Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #472, DUBBLEDORE! (OOTP Chapter 35, Beyond the Veil)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the Wizarding World fandom. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: On this week’s episode, we will discuss Chapter 35 of Order of the Phoenix, “Beyond the Veil.” This is a very action-packed chapter. I think, Micah, you noted it’s probably the first big battle, right?
Micah: Yeah, it is the first big battle where it’s not just Harry versus Voldemort or whoever. This is it, man.
Andrew: A lot of people involved.
Micah: Now we’re getting into it, yeah. Setting the tone.
Andrew: [laughs] The story is finally getting somewhere.
Eric: The Jelly-Legs Jinxes are flying.
[Laura laughs]
News
Andrew: So we’ll discuss Chapter 35 in a little bit, but first, two news items. Micah, I know you were very excited on Friday because the chapter readings of Sorcerer’s Stone have resumed. Chapter 12 is out. Matt Lewis, Imelda Staunton, and Helen Howard – who plays Umbridge in the Australian production of The Cursed Child – they all read this chapter together. I believe this was “The Mirror of Erised.”
Micah: Yeah, I haven’t given a listen to it yet. I was actually taken by surprise seeing that a chapter was published after our discussion last… maybe that’s why it was published last week…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: … just because we talked so much about it and put a little bit of pressure on them. But it’s good to see that these are back, because I think people really did enjoy them. And I’m sure it’ll be great to hear from Matt Lewis and Imelda Staunton, seeing her read just as a normal person. We tend to associate her so much with Umbridge.
Andrew: With an evil character, yeah. It’s like how a lot of kids, when they would watch the Harry Potter movies, they would develop this fear of Tom Felton the actor because they saw him play Draco Malfoy. So in a way, this is kind of a good way to improve your image for Imelda Staunton. “Oh, she’s not evil. She’s actually pretty nice.” [laughs]
Micah: Just as you said that, it would have been funny if they did a chapter with Tom Felton, Imelda Staunton, and Ralph Fiennes all together.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: All the enemies. “Repairing our image.” Also, one other story we wanted to mention: Bloomberg, which is a reputable source, is reporting on this new, long-awaited Harry Potter RPG that we’ve been talking about for probably over a year now. Some developers – and I think this is why they reported on this – some developers were concerned about J.K. Rowling’s remarks, like we heard was happening at J.K. Rowling’s publishers. J.K. Rowling has no involvement in the game, which does not surprise me. I mean, they developed this video game label, Portkey Games, to work on Harry Potter games, and they said on that site, the Portkey site, that these games are not canon, but they have the license to create these Harry Potter games, and I’m sure they’re working with people in J.K. Rowling’s offices who are guiding them to make sure they’re faithful adaptations, to an extent. So she has no involvement in the game. It is an open world Hogwarts, and I think that’s what we were all hoping for, right? Because we’ve never gotten an open world Hogwarts in a video game, and it would be so exciting to browse the school.
Eric: Absolutely. Yeah, that’s what I’ve always wanted out of a game. We’ve gotten close with some of the LEGO games using Hogwarts as a hub, or I think the original Chamber of Secrets game had a fairly explorable Hogwarts, but never really… that was never the purpose of the games. And I think that this game has a chance to really double and triple down on just being at the school, and I think, if I remember correctly, in the 1800s.
Andrew: Right, apparently the plot line is that you are a late-blooming wizard, so you join in your fifth year or something. You get your skills late, which is an interesting premise.
Laura: I would feel so robbed.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Like you were expecting…?
Laura: If that were real life, and they were like, “Oh, you’re 15; you’ve missed the vast majority of your schooling years, but yeah, come on in,” I’d be like, “Are you serious?”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: You could start at year one. It’s still Hogwarts, right? It’s still seven years at Hogwarts, baby.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Well, yeah, I guess that’s the question: Would you be forced to start in year five with people who are the same age as you?
Eric: No, no, your classmates are just going to be real small.
Andrew: Oh, that’s awkward.
Laura: In there with a bunch of 11-year-olds. “Wingardium Leviosa!”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: I don’t want to play this game anymore. It’s going to feel creepy.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: But an announcement was supposed to happen at E3 this year; that’s the big annual video game conference, but it got canceled due to Coronavirus, and now apparently they’re going to make the announcement later this year. And here’s the bad part: Apparently, this game is not coming until 2021! We kind of assumed it may be coming this year, but nope, looks like it’s coming next year. And that’s probably best case scenario, because these games, games that are really big like this, they face delays a lot of the time because there’s so much to work on.
Micah: When you say open world, are we looking similar to Breath of the Wild, where it really was extensive beyond anything that I’ve ever played before?
Andrew: I think so, yeah. Micah is referring to the latest Zelda game. Because this article says “Hogwarts and surrounding areas,” I believe.
Micah: Get trashed in Hogsmeade.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Hogsmeade, Forbidden Forest, the lake…
Micah: Oh, there’s definitely going to be goats at the Hog’s Head. You know it.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: There’s going to be a little petting zoo behind the Hog’s Head.
Eric: I think this is set 100 years before all that, though.
Micah: Oh. Well, people take liberties. There are expansion packs.
Eric: [laughs] The Pet a Goat expansion pack.
Andrew: [laughs] The DLC.
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Andrew: Okay, so that’s it for news. Let’s jump into Chapter by Chapter, and like I said, this week we are discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 35, “Beyond the Veil,” and let’s kick it off with our Seven-Word Summary.
Eric: Sirius…
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Laura: … falls…
Andrew: … through…
Micah: … the…
Eric: … unknown…
Laura: … to…
Andrew: Sirius falls through the unknown to… death.
Laura: Yay!
Andrew: Now I’m thinking of the Frozen song, “Into the Unknown.” I won’t sing it because I’m not Idina Menzel.
Micah: Is that her name?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Adele Dazeem?
Micah: [laughs] Thanks, John. Appreciate your contribution to the show. I’m glad my contribution to the Seven-Word Summary was the word “the.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: Feels like it really tied things together.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, complete with a pause before it.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Micah: So let’s head back to the Department of Mysteries. When we last left Harry, he was being creeped on by Lucius Malfoy.
Andrew: “You just got Punk’d!”
Micah: Yeah, exactly. But yeah, essentially, Harry got Punk’d. Sirius is not there, as we all expected – at least not yet – and him and his buddies are in a world of trouble. One introduction, though, in this chapter that I really enjoyed is that we finally get to see Bellatrix Lestrange, and I was curious, what are our initial impressions of her? Is she everything we hoped she would be from reading about her these last couple of books, but never meeting her in person?
Eric: She’s awful. It’s really shocking, though. It’s a great introduction from a writing standpoint; you get this person that is just so overwhelmingly over-the-top. She is a lot more enthusiastic than any of the nearest Death Eaters, and really just some of her behaviors, like baby talking Harry… she’s thrilled to be there. Nobody’s happier to be there than Bellatrix right now. And it just hurts more because Harry is at such a disadvantage; he’s surrounded, he’s outnumbered, and you get this woman that’s just talking about what the Dark Lord wants, and really just asserting her position amongst all of them.
Andrew: I think it comes through better in the movie, though, because you see Bellatrix in the background, and you see her wicked smile, and you see her taunting. She doesn’t feel as present here as she does in the movie, in my opinion.
Eric: I get that.
