Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #473, Dumbledore v Voldemort (OOTP 36, The Only One He Ever Feared)
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 today’s episode, we will discuss Chapter 36 of Order of the Phoenix. And we also have a new game to play: Guess That Book! Just you wait, guys.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Eric: I imagine a game show audience cheering.
Andrew: This is what I envision for the game as it evolves over the next few months.
Eric: Nice.
Andrew: So stay tuned for that.
News
Andrew: But first, some news and Muggle Mail. The latest chapter readings are out; Downton Abbey‘s Hugh Bonneville read Chapter 13 from Sorcerer’s Stone, and the Malfoys read Chapter 14. Tom Felton, Jason Isaacs, and Helen McCrory read Chapter 14.
Laura: What a sweet family bonding activity for the Malfoys.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: That’s very cute. And again, it’ll make them more likable.
Micah: Remember…? Was it the last episode where I joked that Imelda Staunton should join with Ralph Fiennes and Tom Felton to do a chapter? And basically it’s the same thing; it’s all the baddies together reading a chapter about Norbert.
Andrew: [laughs] And there’s only a couple chapters left, so we’ll see who else they have in the pipeline. Also, we have some news ourselves: We want to let everybody know that our next Quizzitch Live will be happening July 21. That is the anniversary of the publication of the final Harry Potter book, Deathly Hallows, and as you might imagine, Quizzitch Live will be themed around that book. So stay tuned for that; again, that is July 21. For anybody who doesn’t know, this is a live, real-time trivia game. You will be competing against fellow listeners for prizes. It’s a lot of fun; we’ve really enjoyed doing these. It’s free to play, it’s open to everybody, so stay tuned, and that will probably be our last one for a while, so if you’ve been meaning to play Quizzitch Live with us, please tune in for that one. Also, we’ve been hosting some polls on our social media channels. A couple weeks ago, we had a debate over who was the worst villain; was it Voldemort or Umbridge? Across the board on our social media channels, about 40% said Voldemort was the worst villain, and 60% said it was Umbridge that was the worst.
Laura: Oooh.
Eric: Hey, Laura! You and me for once.
Laura: Yeah!
Eric: That’s great.
Micah: There you go.
Andrew: Good job, you two.
Laura: We actually got to argue the side of a debate that makes sense.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Honestly, I kind of phoned in that debate.
Laura: Yeah, okay.
Andrew: I just thought, “This is too easy; I don’t have to try,” and I didn’t try hard enough. I apologize, Micah.
Micah: I thought calling her a one-hit wonder was really going to deliver us the win, Andrew, but apparently not.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Who conducted this poll?
Andrew: Well, the social media channels.
Laura: Are you calling fake news?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: No, I would never. I just want to make sure peer research was involved and all the right parties were calculating these votes. No mail-in, nothing like that.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Oh. Well, we’ll check it out. It was definitely not scientific, Micah; it was just a social media poll. Also on our social media channels, we asked, “Was the Ministry built around the Department of Mysteries, or was the Department of Mysteries added after the Ministry was built?” On Twitter, 57% said the Ministry of Magic came first; 43% said the Department of Mysteries did. And then on Instagram, 47% said the Ministry of Magic came first, and 53% said Department of Mysteries came first. So it was very split. The mystery continues.
Micah: Instagram was right.
Laura: Agreed.
Andrew: Okay. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I think so too.
Micah: And I would clarify it a bit: I would say that it was built around the veil, not specifically the Department of Mysteries.
Laura: Yes.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: Well, we will talk about that more in a second, but first, let’s hear from one of this week’s sponsors.
[Ad break]
Listener Feedback
Andrew: Okay, and let’s get to Muggle Mail now.
