, studying for the MCATs, and medical school step exams. Most recently, you’ve been with me on the 1 train every morning as I go to work as an internal medicine intern in the ICU at Columbia New York Presbyterian. I knew intern year would be the hardest year of my life, but I never could have imagined what it would feel like to be an ICU physician in a New York hospital during COVID. Not only that, but my usual sources of stress relief — seeing friends, spin classes, going to the gym — have been taken away (as they have been for everyone.) Amidst all of this, MuggleCast has transported me from the 1 train out of New York every morning. Thank you for that. It is much appreciated. Stephanie.”
Laura: And thank you.
Andrew: Yeah, thank you.
Micah: Yeah, I was going to say from all of us, thank you, because it’s because of what you do that we’re all trying to stay safe and healthy, and the work you do, we can’t say thank you enough for it.
Andrew: Absolutely. And it’s always a pleasure doing this podcast, but especially now, because what’s so great about podcasting and consuming podcasts is you can still get these no matter where you are, no matter what you’re doing, even if you’re stuck at home like most of us are. And if you aren’t, you should consider that if you can. But yeah, we’re just happy to be here with everybody during this difficult time, and we hope MuggleCast is a source of comfort for all of you. And of course, not just us – it’s not about us – Harry Potter as well. We hope the Harry Potter books are a source of comfort as we get through this crazy year. Remember when we were all like, “2019, please end already”? Well, it ended, and here we are. We would love your support at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. We are a weekly podcast thanks to the support of listeners like you. Head over to Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and when you pledge, you will have instant access to tons of benefits, including our recording studio as we record each Saturday or Sunday morning. You also get behind-the-scenes looks at the show; you’ll see what we’re planning for the week ahead, you’ll get bonus MuggleCast installments, and a whole lot more. Oh, including our favorite new benefit, these personalized “Thank you messages” that we are recording for each and every new patron. That’s been a lot of fun, and you will get yours when you pledge today at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. Also be sure to follow us on social media; we are MuggleCast on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Links will go out on our social media channels for Quizzitch Live this week, so keep an eye on those around 7:15 p.m. eastern on Thursday, and you will get the links. Sorry, by the way, that we are recording this one in the evening-ish hours for you international people out there. I know that’s a harder time for you guys to make, but it’s just what is working for us. We will try in the months ahead to do one that is earlier in the day so international audiences can participate without being really tired. I’m J.K. Rowling.
Eric: [laughs] I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: Goodbye!
Laura and Micah: Bye.