Laura: Yeah, I tend to agree. For the most part when I reread these books, I have my own interpretations of the characters and I don’t envision any of the actors from the movies, except Bellatrix. I always think Helen Bonham-Carter when I’m reading these sequences, and she kind of fills in those gaps for me, if that makes sense.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: That’s similar to what I was going to say. I think why it comes across so great in the movie is because of Helena Bonham-Carter and just the way she’s able to portray evil. You see it in other films that she’s a part of, but she is just such a good Bellatrix Lestrange. And Eric, as you said, she has this fierce loyalty, this fierce defense of Voldemort. When Harry says his name, she almost loses it, right? All the other Death Eaters, they just kind of hiss when they hear it, but she’s next level. And we see just how dangerous she is later on in the chapter, because she’s willing to use one of the Unforgivable Curses on Neville; she uses the Cruciatus Curse, and this reminded me – and I can’t remember who said this, if it was J.K. Rowling or somebody else – that Bellatrix, she basically likes to play with her food before eating it.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: And that’s a really… maybe it was Helena Bonham-Carter who said it. But you see that with Neville, she’s willing to psychologically mess around with him, talking about his parents, then she’s willing to use a Cruciatus Curse on him, and then finally, willing to threaten his life unless Harry gives over the prophecy.
Eric: Yeah, and the torture is the whole point. She talks about seeing how long Neville can take till he breaks the way his parents did. Pretty dark stuff, honestly. But at this point, the Death Eaters probably feel invincible. I mean, her using the Unforgivable Curse on Neville… what are they going to do to her? Chuck her in Azkaban? [laughs]
Andrew: Not to mention, they’re up against a lot of children. If any of this got reported back to the Ministry, I don’t think it would matter, because they would just be on the run again.
Micah: There is this chance that all these people that are with Harry are just going to become collateral damage. And I’m actually surprised – we can talk about this later on in the chapter – that even though they’re all injured to some extent, that they all make it through, because at the end of the day, they are just children. They’re going up against these adults who are way more experienced, especially as it relates to Dark Arts, and the fact that they kind of get through all of this unscathed is surprising to me.
Eric: Yeah, and anytime there’s a battle like this… we have talked about it in the past, too; we wondered if all the kids would survive the final battle as well. And we know some don’t, but for the most part, a lot do, and is that really realistic? So do you think that all five of these kids surviving with very minor injuries is due to luck, is due to circumstance, is realistic? I feel like at least in the beginning of the chapter, Harry is doing the work. Harry always relies on his intuition, and in this case, his intuition tells him to talk till he finds an opening, which he does, and he actually does the work to escape, I think, which is really clever on his part, at least initially.
Andrew: I hope Bellatrix is just taking care of herself, because she may be in the early days of her pregnancy by this point.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: With Delphi, who makes her appearance during The Cursed Child.
Eric: It explains Bella’s fanaticism, too. And I think her husband is right there too.
Laura: He is, yeah.
Eric: Gosh.
Micah: Yeah, it was funny; that’s exactly what I was thinking about when Lucius is giving direction and he’s saying, “Okay, Rodolphus, you go this way,” and my first thought was, “Oh, that’s her husband,” and “Does he know?”
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Is he cool with the fact that her and Voldemort…?
Andrew: Made love.
Micah: Well, that’s if you believe… like I said, maybe she tripped up in the love room and it just inspired.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: She got a dose of it and just… she went back that night, Voldemort was frustrated, she calmed him down, and things went from there.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Yeah, Eric, you were alluding to this, though, about Harry’s ability to lead and his decision-making, especially once he learns that Sirius is not at the Ministry. And Lucius tells him, “It’s time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter,” and I thought that was such a gut-punching moment for Harry, because you realize that he has screwed up majorly. He’s made no bigger mistake in his life before this, because he’s essentially, at this point, led five of his friends to their deaths.
Eric: Yep.
Andrew: Then again, he is only 15/16, so this is just a typical mistake that a child would make. But I do wonder – it makes you wonder – are there ways to tell the difference between life and dreams? Because I don’t think it was ever made clear, so I don’t know if Harry really ever had the opportunity to decipher what’s real and what’s not in these visions.
Micah: He should have looked for the hashtag.
Andrew: [laughs] But he should have listened to Hermione and taken her advice a little more seriously instead of rushing into this. I mean, he kind of did, but I guess he didn’t enough.
Laura: No.
Eric: Yeah, the goal throughout all of Occlumency was to silence the dreams. You won’t have to tell the difference between life and dreams if you’re not having the dreams.
Laura: Well, and didn’t Snape try to warn him about this as well, that Voldemort might be able to plant visions?
Andrew: Yeah, I think so.
Eric: Well, and it turns out that… and in this chapter, Lucius says that Voldemort is surprised Harry didn’t come sooner. All of the times that Harry has seen the door and gone into the department has been, apparently, a push from Voldemort to pique his curiosity and get him to really want to understand what’s in the prophecy, and apparently Voldemort has been really trying to… that shocked me. So the dreams weren’t just because Voldemort was thinking about the door for himself; I think that a lot of these previous visions Harry has had were also intrusions hoping to coax Harry out of Hogwarts.
Micah: Which is really flawed, if you think about it. It doesn’t have a whole lot of substance to the actual plan that Voldemort is putting together, because what really do you think Harry is going to do? He’s just going to run out of Hogwarts, make his way to the Department of Mysteries and pull down the prophecy, hope that there’s a Death Eater there that can grab him and hand over the prophecy to Voldemort? It’s just so flawed, in my opinion. It’s not a very good plan that Voldemort has tried here.
Eric: And again, couldn’t Voldemort himself – although they joke about it in this chapter – really come down and grab the prophecy himself? I mean, to be honest, the prophecy is about him. He should be one of the two people – with Neville being the question mark – that can actually grab it from the shelves.
Andrew: Part of me wonders if Voldemort was just tempted to see if he could trick Harry into doing this.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: He wanted to see how far he could push Harry.
Laura: Well, and I think he wants to kill two birds with one stone, right? Get the prophecy; also, kill Harry.
Micah: Just going back to Harry’s leadership in this particular situation, though, what do we think about his decision-making? His first thought is, of course, his friends. “How do I get them out of here? Because now I’ve created this really nasty situation that they’re in.” And I think it was brought up earlier: Talk until you find your way out – and Harry is really good at that – until he finally makes the decision to start smashing prophecies. And the dialogue that he engages in, though, is very revealing, right? We learn from Malfoy that, in fact, there is this prophecy, and Harry has not been told about it by Dumbledore, who certainly knows about it, and I think it’s a bit of another reality check for Harry that he hasn’t been kept in the know throughout this entire series.
Eric: Right.
Micah: Or at least this book.
Andrew: Yeah, Lucius is almost like a friend to Harry in this moment.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Because he’s giving him important information, and he’s willing to give it up. I guess, just from a writing perspective, it’s a bit of an opportunity to have an info dump. But I’m actually kind of surprised that Lucius is giving him the information that he wants.
Micah: Agree.
Andrew: If I were Lucius, I may have been just really shocked, and I would just want to laugh at how in the dark Harry has been, and I don’t think I would want to help him right now.
Micah: Some of them do, though. Some of them are making light of the situation.
Eric: Apart from being a compelling villain monologue – I love a good villain monologue – Lucius must think he can talk Harry into giving over the prophecy somehow. He tells him what it is to pique his interest further, because he thinks he’s going to somehow create a winning argument that makes Harry give it over, but Harry is too smart for that. He realizes the prophecy is the only thing keeping him or his friends alive at this point.
Micah: Right. I think, Andrew, you had touched on the fact that Harry should have listened to Hermione, because Bellatrix essentially makes the same argument straight to Harry’s face that Hermione was making in the last chapter or even two chapters ago, and that was, “Voldemort, walk into the Ministry of Magic, when they are so sweetly ignoring his return? The Dark Lord, reveal himself to the Aurors, when at the moment they are wasting their time on my dear cousin?” Bro, you got both sides telling you no way Voldemort is coming to the Ministry, so what are you thinking?