Laura: All right, this first one comes from Meg. Meg says,
“Last episode you wondered if the veil existed before the Ministry, or if it was built inside the Ministry after the location had been chosen. I have a theory. Why do we have cities where they are? Because they’re places close to water, which is what people have always needed to survive; and for the hundreds of thousands of years that humans have been living in groups, it’s been natural to congregate near water and make that your living space. We know the Statute of Secrecy went into action in 1692, so for conceivably all of humanity before then, Muggles and wizards were living together. There are wonders such as Stonehenge that people believe have some magic to them, and I think the veil might have been something like this. Unlike Stonehenge, though, I don’t think the veil was created by people. In fact, maybe it wasn’t always a veil. We can see it’s a strange, void-y thing. Maybe very early wizards actually put the arch and veil over it, as a marker, after the 20th person fell through the void on their way back from gathering roots.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
“Groups grew over time until we had our first cities. Perhaps wizards chose to stay in London (still conveniently located near water) and have the option to study the void behind the veil. When the first wizards in 700 BCE or whenever decided there needed to be a sort of headquarters for magical folk, they made a structure around the veil. The first room of what would become the Department of Mysteries. Years went by, London expanded, the headquarters grew, and then when the Ministry of Magic was formed in 1707, this place of magic was the logical choice for its location. By the 20th century, it’s a bustling center of magical activity, with the veil still standing, and still being studied by the most daring and inquisitive wizards.”
Laura: I love this.
Andrew: I think it’s a good theory. I still just have a hard time wrapping my head around them, forming the entire Ministry of Magic around the veil, but it’s a cool theory.
Eric: You’ve got to start somewhere.
Laura: Yeah, and I think what I like about Meg’s theory is that they didn’t purposely say, “Well, the veil is here, so I guess we have to build the Ministry here.” It just sort of grew over time and became the logical place for the Ministry because it’s in the capital city of the country.
Andrew: Yeah. That’s cool, for sure.
Micah: Very well written. Very well thought through. Andrew, think Sims. Think Animal Crossing. That’s the vibe I’m getting here. You have to build around something.
Andrew: [laughs] Huh, okay. That makes no sense.
Micah: No? Not doing it for you?
Andrew: That’s a terrible connection.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: You’re just saying games I like to play. [laughs]
Laura: You could have Timmy and Tommy like, “Don’t go through the veil! Veil!”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: I love that they would have built it room by room. I mean, maybe if they had to protect the veil, they would have put protections around it, and then they were like, “Well, we already have this room that’s unseeable by Muggles; we should just build on that,” and then that helped them protect their stuff. But I love the idea that the veil itself was just a hole through space-time and people just kept dying through it, so they were like, “We should throw a veil over this.” [laughs] Pretty cool.
Andrew: Yeah. And a related tweet; this is from CBIRD.
“I don’t think the arch was just in a cave or in the middle of a forest or something. I think it was maybe imported from somewhere to be studied, and let’s be honest: Brits aren’t new to taking other people’s arts and schlepping it to London.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Ooh, ouch.
Laura: Fair point. Fair point.
Andrew: Salty CBIRD.
Laura: I don’t think colonialism stops with wizards, so…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: So the veil was from another part of the world, and it was “taken” to London?
Andrew: Allegedly.
Micah: Yeah, okay. The next Muggle Mail comes from Becky, who says,
“I have three unrelated questions: Going back to Episode 470, you mentioned that Kreacher interpreted Sirius saying ‘Out!’ as him being let go, and he decided that Bellatrix was his new master. If Sirius wasn’t Kreacher’s master when he went through the veil, then why did Harry become his master after that? Was it just because of Sirius’s will?”
Eric: My fast fire answer is it was only a loophole that let Kreacher go to Bellatrix and do her bidding, so once it was formalized in Sirius’s will, control of Kreacher went strictly back to Harry because it was only not Sirius’s under certain conditions.
Laura: Agreed.
Andrew: I like it.
Micah: It was just how Kreacher interpreted those words.
Eric: Right, yes.
Micah: Didn’t he have to punish himself a bit?
Eric: I mean, punishment for him is just seeing Mudbloods in front of him, so if he goes back to Harry, he’s punishing himself. [laughs]
Micah: Fair enough.
“In regards to your Chapter 35 discussion in Episode 472, I was wondering why Dumbledore (a.k.a. Dubbledore) didn’t just destroy the Ministry’s copy of the prophecy as soon as Voldemort returned, since he already had his own record of it? The only person who needed to know about it was Harry, so as long as he kept the memory for Harry to see (and showed it to him sooner!), everything would’ve been fine.”
Laura: Because then we wouldn’t have a fifth book.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Eh, you’ve got to follow the rules. Dumbledore was just following the rules.