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: It hurts. It hurts! And no mention of Kreacher in this chapter; we find out later the method by which the lies were constructed and all that. But this is just the moment for shock and awe, and then you’ve got to run, run, run, run, run.
Micah: But it raises the question: If you are Voldemort, why not infiltrate the Ministry? Voldemort hung out at Hogwarts on the back of Quirrell’s head for a year, and my question is, if he can be under Dumbledore’s nose all year for an entire year, surely he can magic his way in and out of the Department of Mysteries for something as simple as a prophecy, right? This is beginner level.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Well, in addition to seeing if he could tempt Harry, if he could lure Harry there, maybe he also wanted to test his Death Eaters. Maybe he wanted to see if they were up to the task.
Eric: Oh yeah, they’ve been kind of retired for 14 years.
Andrew: And if you’re the villain, Micah, if you’re the boss, you try to put this work off on somebody else. So why should Voldemort have to cancel his plans one afternoon so he can go to the Ministry? He doesn’t want to do that. He’s got other things to do.
Eric: I do think it’s an incredible point, though, taking into account the plot of Book 1, because again, Voldemort was very hands-on with Quirrell when it meant his immortality, and the prophecy is no less important to Voldemort from a plot standpoint than the Sorcerer’s Stone was. It’s really going to tell him what happened with Harry and the scar, and is going to help him learn to defeat Harry, which is what he wants more than anything. So frankly, the way that they were able to, whether through a pizza party or otherwise, get everyone out of the Ministry, they should have done this last September, last October, and it would have been over with.
Laura: Well, I think especially when we’re making comparisons to Quirrell in Book 1, we have to remember Voldemort didn’t have a body back then, so in order for him to be at Hogwarts, he had to basically possess Quirrell or be like a parasite on his body. Now Voldemort has a whole body to contend with, and that makes it a little harder, I think, to duck under the radar.
Andrew: “Darn body. I miss being on the back of somebody else’s head.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: “It was so much easier.”
Eric: “All these limbs always get in my way.”
Laura: “I miss living under a turban.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: But I think that this also… it does play to Voldemort’s advantage, the fact that the Ministry is completely ignoring his return, so why would he do anything to potentially blow his cover when so many Death Eaters work at the Ministry anyhow?
Eric: Right.
Micah: I like that. Andrew, I like what you said, too, about having the Death Eaters accessible as well, the fact that they can do his bidding. He doesn’t need to go at it himself, where he very much needed to do that in Book 1, because nobody even knew if he was still around at that time. Hard to rally people to your cause when they don’t even know if you’re still alive.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: Voldemort was the original mask wearer, come to think of it. Being under that turban all those months.
Eric: I’m glad you mentioned that, actually, though, because the masks are something I totally forgot about. More or less from the books, the way that they’re described, the masks and hoods, very KKK-y…
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Eric: … versus in the movie, it’s… I don’t know, a skull mask, whatever the hell aesthetic they’re going for. But there’s very much a lot of talk in this chapter, or a lot of words that really show you how big or large their hoods or masks are. Their hoods and masks are getting caught on things, they’re unable to speak through the masks, and I’m like… it’s pitch black in some of these shaded areas, and these people are still in masks. How fanatic do you have to be to inconvenience yourself in that way? But I don’t know. They just… they probably look ridiculous, to be honest.
Laura: People like this always do. And the thing is… I mean, I agree with you, Eric, it’s probably terribly uncomfortable, but there are plenty of historic examples of people having no problem wearing this kind of mask.
Andrew: So one thing I wanted to ask was, since Dumbledore kept Harry in the dark about the prophecy and he’s finally learning about it now, Harry’s natural curiosity about the dreams never sent him into the Department of Mysteries to retrieve it like Voldemort had hoped the visions would do; that’s something that Lucius brings up in this chapter. So was Dumbledore’s plan to keep Harry out of the loop a good one? Because thanks to Harry being out of the loop on this, he did not rush off to the Department of Mysteries until now.
Eric: Huh.
Micah: Right, but I would almost argue he rushed into the worst possible situation.
Andrew: He did.
Micah: And I think that had Dumbledore at least given some information over to Harry, he would have been able to know that the vision was perhaps a fake. I don’t know that with 100% certainty he would have been able to know, but the big clue would have been the fact that Voldemort is telling Sirius to retrieve the prophecy, and if Harry knew anything about prophecies, he would have known that Sirius couldn’t retrieve the prophecy.
Andrew and Eric: Right.
Andrew: And the big mistake in all of this was not confirming for absolutely sure where Sirius was that night.
Laura: If he knew that he could trust himself to distinguish between feelings that he gets in his scar, I think that would have helped too. I mean, he notes multiple times that the pain in his scar is nowhere near as bad as some of the events earlier on in the book, and if he had had one conversation with Dumbledore to be like, “Hey, if Voldemort is torturing somebody and killing them, you’re going to know. It’s going to be rough.” So if Harry knew that he could trust that feeling, I think that might have made a difference too.
Micah: Yeah, the alarm bells aren’t going off for him the way that they normally would be. And Kreacher was just mentioned, but it made me think that perhaps there was another ally also at Hogwarts besides Snape that we didn’t think about, and that’s Dobby. Dobby probably could have checked for Harry if Sirius was at Grimmauld Place.
Eric: That’s not a bad point.
Andrew: Snap his way around town until he found out where Sirius really was.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Harry would have to tell him about Grimmauld Place because the Fidelius Charm, but I don’t think that’s a problem.
Micah: Could have worked around that. Now, Andrew, you have another interesting question in here, which is could Harry have just put the prophecy back on the shelf and ran away?
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: First of all, I add nothing but interesting questions to the doc. Thank you for noting that.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, I mean, it seemed like the mere fact that the prophecy was just sitting there meant it was safe; we know this. So why couldn’t Harry have just put it back there? I wonder if a certain author maybe could have said, “Well, once it’s picked up, then anybody can grab it,” so maybe there’s that little rule. But it seems like that would have been a good way to protect it. The problem is, Harry doesn’t know anything about a prophecy. He doesn’t even know that a prophecy is a prophecy, so of course, he wouldn’t have thought to put it back on the shelf.
Micah: I also think there’s no give backs. Once you take it off the shelf, that’s it.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: That’s it forever?
Eric: There are give backs. There are 100% give backs, because the whole reason the prophecy hall exists is to be studied, right? So Unspeakables or people that have access to these prophecies can take them down and explore them and analyze them and then put them back up.
Laura: It also just seems like a pretty bad system to say that once the prophecy is off the shelf, then anybody can have it. What’s the point, then, of that protection? It would be like when you go shopping and stuff has those security tags on it, it would be like saying there’s a certain point where, once you take that off the shelf, the security tag no longer has any meaning because you have the thing in your hand.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.
Micah: Right, you can just walk right out of the store.
Laura: Right.
Micah: And that really bothered me more than anything else in this chapter, outside of what happens to Sirius…
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: … because one of the Death Eaters just says “Accio prophecy,” and it’s about to leave Harry’s hand before he throws up a protection charm.
Eric: Ugh.
Micah: And yeah, I agree with Laura. That’s just so silly, the fact that, “Oh, now anybody can get it.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Well, the magic is on the shelf, though. The magic is on the holder that’s holding… because the prophecy… I don’t know where the glass comes from, but the prophecy itself is just encased in something. The only way you’re going to actually be able to protect it is by putting, to use your example, the security tags from… God, I’m thinking of like, Claire’s on the thing…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: You’ve got to… so once you take it off the shelf, it is anybody’s game. But you could put it back on the shelf, because once you do, the holder is what has the magic that prevents you from taking it. Yeah, I think the magic is where it should be in this case. I don’t think it’s necessarily stupid.
Laura: Eh, I had a really hard time with this. Rereading this on the couple of occasions where Death Eaters tried to Accio the prophecy and it flew to the tips of Harry’s hands, in that moment I was like, “Okay, this should have been shown not to work.”
Micah: Yes.
Laura: Because what is the point of keeping Harry alive at this point? They’re afraid they’re going to smash the prophecy? Okay, just run him until he’s exhausted and then Accio that, and then kill him. Boom, you’re done.
Andrew: Could Voldemort have wanted to kill him himself?
Laura: Yeah, that’s true.
Andrew: So maybe there was a directive. “Don’t kill Harry.”
Laura: “Don’t kill Harry,” yeah. But still, it just seems like if it’s that easy to get it once it’s off the shelf, then seems…
Andrew: There should have been a plan in place for the moment that Harry took it off the shelf. The only plan is “Give it over to me.” [laughs] There needs to be more of a plan there, other than “Hand it over to me.”
Micah: Totally. There’s a history here between Harry and Malfoy, too; it’s not like these people don’t know each other, or that Harry is in any way intimidated by Lucius Malfoy. He’s not.
Andrew: Right.
Micah: So maybe that was the wrong person. Maybe it should have been Bellatrix, or it should have been another of the Death Eaters who was doing this “negotiating,” and they should have just started picking off Neville, Luna, Ginny, Ron, Hermione to make a point to Harry, and I think they’re very hesitant to do it.
Laura: Did they even attempt to disarm any of these teenage wizards?
Eric: I was wondering that. Everyone still has their wands.
Micah: I think they almost look at it as a joke. Doesn’t Bellatrix make light of it when they start to raise their wands, and Lucius kind of calms the situation? That’s a great part about Lucius in this chapter, is that he is kind of the mediator. And I thought about just the whole relationship that the Malfoys and the Potters seem to have throughout the course of the series; they sort of unwittingly save each other a lot, and it’s just kind of ironic to me. Even in this moment, Malfoy is… he’s not saving Harry necessarily, but he is kind of through his words, and he saves him from a spell a little bit later on. I know the focus of that spell is to retrieve the prophecy, but I just find it interesting.
Eric: That’s a good point.
Micah: I mean, I just think about later on, right? Harry saves Draco in Deathly Hallows. Narcissa saves Harry.
Andrew: I think you guys are really sick for arguing in favor of how they should have been treating the children. “Oh, disarm them. Kill them all. Pick them off one by one.”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Well, it’s pretty obvious… well, none of these kids know wandless magic and nonverbal spells, so it’s a little comical. I remember reading this chapter for the very first time, this and the next one, and thinking, “Oh my God, this is going to make the coolest movie ever,” because these…
Micah: And it didn’t.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Well, these chapters are so action-packed, but if you look at how that’s evolved into now, modern day Fantastic Beast films, there’s no verbal spells; all the adults just know how to do nonverbal magic. And in the movie version of this, all the Death Eaters and all the Order members fly in, which is just absurd. But if you then go back and read this chapter in the books, everyone, even the Death Eaters, are shouting their spells. Hermione is able to take the voice away from one, and he can’t do anything. It’s a little bit comical how everyone is still sort of a fifth grader throwing Jelly-Legs Curses when it comes to battling. There’s no evolution of that that we see here. They’re pretty evenly matched against these kids, honestly.
Laura: Yeah. And Andrew, to answer your question, I think the reason that we’re bringing up some of these… I’ll say they’re smaller plot holes, is that they take away from the sense of urgency and the sense of fear that I feel Death Eaters inspired up until this point. I’m thinking about in Goblet of Fire when we first see the Death Eaters; they’re terrifying, and we see them here in the Department of Mysteries, and they’re up against six teenagers, and they don’t think to disarm them at the very beginning when they catch them in row 97? That would have been so easy. It would have really… I mean, of course, it would have made this a much shorter chapter. But still, I can see why this was a harder book to write. I know that this is something we’ve heard before, that Prisoner of Azkaban sort of wrote itself, but then Order of the Phoenix was a difficult book to write, and I can see why, because there are so many moving parts, but also there are a lot of moments that we as readers were expecting to come that finally come in this book, like this first battle, this first confrontation, and there are a lot of expectations that come with that. But then there are also some things that were set up previously that had to be undone, like Time-Turners, and then this magic that surrounds prophecies, and what is the point of this protection if it means nothing as soon as you take it off the shelf?
Andrew: No, that’s fair.
Laura: Yeah, it’s just a lot to try and put together; it’s a lot of world-building, so I am empathetic. But as we’re reading this book – and I don’t want to… because I know a lot of people love this book. To me, this probably feels like one of the weaker points in the series.
Andrew: And it’s funny; I don’t know about you guys, but reading this the first time, I didn’t think about stuff like this at all. [laughs] As a kid.
Laura: No, of course not. I was 14 when I read this for the first time.
Andrew: Right, right. Yeah, and now we have to talk about it on a podcast, so we’re thinking more critically.
Micah: To that point Laura made, even Umbridge is smart enough to “disarm” Harry and Hermione before bringing them into the forest with her. And yet, here you have a whole collection of Death Eaters, and you’re assuming that at least, let’s say, one or two of them is smart enough to take that road. And maybe you don’t disarm Harry fully, because he’s got the prophecy in his hand, but the other five, you easily could.
Andrew: Well, yeah.
Micah: And I think it’s fine to criticize our perspective…
Andrew: Of course.
Micah: … in saying that their approach should have been a little bit more aggressive, but Andrew, despite what you heard, the Death Eaters aren’t here for a pizza party.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: But here’s the other thing to keep in mind: You just mentioned they’ve got to be careful around Harry because of the prophecy. I think they’ve got to be careful around everybody because of the prophecy. They don’t know what Harry is going to do with that prophecy at any given moment. He could toss it to one of them; he could accidentally drop it when he looks at Luna being killed. They have to be extremely careful, because the directive from Voldemort is “Get the prophecy,” and they don’t want to upset him, so I can kind of understand why they are tip-toeing to an extent.
Micah: Do you think it’s possible that some of these Death Eaters, their magic could be a bit rusty because of how long they’ve been locked up in Azkaban?
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Laura: Very possibly.
Andrew: Also, they’re working in this veil room. There’s a lot of steps; you’ve got to step down into it. Maybe they’re a little older, so they can’t… it’s a tough environment to be fighting in.
Laura: They haven’t been on a StairMaster lately, so they’re not ready.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Right, they’ve been in quarantine due to COVID-92.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: I will say, a lot of the spells do seem to miss them by mere inches, and there is, I think, a successful campaign of stress and anxiety over who’s going to get hit with something, and it is at least something that Ginny’s leg is broken, that Neville gets so messed up, that Ron… whatever happens to Ron. And I think that as a kid, it definitely played very well that I was like, “Oh, man, they’re going to be decimated; it’s a problem.”
Micah: Yeah, and we’ll talk a little bit more later on about just the impact that the battle has physically on a number of these characters, but one of the other pieces of information that gets dropped by Harry in this conversation, before things start to get out of control and people start running off to different rooms in the Department of Mysteries, is that Voldemort is a half-blood, and Harry uses this kind of in a taunting way towards the Death Eaters. And it made me think about, what is the Death Eaters’ opinion? Do they even know at this point? Do they care that Voldemort is in fact a half-blood? So we’re going to talk more about that in bonus MuggleCast.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: It’s a good question. [laughs] They gloss over it when Harry asks.
Eric: Yeah, it’s very satisfying that Harry gets to stick that to them, in a way, and I think each Death Eater would have a separate opinion on what that means to them.
Andrew: All right, we’ll talk about that on our Patreon today.