Eric: It does raise the question as to whether they’re luring Voldemort to the Department of Mysteries in some way.
Andrew: Oh, that’s a good point. Yeah, you would think that would tempt him.
Eric: Yeah, they knew he was going after it from the beginning of the book, so why are they stationing people outside of the room and putting people at great risk if not to lure Voldemort out? We could talk about this in the chapter today. Was this Dumbledore’s plan all along?
Andrew: Right, well, I also just mean since the prophecy is in the Ministry of Magic, it has to cross their minds – everybody’s minds – that if Voldemort ever did come back, he might try to go for that prophecy. So why tempt him with the existence of it there?
Eric: Right.
Andrew: Why tempt anybody, really?
Micah: Well, and in order for Dumbledore to retrieve it, he would need to have Harry with him, right? He can’t just go in and get it himself and destroy it.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: True, yeah. Well, I guess… I mean, Harry would have been up for a little trip with Dumbledore since Dumbledore has been ignoring him this whole book, so Harry would have been down.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: “What is this orb, sir?” [imitating Dumbledore] “Oh, nothing, nothing. Please just grab it and smash it.”
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “I just want to see if you can throw a baseball, Harry.”
Eric: Aww.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: “I’m your dad, who…” [laughs] “You never had a father who could toss the ball with you.”
Micah: Whoa. Final question from Becky:
“Do you guys think it was maybe some sloppy writing from Jo to introduce the Department of Mysteries so quickly at the end of Order of the Phoenix and then never return to it, almost like she had this well formed idea that she couldn’t bear to part with, so she just shoved it into a book that was already too long?”
Andrew: Yes.
Micah: I think, Laura, you kind of touched on this a bit in the last episode.
Laura: Yeah, especially doing this Chapter by Chapter of this book at this point in my life, I realize that, in my opinion – and I’m not passing any judgment on anyone who disagrees with me – but I feel that this is the weak point of the series. Not to say it’s a bad book; it’s not. There’s a lot of really good stuff in this book. But in terms of the plot and the arc, as we’ve identified recently, there are some plot hole-y items. So yeah, I don’t know. It still gives me a deeper appreciation for the art to realize it can be flawed, so please don’t email me. Don’t at me.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: I don’t hate Order of the Phoenix; I just think it’s not the strongest book in the series.
Eric: I think it’s harsh to suggest that it’s sloppy writing. I think that the Department of Mysteries… it’s four or five chapters, after all. It’s 65 pages of a really cool setting and location. I mean, this is one of the cooler settings and locations we get that aren’t Hogwarts in the books. So I don’t know; I think that it serves its point. This was something J.K. Rowling always had to put in one of the books, but I don’t think it feels shoe-horned in. It explains that there’s things we don’t understand about the wizarding world, and just because we don’t understand them, I’m not going to criticize them, going, “That should have been explained more.” I feel like this is just the place where those things are solved, and it’s not within the scope of the series to answer those types of questions.
Andrew: The only other thing I’ll add is that I feel like J.K. Rowling had greater plans for the Department of Mysteries, and she wanted to share this info at some point, and then it just never got out, unfortunately.
Eric: Yeah, but I mean, imagine the book series without the Department of Mysteries existing at all. It would be full of more plot holes, because we’d be like, “Well, wait, what are the rules of this? What are the rules of this?” And at least we know now…
Andrew: I’m glad we got what we did.
Micah: And just to wrap up, Eric, Becky said she really enjoyed your “Seers in Spheres” renaming of the chapter from last week.
Eric: Aw. Thank you, Becky.
Micah: So you have a fan.
Eric: I wish I wasn’t just so critical just then.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: She’s reneging. Next week you’re going to get an email saying she no longer likes it.
Eric: [laughs] This next piece of email comes from Jennifer.
“Long-time listener, first time writing in.”
Thank you, Jennifer.