Micah: And we did mention that spell that gets deflected; it ends up hitting one of the prophecies, or actually several, and one of them hits the floor, and out of that prophecy – I don’t know, Andrew, if you can do your best Dumbledore impersonation here to read what we hear – but it caused a flurry of theories from what I remember when this book first came out as to what this all meant. The fact that we’re getting to hear this other prophecy, we don’t know what it means, but people definitely had some thoughts on it.
Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “At the Solstice will come a new… and none will come after.” That’s it. That’s the line.
Micah: Yeah, that’s the line.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: But for folks who weren’t reading the series back when it was actually being released, the theories that were abound about what was going to come a new at the solstice. Was it going to be Deathly Hallows at one point? I remember people talking about this, because obviously, “none will come after,” then we ended up with Cursed Child, so that wasn’t true.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Well, prophecies are only true in so far as you enact them, right? Isn’t that what we learn?
Micah: That is true. But does anybody remember anything else? There was definitely some good ones.
Eric: Well, the Order of the Phoenix book release date was the solstice, actually, that year.
Andrew: Well, it was close. Wasn’t it June 23?
Eric: No, it was the 20th into the 21st in 2003.
Andrew: Okay. Oh, yeah, you’re right. Oh, okay, so there’s a little… well… hmm. That’s interesting.
Eric: [laughs] Because “none will come after”?
Andrew: Yeah. J.K. Rowling thought, “This is going to be my final book. This is so long.”
Micah: [laughs] “Book 5, done.”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Or maybe it was just a clever diversion, because she knew what we were doing as a fandom. And I think that as a writer, there are a lot of ways that you can lead your audience away from something that you don’t want them paying too much attention to, and this might have been that.
Andrew: I think ultimately what this is is just to show what happens when a prophecy breaks open. I know no theory is safe here on MuggleCast, but I think it’s just that simple.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: So in order to… if you pull down a prophecy and you’re like, “Hey, I want to see what this says…”
Andrew: You just smash it. [laughs]
Laura: You smash it; is that how you get it? Or is there a way for you to extract it?
Andrew: There’s got to be a way to extract it, right?
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Micah: All right, so nothing more to say about that prophecy. But Harry makes some quick decision-making, I guess, and they’re off, right? They’re running. I thought for the movie, though, this was a really cool scene with them running through the Hall of Prophecies, smashing things, fighting the Death Eaters. Ginny’s moment was awesome. But of course, it’s not as cool in the books. I mean, they make their way; they split up into groups of three, and Harry, Neville, and Hermione end up together, Ron, Luna, and Ginny end up together, and we stay, of course, with Harry. And their first stop is the time room, and just a weird series of events happen here.
Andrew: Yeah, so one of the Death Eaters’ heads starts shrinking into a baby, and it’s an interesting look at what happens in this room. But then Hermione is like, “You can’t hurt a baby, so let’s not attack him.” Hermione, he’s only temporarily a baby. He’s still got his full adult body on him; it’s just the head. I thought it was a little bizarre that Hermione suddenly feels bad about attacking this Death Eater just because his head shrunk.
Laura: Well, I don’t know that it’s just his head. I mean, if you look at his behavior throughout the rest of the chapter, he’s sort of thrashing around like a baby.
Andrew: But still has that full grown body. It was just his head.
Laura: Yeah, but if his head regressed to that of a baby, wouldn’t it make sense that his brain would too?
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: So what?
Laura: I think that Hermione is at this moment at least interpreting this as like, “No, this is actually a baby now.” He’s not much of a threat after this point.
Micah: Yeah, it’s just kind of in the way at times. But I’m curious as to why J.K. Rowling even wrote this into the chapter. It seems like a very… I’m not sure there’s symbolism that we’re missing. It just seems like a very odd thing to happen despite everything that’s going on. Or is it just, “Hey, let’s not forget, we’re in the Ministry of Magic, and this kind of stuff can happen”?
Eric: Yeah, I think that’s it, and the fact that to show how magic can go awry in this special area shows why it’s locked away. It just justifies the rest of the world-building happening around here, that, “Oh, if you accidentally put your head in the hourglass thing, this is what could happen. You could literally de-age.” I think that it gives some kind of reference point that we can see practiced Unspeakables actually working on time using those same instruments that these kids are going around shattering. Same with the brains; showing how they’re dangerous helps the book. It helps the story, even though for us, it’s very, very weird to see a grown Death Eater with the baby’s body, even in our mind’s eye.
Micah: It almost reminded me of something you would see in a cartoon, or just… it’s a lighthearted moment within an otherwise serious set of circumstances.
Eric: Yeah, for sure.
Andrew: True.
Micah: One character, in my opinion, that stood up above all the rest in this chapter was Neville, and I really think this is his chapter.
Andrew: Give it up for Neville Longbottom. [claps]
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: I don’t think he probably gets enough credit, but I do think that J.K. Rowling pushed him to the forefront in this chapter. He’s a fierce ally of Harry’s. He’s probably the most Gryffindor of the bunch, I would argue, in this chapter. And we learn a bit about his wand history, in that he’s using his father’s wand, so the fact that it snaps, I think, is a good thing, because now he’s able to progress and move forward. We’ve actually heard Ron had similar issues as well, because I think he was using Charlie’s wand for a period of time, if I’m not mistaken. So we know how not having your own wand can be problematic, and I think hopefully moving forward, Neville will be much more accomplished. It’s kind of sad, though, too, because he talks about his grandmother, and I think there’s a part of Augusta Longbottom that wants Neville to live up to Frank, and part of that is using his wand, but clearly he needs his own.
Laura: Yeah, she’s trying to force him into the mold of his father, and ultimately, he can’t be his father. I think that this is probably something we see real life examples of all the time, of parental figures trying to force their children into a certain mold, and it just doesn’t work because you have to let people be who they are.
Andrew: Do you guys think that Neville is at the forefront here because the prophecy also could have been about him?
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: That’s where I thought you were going with this, Micah.
Eric: That’s what I like about that part of it, is that having just seen Neville be kind of a badass, Gryffindor-esque, brave person, it makes it much easier for you to swallow that it could have been him that the prophecy was referring to when you find out in two chapters.
Andrew: Yeah, but I guess my question is, is that what J.K. Rowling is trying to get across here? Is this symbolism of some sort?
Laura: Yes, absolutely.
Andrew: Okay.
Laura: And I think Harry and Neville have been on this journey together the whole time; they just don’t know it.
Micah: Yeah, we can definitely take the conversation in that direction. I think that it’s a good question about why she pushes him to the forefront. I just think it’s time for Neville to step forward, too, and obviously he was making great strides in Dumbledore’s Army. But I don’t think it’s unintentional that he ends up with Hermione and with Harry, and really, in part, he’s the large reason why Harry is able to make it through this chapter and just the whole sequence of him kind of stumbling down the steps in the veil room. He’s completely beaten up and broken at this point, and then Bellatrix steps in and actually performs a Cruciatus Curse on him. The bravery that he shows in that moment of just unwavering loyalty to Harry and to the cause, I think, is enough to say, yeah, he is the most Gryffindor of the chapter.
Andrew: After having his face broken in, too.
Eric: Yeah, I was going to say, I don’t disagree with any of that, but did she have to break his nose and make him talk like dis the whole time? “What did he do to her? I dink dat’s blood, Harry.”
Andrew: [laughs] Is it supposed to be comic relief?
Eric: It’s awful.
Andrew: “DUBBLEDORE!”
Eric: It’s just… “STUBEFY!” And oh my God, you guys, the way Jim Dale reads it, he’s literally holding his nose the entire time he’s reading Neville’s lines, and I’m thinking… I don’t know if it’s supposed to be comical, but I just can’t get behind anything Neville is doing. I’m like, “Neville, stop talking. Neville, you’re so annoying. Stop talking.”
Andrew: He’s trying to save everybody, Eric!