“I was listening to Episode 472, and started lamenting the fact that we never really get to see Remus grieve for Sirius, the last of his best friends to die. They were so close, and having to lose him all over again (first to Azkaban, and then the veil) would have been a tremendous blow. I too admire his emotional strength when he tells Harry that Sirius is gone – it’s as if he’s almost having to say that to himself as well. I was wondering if it would have been good for Harry and Remus to talk about Sirius’s death and share in that grief together. Remus is woefully underutilized in the later books, and it is also noted that “[Harry] did not like talking about Sirius if he could avoid it” (Book 6, Chapter 8). I know it is Luna that Harry talks to in the final chapter of Book 5 about death (which is one of my favorite scenes), but it would’ve been nice to see Remus and Harry have a heart-to-heart like they had done at the end of Book 3. Maybe Lupin knew that Harry wouldn’t want to talk about Sirius and just let him be, and put his own feelings aside. Maybe Lupin was already struggling with his feelings for Tonks and had a lot of his own emotional baggage to sort out. Whatever the reason, I feel like it was a lost opportunity for these two to grieve over someone who meant a great deal to them both, and lean on each other for support. I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this.”
Andrew: It’s a great point, and… that’s just war, man. You lose people; you don’t have time to grieve.
Eric: I mean, why doesn’t Sirius get a funeral?
Andrew: Because the book was long enough.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I don’t know. Maybe…
Laura: Well, also because he’s… I mean, he’s a convicted criminal in the eyes of wizarding law.
Andrew: Yeah, but the people of the Order could have had a private little gathering of some sort.
Eric: A ceremony, yeah.
Laura: Maybe they did; it was just offscreen.
Andrew: This might sound bad, but maybe J.K. Rowling didn’t want to write a funeral because we would have a funeral for Dumbledore in the next book, similar to how they didn’t have a battle at the end of Half-Blood Prince because they knew they would have another battle at the end of Movie 8. Do you guys remember that? They said, “We didn’t have the big battle at the end of Movie 6 because we knew we would have another one the next movie, or two movies from now.”
Eric: Yeah, it’s kind of repetitive if you do it back to back to back.
Andrew: It seems silly, though, because you need that climax.
Micah: Well, don’t forget, you also had Aragog’s funeral in Half-Blood Prince.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Oh, yeah. Right, two funerals.
Micah: And Dumbledore.
Andrew: Just in the book, of course.
Micah: So she doubled down. I mean, it would be more of a memorial for Sirius, right? I think the Order would have properly acknowledged him and remembered him, I would hope. And he is vindicated by the end of this book, isn’t he? So it’s not like he’s still a criminal.
Eric: Yeah, I think Fudge mentions something to the other Minister in the beginning of the next book.
Micah: But they don’t go out of their way. I mean, Fudge has already fallen so far from grace by that point.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. But I agree with Jennifer that Remus is underutilized, 100%. Remus does not then take up this father figure thing that, to be honest, he always dominated more than Sirius. He was always a better parental figure for Harry; he just doesn’t step up, and Rowling does not write him stepping up here.
Micah: No, and she really doesn’t for most of Deathly Hallows, too; Harry and Lupin have a really bad relationship, honestly, towards the end, and it’s kind of sad, honestly, given what happens at the end of the book.
Laura: All right, this last piece of feedback comes from Veronica. Veronica says,
“I had a thought about a recent episode that I wanted to share, and wondered what y’all think! In the episode for Chapter 33, there was some discussion about how Harry wouldn’t have chosen Ginny, Luna, or Neville from Dumbledore’s Army to accompany the trio to the Ministry. The general thought seems to be that Harry wouldn’t choose them because they aren’t skilled enough in Defense Against the Dark Arts. However, I have a challenge to that idea. I think that Harry doesn’t want them to go because of the affection that he feels for them. Ginny is like a sister to him at this point, he knows Neville’s history and has watched him blossom in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Luna and all of her quirks have grown on him all year long. They also just pulled off an amazing escape from Malfoy and his cronies using their newly sharpened Defense Against the Dark Arts skills. Ginny at least has an idea about what could be in store for them at the Ministry, and Neville is not naive about what Death Eaters are capable of. Harry may feel that Luna is a bit naive, but somehow I don’t think she is. Quirky, yes. Naive, no. Ultimately, I think that Harry’s blossoming love for them and a desire to keep them safe is why he doesn’t want them to go. Just wanted to share and hear your thoughts!”
Andrew: Hmm. I’m sure that is a factor as well. It’s that, but it’s also traveling with a big group.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. And Harry is all that “Get in sneakily; bigger group attracts more people” kind of guy. But the way it is worded in the book is “I would not have chosen these three,” and it just seems like he’s…
Micah: Right, the wording is what caused us to react the way that we did. It’s J.K. Rowling’s writing specifically that calls attention to the fact that for whatever reason, he didn’t want to have these three with them or with him, and I think the reasoning – at least, the way it came across – was because they’re not as skilled as he would hope for.
Eric: Yeah. But I like that anyone can take it and go, “Oh, but what about this?”
Andrew: Yeah, for sure. No theory is safe.
Eric: Aha!
Andrew: Thanks, everybody, for your feedback. We love hearing from everybody, so keep that feedback coming.
Guess That book game
Andrew: Now we’re going to try a new game. So once we’re finished with Chapter by Chapter for Order of the Phoenix in a few weeks, we’ll be moving into a variety of different main discussions that discuss everything in the books and movies, and we’re so excited to get started with that, and we’ll have more details in the weeks ahead. And in addition to unique main discussions week to week, we will also introduce some new segments, and today we’re going to try one: Guess That Book!
[Upbeat game show music plays]
Andrew: Hello, everybody, and welcome to Guess That Book. I’m your host, Andrew, and today we’re joined by three contestants who claim to be die hard Harry Potter fans, but are they? We’re about to find out. The rules are simple: I will play a clip from one of the seven Harry Potter audiobooks, and Laura, Micah, and Eric will have ten seconds to guess what book it’s from. For a bonus point, contestants, you may guess the chapter as well. So are you ready to play Guess That Book?
Eric, Laura, and Micah: Yeah!
Andrew: So here is your first clip.
[Audio clip plays]
“He ran back down to the common room.
‘We’d better put the cloak on here, and make sure it covers all three of us – if Filch spots one of our feet wandering along on its own -‘
‘What are you doing?’ said a voice from the corner of the room.”
[Audio clip ends]
Andrew: All right, you have ten seconds.
Eric and Laura: Sorcerer’s Stone.
Andrew: Micah, what is your answer?
Micah: Sorcerer’s Stone.
Andrew: Wow, you guys are really good. That’s correct!
[Chiming sound effect plays]
Eric: Ooh, ooh, extra point, extra point.
Andrew: Go ahead.
Eric: Is it “Through the Trapdoor”?
Andrew: That’s correct!
[Chiming sound effect plays]
Eric: Wow!
Andrew: [laughs] Okay, that one was purposely a little easy. Here is the next question.
[Audio clip plays]
“Eight of the hands were currently pointing to the ‘home’ position, but Mr. Weasley’s, which was the longest, was still pointing to ‘work.’ Mrs. Weasley sighed.
‘Your father hasn’t had to go into the office on weekends since the days of You-Know-Who,’ she said. ‘They’re working him far too hard. His dinneris going to be ruined if he doesn’t come home soon.'”
[Audio clip ends]
Andrew: Guess that book!
Eric: I’m going to guess, although it might be wrong, Chamber of Secrets. Chapter, “The Burrow.”
Laura: Goblet of Fire?
Andrew: Micah?
Micah: Chamber of Secrets.
Andrew: Well, Micah and Eric got it wrong.
[WRONG sound effect plays]
Andrew: It was Goblet of Fire.
Eric: Nice!
Micah: Good job, Laura.
Andrew: Yeah, that was… as you may be able to tell now, it’s from the chapter “Mayhem at the Ministry.” Sorry, I should have asked Laura to guess that chapter as well.
Laura: I am not going to be able to identify the chapters; I’m just telling you already.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: That’s not going to happen.
Andrew: Well, you might be able to for this next question.
[Audio clip plays]
“And we must unite inside her
Or we’ll crumble from within.
I have told you, I have warned you…
Let the Sorting now begin.”
[Audio clip ends]
Andrew: Guess that book!
Eric: Order the Phoenix?
Laura: Yep, Order of the Phoenix. “The Sorting Hat’s New Song.”
Andrew: Micah?
Micah: Yeah, I’m going to go with the other two here.
Andrew: Wow, all three of you are correct!
[Chiming sound effect plays]
Eric: Woo!
Andrew: Okay, now I had this tiebreaker question, though we weren’t competing against one another. Again, we’re testing out this segment. Here is the tiebreaker; let’s see if any of you can get it. I’ll give you one clue: It’s from one of the four books that weren’t an answer today.