Eric: I know! His hero moment is completely overshadowed by the fact… the way it’s written, anyway, because J.K. Rowling didn’t have to do this. She only does this with Hagrid, usually, where she’ll use their accent to – and Fleur, I guess – to show what it really sounds like. There’s a literary term for that, but it just… I think it undercuts Neville’s heroism, because I can’t stand reading these lines from him.
Laura: Yeah, and I think also, if we’re looking at examples like Hagrid and Fleur, who obviously have longer arcs throughout the series of having different speech patterns from the majority of the other characters, there’s a really good job done with introducing those accents a little bit stronger and letting them soften a little bit, because as readers, we know… you introduce that Hagrid has a thick accent, that Fleur has a thick accent, and we get it, and as they’ll continue talking in a scene, it’ll kind of taper off a little bit because we don’t need it constantly thrown in our face. Since we read it that way from the start, that’s how we’ll read it internally. And I feel like that’s the mistake here, is that we could have had this introduced maybe a couple of times with Neville and we would have gotten the idea, and it wouldn’t have been quite so annoying to read if it weren’t constantly happening for seven or eight pages.
Micah: I also think it’s a moment of strength, too, though; despite it being Neville at his weakest moment, he’s still willing to fight the fight.
Eric: Absolutely.
Micah: And I think that says a lot about him as a character. And I love the physical aspect of Neville during the actual battle that takes place in the veil room. He knows he doesn’t have a wand, but he’s able to pick one up and jam it into a Death Eater’s eye. That’s resourcefulness.
Eric: Yeah, it sure is! [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, that was badass.
Andrew: So painful, eugh.
Eric: He tackles people. He’s tackling everybody he can, and even after having the curse performed on him, too.
Andrew: This is going to happen at a Wizarding World theme park one day. There’s going to be a bad guy there and somebody’s going to stab somebody with a physical wand, and then those wands are going to be banned from the theme parks.
Eric: Oh, those wands will never be banned from the theme parks. They make them too much money.
Andrew: Oh, true. “We don’t care if they’re dangerous.”
Laura: Maybe they’ll create a new ride: Neville’s Eye-Stabbing Department of Mysteries Romp.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: That’d be fun. It’d be like one of those shooter games, shooting carnival games.
Eric: It really brings whole new meaning to the term “interactive wand.”
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: And the point about Neville, how he’s talking and it being kind of comedic in a way, I also thought about Ron when you said that.
Eric: Right.
Micah: Ron is almost comical in a way, too, when they finally meet back up, and he’s got blood bubbling out of his mouth and he’s making jokes about the planet room…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: … and even when he goes after the brain, right, there’s that freeze frame moment. And it’s kind of funny, but there’s also a darkness to comedy, I think, and we see it in different movies and other things, but that’s kind of what I took away from that as well, that it’s funny up until you realize there’s a certain reality to it, if that makes sense. Let’s talk a little bit about the fallout of this sequence before we actually get to the veil room. And everybody’s pretty beaten up at this point, right? Hermione and Luna have both been knocked unconscious. We don’t know how much more serious it is for Hermione, because she’s been hit with a curse, versus Luna, who I think just kind of hit her head against a cabinet or something, not that that’s any better. Ginny has a broken ankle. I like her fierceness, though, in this chapter; she thinks she can walk on it, and then realizes she needs Luna’s help. We mentioned Ron. He’s bleeding from the mouth, he’s consumed by laughter, and then he’s attacked by a brain, but that’s kind of his own fault.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: He’s lost his mind.
Micah: And then Neville. His wand is destroyed, he’s about to be tortured by Bellatrix, and then he’s hit a little bit later on in that fight with a Jelly-Legs Curse, so he can’t even walk properly.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: This is a ragtag group of people. They’ve been put through heck.
Micah: But Harry is okay.
Andrew: Well, of course. He’s the Chosen One.
Micah: Untouched. Everything just kind of flew around him.
Andrew: This isn’t his first romp with evil people, so…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: No, people really just don’t want to break the prophecy. This is what they came there for. Nobody’s going to directly aim a spell at him exactly right now.
Andrew: This prophecy has made him invincible, in a way.
Eric: Pretty much.
Andrew: It’s his best protection yet. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah. Of course, we can talk about the irony of the two people who ultimately are responsible for the prophecy breaking. It falls out of Harry’s robes, right? And then Neville kicks it.
Eric: But it’s not his fault; it’s whoever cast the Jelly-Legs on him.
Laura: Right, of course. I just think it’s highly symbolic that it’s two of the people the prophecy could have been about.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: It’s a good moment, I think, because there is all this effort to protect it from both sides, really, and then it just accidentally falls out at the end, and it’s like, “Well, that’s gone. That sucks.”
Eric: Yeah. And to Laura’s point, there is that moment between Harry and Neville where they kind of watch it die. Nobody else notices. It’s not like Lucious Malfoy is all of a sudden going to stop and go, “Nooo!” Although I’m pretty sure that happens in the movie. But Neville and Harry just kind of watch it fizz out. They can’t really make sense of it because the sounds of spells and broken crumbling stone benches and all that, but they kind of watch it together. It’s very romantic.
Andrew: And Harry and Neville kissed after that.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: “It’s gone! I love you.”
Laura: Light some candles…
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: Say a little prayer for the prophecy that was.
Micah: Let’s move on to the final battle of this chapter, and everybody makes their way back to the veil room. I don’t know if it was a forced movement back there by the Death Eaters, because they try and kind of push Harry and crew to one central location. But yeah, then it’s just mass chaos, right? Dogs and cats living together in the same space doesn’t work.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Yeah. It’s a pretty epic scene.
Micah: It is.
Andrew: And it’s great to see Tonks and Remus and Sirius and Kingsley all come in, and then, of course, Dumbledore comes in a few minutes later, and Harry has this electric feeling go through him, and he knows that they’re saved. Even though Dumbledore has sucked this whole book, he still knows that deep down, Dumbledore’s got style and he can take care of business. It’s kind of interesting how Harry doesn’t feel mad that Dumbledore is there. It’s nothing but joy. He’s just so relieved.
Eric: It’s like phoenix song. It’s like when you hear it and you’re oddly comforted. That’s how Harry feels now.
Laura: I wonder if there’s some part of Harry deep down that’s like, “Ugh, finally.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Well, and where has Dumbledore been? Why is Dumbledore so late to this party? But the way that Dumbledore immediately comes in, and the way his level of magic is described… you get a lot of this in the next chapter, which is what I love about the next chapter, why it’s one of my favorites.
Andrew: The only one he ever feared!
Eric: Ahh! But the way his magic is described as being like a hook that pulls a Death Eater that’s running away “like a monkey,” just pulls him with an imaginary hook, fwoop, right back to where he was so that Dumbledore can get him.
Andrew: It’s epic.
Eric: Amazing. Yeah, there’s just nobody like Dumbledore, and now the grand master wizard has entered the fray. The only crime here, the most disappointing bit, is that he’s paying next to no attention to this fight between Sirius and Bellatrix.
Micah: Yeah. I mean, it’s very much like… I don’t know what the right comparison, but I almost think it’s like, “Oh man, Dad’s here. Everybody’s got to go home.”
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: That’s what happens to the Death Eaters because they want no part of Dumbledore at all, and it’s just complete scrambling at this moment for them, except, as you mentioned, for Bellatrix, who’s dueling with Sirius, and we know what happens there. But you had a funny question, Andrew, and I know you took it out, but I’m going to ask it anyway, and it’s related to Mad-Eye Moody…
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: … which was we see Moody, actually, in a very defeated state. Definitely doesn’t happen in the films. He’s basically lying unconscious with blood kind of dripping out of his mouth; his eye has been detached from him, and somebody steps on it. Is it Neville who steps on it?
Eric: Somebody steps on it, yeah.
Micah: And you were wondering whether or not that hurts him.
Andrew: It may have been Harry.
Micah: I think it was Harry.
Andrew: Yeah, it must have hurt, right?
Micah: I don’t know. Does it, though?
Andrew: It must have hurt to have your eye stepped… well, because his eye, I mean, it’s this magical eye. He can always see in any direction with it, which kind of makes me think that it’s a part of him, whether or not it’s actually in his eye hole. So I’d bet it would hurt.
Micah: But Moody is unconscious, so he wouldn’t feel it.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, in this moment he wouldn’t.
Micah: Yeah, that’s a good question, though.
Andrew: I know. That’s why I put it in.
Micah: But then you took it out.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: But he’s not the only one. I mean, Tonks is beaten up pretty bad; there’s a scene where she is falling down the steps. Remus, Sirius, Kingsley seemed to be holding their own. And the one thing that bothered me a little bit about this whole battle sequence is that you don’t really see the other side messed up that much, and it makes me wonder, how good is the Order?
Andrew: Ooh, shots fired. Well, yeah, maybe it’s because the Death Eaters are out for blood. I know that the Order needs to act in self-defense, but they’re not people to go around and just randomly kill people or hurt people. You know what I mean? I think they’re just trying to save the kids in this moment, not necessarily attack and kill these Death Eaters, so maybe that’s why you don’t see as much force as you see from the other side.
Eric: I like that theory, and I think, too, the Death Eaters have the more defensible position being on the bottom of the stairs versus at the top of the stairs, so I think there might be something to do with that as well, that the Death Eaters just have better tactical, strategic positioning right now.
Micah: Interesting.
Andrew: Yeah. Getting back to Dumbledore, I will say, I think I prefer the movie version of this, where he comes in once Voldemort has arrived.
Eric: Right.
Micah: I agree.
Andrew: I don’t know. It just felt more epic.
Micah: Yeah, because he comes through the Floo Network, versus like, “I’m here in the door frame.”
Andrew: Right.
Micah: Doesn’t inspire… despite J.K. Rowling’s description, it just doesn’t… it’s not as powerful. Coming through a fireplace, that’s powerful.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: And then, of course, his first line is, “You shouldn’t have come here tonight, Tom.”
Andrew: Yeah, love that.
Micah: Which is badass. The fight in the movie, not so much. I’m sure we’ll talk more about that.
Andrew: I actually disagree.
Micah: Compared to the book.
Andrew: Okay.
Micah: No, the whole fountain comes alive. None of that happens in the movie. Weak. Terrible job, David Yates. Terrible job.
Andrew: He uses water and throws it at Voldemort.
Micah: I know, but the symbolism to the fountain defending. Come on.
Andrew: All right, well, we’ll talk about it later.
Micah: Anyway. We need to debate this.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Yeah, it’s like a Pokémon battle, basically.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: That means if you debate it, then you and Andrew can’t be on the same team, Micah.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I know. That’s okay.
Eric: Wait, you’re changing up the teams this late in the game?
Andrew: Well, hold on, I need to review the movie again before I make any decisions.
Micah: But when he’s spinning Voldemort inside the water ball, it’s like he’s trying to mold clay or some… I don’t know. Didn’t do it for me.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: No, you’re right.
Eric: Now I hear “Unchained Melody” in the background.
Micah: All right, so the tragic moment of this chapter was not Ron being attacked by a brain, or Hermione being knocked out by a curse…
Andrew: Or the prophecy being broken.
Micah: Or the prophecy being broken, or Macnair being attacked. That’s a great connecting the threads back to Prisoner of Azkaban; we get Macnair mentioned. It’s that Sirius goes through the veil.
Andrew: And he just falls through. There’s no fanfare. It just happens.
Micah: Yeah, it’s a quick, fleeting moment.
Andrew: Harry is in denial at first. He can’t believe it. “I heard voices on the other side; he can’t be dead.” “No, Harry, he’s gone.”
Eric: And Remus keeps saying that, but I wonder where his basis for knowledge is on that. Does Remus know the secrets of the veil? How does somebody know that Sirius is gone?
Andrew: He must, if he was so sure. There really should be an undo period with the veil.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: If you fall through it, you have five… it’s like how you can unsend email in Gmail for ten seconds.
Eric: Wait, you can?
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: It’s the best feature ever. I use it every day because I fire off emails with lots of typos, and then I’m like, “Wait, typo!” But yeah, that’s what the veil needs. A five-second grace period to undo your actions.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: To hit undo? Yeah, I’m for it. But it’s tragic on a number of levels, obviously, but also because it seems as if he avoids the Killing Curse at first, but then gets hit right in the chest with something that I’m not sure was a Killing Curse. It was just enough to basically push him into the veil, and he dies as a result of falling through the veil.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: It’s not that his face goes blank; his face actually changes to surprise. And then at the same time, he becomes ensconced by the veil somehow, and there’s an energy burst from the whole thing. And it’s very weirdly worded; it’s worded in such a way that you think there’s more coming later.
Laura: Oh, do y’all remember the theories? After this came out, there was a lot of speculation, because the second spell that hit Sirius in the chest, the color’s not described.
Eric and Micah: Right.
Laura: So there were people being like, “Oh, it wasn’t the Killing Curse. He just got Stunned, so he’s actually going to come back. He’s not actually dead.” No, sorry.
Eric: Should’ve come back. I still think he’s in there.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Well, yeah, he’s in there; he’s just not coming back.
Micah: He’s in there.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Micah: You’ll see him again in Deathly Hallows.
Andrew: Are all the people who have fallen through the veil just hanging out on the other side? Like, “Let us out! Let us out! Figure out how to get us out.”
Eric: Regarding Remus, though, the chapter ends with him holding Harry back. I think even if – somebody pointed this out before – but even if Remus doesn’t have all the answers, he wants to prevent… Harry is going to just frantically dive head-first through the veil, and they might not be able to get him out, so I think the priority is just preventing Harry from going in there at all costs.
Micah: And it must take quite a bit of strength on the part of Remus to do this because that’s his best friend that also just went through the veil. To react in that moment, to protect Harry takes just a tremendous amount of emotional strength, never mind physical strength in holding him back. But as far as… I mean, I’m wondering about the veil now itself, and just… did people actually go through it? Was it used sort of as an execution chamber?
Andrew: Oh, that’s interesting.
Micah: We were talking about in the last episode how the veil was there probably before the Ministry, or at least the amphitheater.
Andrew: Well, yeah, somewhere else. They didn’t build the Ministry around the veil, I don’t think.
Micah: Well, I don’t know about that.
Laura: We’ve definitely theorized that.
Micah: Because just how old it is. It’s this amphitheater. There’s this veil; it’s almost like a portal has been opened, and I wonder what level of magic it would take to open that type of portal.
Andrew: I’m sorry, I don’t buy this for a second. They’re like, “Where should we build our government offices? Around a veil that can kill people”?
Micah: Well, it’s the Department of Mysteries. I mean, wouldn’t you want to protect something like from just random people?
Andrew: Yeah, and they transported it. They brought it in there, but they didn’t build it there because it was there.
Eric: I think they built it there, because think of this: If this really is the exact barrier between life and death… so Sirius literally falls through it, but imagine if somebody dies anywhere in the world, that you could perhaps observe their soul passing from this earth into the next realm through this veil. Say that this is the very physical location, or geographic location on the globe where every soul enters the afterlife, truly, then you absolutely can’t just have this thing hanging out. You’re going to build a building with lots of security – except on pizza day – around this thing…
Andrew: [laughs] Except on pizza day.
Eric: … to prevent people from getting in. The fact that Sirius literally goes through it is very weird, and that’s why I always expected there to be more to the story. But I think it’s mostly a metaphor.
Micah: It’s like the equivalent of the River Styx, right? And then your soul goes to the underworld, and then it either goes one way or the other, depending upon…
Andrew: If they were that concerned about the security, about securing this thing, they would have put some extra layers of security up so people can’t accidentally fall through it, like what happened today. Put it in a glass box, or put a gate up in front of it. I don’t know.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Micah: There’s a great social meme. Just put a white picket fence up in front of it.
Laura: There we go.
Andrew: Yeah! Well, it would’ve been better than what they have there now.
Micah: White picket fence with a guard dog.
Laura: Hey, it could be like the queue at the Wizarding World. You just have a line.
Andrew: You need a ticket to enter.
Laura: No return journey.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: There’s a good chance, though, that this was something that was used back in the day as a means of execution. Think about something equivalent of the Salem witch trials, and your punishment if you were convicted was you had to go through the veil.
Eric: Yeah, otherwise, what are all these benches for?
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Micah: See, that would be great for somebody to expand upon, somebody with knowledge about this, somebody who wrote the book.
Laura: Yeah, well, and think about in the first Fantastic Beasts we see that MACUSA has their own form of magical execution, so who’s to say that this is not the UK equivalent?
Andrew: Very true. So we thought we should play Sirius off with a song to pay tribute to this wonderful character. We asked on Twitter, what song should we play? We got a lot of responses, so thanks to everybody who participated. Yana said “Highway to Hell.”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Wow.
Micah: I love that.
Andrew: Yeah. “Sound of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel.
Eric: That’s a good one.
Andrew: That was said by Feryal. “Forever Young” by Lauren. See, I think we need something emo and punk-ish, so I really liked this pick from Issy.
[“In The End” by Linkin Park plays]
Laura: Well, I’ve just been transported…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Back to high school.
Laura: … back to every high school dance, every Friday night at the roller rink…
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: … with my emo hair and my Hot Topic belt…
Andrew: Laura was a punk. Green Day super fan over there.
Laura: Oh, I was an emo kid for sure.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, Sirius, he’s emo. He’s a rock’n’rolla. You know he loved all the classic rock bands back in the day. [laughs] Not that Linkin Park is classic rock.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: I just mean he’s into rock. [laughs]
Micah: Well, if you look closely in Deathly Hallows in his room, there’s actually a Dookie poster that you can see.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I mourn the loss of a father figure, which is why I have a little clip to play, if you wouldn’t mind, Andrew.
[“Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin plays]
Andrew: So why this song, Eric? “Cat’s in the Cradle”?
[Eric weeps]
Micah: Aww.
Eric: By Harry Chapin. It’s a beautiful story of never having the time together with your son; it’s kind of a son/father relationship that never really got the time that it deserved. Thank you for playing.
Micah: We mentioned Green Day. I mean, I think “Walking Contradiction” would be a great song for Sirius.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Laura: Yep, I think so too.
Andrew: I don’t know that song. Micah knows Green Day? That surprises me too.
Laura: Why does that surprise you?
Micah: I grew up with Green Day.
Andrew: I don’t know. Thought he was a classical music type of guy.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: Micah just sits around with a glass of whiskey, swirling it, listening to classical music.
Micah: I do.
Andrew: Mozart.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Yeah, but what you don’t know is it’s classical Green Day.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: They play Green Day’s music.
Andrew: Right, right. Okay, so that’s the chapter. It’s time for the Umbridge Suck count, and I don’t think we have anything.
Micah: No.
Andrew: Unless you want to give her one for existing, but I don’t think that’s very fair.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: No.
Micah: I think we can give her a break this week, honestly.
Andrew: Okay. She’s breathing a sigh of relief.
MVP of the Week
Andrew: That means it’s now time for the MVP of the Week.
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Andrew: Like was alluded to earlier, I’m going to give mine to Neville for his courage. He was the true MVP of the Week, and I just loved when he said, “DUBBLEDORE! DUBBLEDORE’S HERE!”
Eric: [laughs] I’m going to give mine to Harry for telling the Death Eaters that their leader is a half-blood! He just straight out comes and says it.
Micah: I’m going to give it to Bellatrix Lestrange for, I mean, obvious reasons, but just her introduction into this chapter, and what she does by the end of it doesn’t need to be spoken for.
Eric: She does all that while pregnant, too.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Yeah, that’s pretty amazing. I’m going to give mine to Dumbledore, because they were all screwed until he showed up.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Well… hmm, okay. I don’t know if that’s entirely true, but…
Laura: Hey, Harry has that moment where he’s like, “They were saved.”
Andrew: No, I know. Doesn’t mean he’s right.
Rename the Chapter
Andrew: It’s time to rename the chapter. Order of the Phoenix Chapter 35, “One Less Dad.”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Can you imagine reading that before you started the chapter? [laughs]
Eric: Aww. I named the chapter Order of the Phoenix Chapter 35, “Seers in Spheres.”
Micah: I went with Order of the Phoenix Chapter 35, “The Evolution of Neville Longbottom.”
Laura: Order of the Phoenix Chapter 35, “Upshot of the Worst Plan Ever.”
Andrew: Do you have any feedback about today’s episode? Send it on in. MuggleCast@gmail.com, or use the contact form on MuggleCast.com, or call us. 1-920-3-MUGGLE; that’s 1-920-368-4453.
Quizzitch
Andrew: Okay, it’s time for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: Last week’s question: What planet does not survive the battle in the Department of Mysteries? The correct answer, as Ron recounts the story, is, in fact, Pluto.
Andrew: Poor Pluto.
Eric: Poor Pluto. Correct answers were submitted by Anne Smith, Sarah Wolf, SupSarahhh, Robbie Stillman, Hallow Wolf, Jeff Skellington, Sydney, Caleb, Count Ravioli, William Walton, Rachel, Bort Voldemort, and Jason King. Do you guys think this was a little bit of a prediction on J.K. Rowling’s part? This book came out in 2003, and in 2005, the International Astronomical Union said that Pluto was no longer a planet.
Andrew: It is eerie.
Micah: Totally.
Andrew: Some classic J.K. Rowling foreshadowing. She knew this was going to happen.
Eric: Just obliterated. Checked off the list.
Andrew: Once again, injecting her politics into the books.
Eric: Oh, gosh.
Andrew: Just had to comment on Pluto, whether or not it was a planet.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Her interstellar politics?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: So that is that. Next week’s question: Who tells Cornelius Fudge that Voldemort is back?
Micah: His eyes.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Well, it’s also… yes, that’s true, but in the book, it’s a ponytailed man.
Micah: Got it, got it.
Andrew: Submit your answer to us on Twitter.com/MuggleCast. Also, follow us there and follow us on Instagram and Facebook, and we would love your support at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. You can get access to our livestreams so you can hear us record in real time; it’s a lot of fun. We typically record on Saturday or Sunday morning. You also have access to bonus MuggleCast, and as we teased earlier in the episode, this week we will be discussing in bonus MuggleCast: Do the Death Eaters care that Voldemort is a half-blood? They seem to conveniently ignore this little tidbit when it’s shared in the chapter, so we’re going to talk about that further. We record two bonus MuggleCast installments every month, and they’re a lot of fun, and if you become a patron, you will have instant access to all of the bonus MuggleCast installments we’ve done so far, and you’ll get access to years of other bonus content as well. So again, Patreon.com/MuggleCast. Our Patreon is the reason we are a weekly podcast, and we’re having so much fun doing it, so thank you to everybody who supports us there. We really appreciate it. And also, thank you for listening; it means a lot. And also for writing in. All the things. No matter how you engage with the podcast, we deeply appreciate it. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: Bye, everybody.
Laura: Bye.