[Audio clip plays]
“But the source of the noise proved to be nothing more than a pure-white peacock, strutting majestically along the top of the hedge.”
[Audio clip ends]
Andrew: Guess that book!
EandM: Deathly Hallows.
Andrew: What?!
[Chiming sound effect plays]
Andrew: I thought that was going to be harder.
Micah: Is it “Malfoy Manor”? Is that a chapter?
Andrew: It was the first chapter where they’re on the way to Malfoy Manor. I didn’t think that was specific enough. Good job.
Micah: Is that “The Dark Lord Ascending”? Is that the name of the chapter?
Eric: Oooh.
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: Nice. Micah gets the extra point.
Andrew: All right. Well, thank you, everybody, for playing Guess That Book!
Micah: All right.
[Upbeat game show music plays]
Micah: Come on, Mega Man. Just one more jump!
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: All right, so what we learned today is these need to be a little bit more difficult, because you guys did really well.
Micah: Well, there were little clues in there, I think, that helped, like the white peacock, I think, was a giveaway from Malfoy Manor.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: I didn’t realize that was going to be a giveaway. Okay.
Micah: But you also can’t go too obscure, because nobody’s going to get the answer.
Eric: Well, for the very first clip, where they’re going down to the common room and say, “We’d better get the cloak,” that could be any book.
Andrew: But it was given away when Neville said, “What are you guys doing?”
Eric: Exactly.
Andrew: Though I didn’t include the part where Jim Dale says “Neville,” because I thought that would make it a little trickier.
Eric: No, yeah.
Andrew: Understood. Well, was that a good segment? Should we continue?
Eric: Yes!
Micah: I liked it.
Laura: Yeah, that was un.
Eric: That was super great.
Andrew: That’s interactive.
Micah: We’ll have to brush up on our skills, though.
Andrew: I’m sure Scholastic will sue us in a few months if we keep that segment up, so let’s do it while we can.
Micah: Eh, it’s fine.
Andrew: Okay, if you’re not as efficient as Molly Weasley is at managing your own Burrow, then our next sponsor is for you. This week’s episode of MuggleCast is sponsored by HelloFresh.
[Ad break]
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Andrew: Okay, it’s time for Chapter by Chapter. Chapter 36 of Order of the Phoenix, “The Only One He Ever Feared,” is what we’re discussing this week. And we’ll start with our Seven Word Summary.
Micah: Voldemort…
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Laura: … is…
Eric: … trying…
Andrew: … to…
Micah: … kill…
Laura: [sighs] … Harry…
Eric: … Potter!
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: This is not a good one.
Micah: That’s the theme of the entire series. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, I know.
Eric: But it’s this chapter in particular.
Micah: I think it’s actually the first time he shoots a Killing Curse directly at him since way back in… well, before Sorcerer’s Stone.
Eric: That’s right.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Micah: Okay, so as Andrew mentioned, Chapter 36, “The Only One He Ever Feared.” And the chapter starts out with the reaction to Sirius having just gone through the veil, and Harry is in a moment of denial. And I think that’s totally normal, given what has happened. He doesn’t believe that Sirius is truly gone until he realizes that Sirius has never kept him waiting.
Andrew: Aww.
Micah: And this was a tearjerker moment, I think.
Andrew: Yeah, well, when something so shocking like this happens, when you don’t even understand what the veil is, you can see why Harry is in denial.
Eric: Oh, absolutely.
Andrew: And then he starts to see reason pretty quickly, actually.
Micah: Totally. And I think it’s normal for anybody who’s experienced this type of loss to think the way that Harry is thinking, that “No, there’s no way that he’s truly gone; he’s just going to come around the corner, or he’s on the other side of that veil.” And yeah, it’s a really sad moment in the series. And Neville comes through, I thought, again as a true friend. He asks a question about Sirius, and the first thing that he says, though, is that he’s sorry, and the two of them interacting, Neville being supportive of Harry in this moment, is really the only support that he gets outside of Lupin. But Lupin is more physical support here; I think Neville is the emotional support, at least for their very quick moment.
Laura: And I love how Neville is so ready to accept that Sirius was Harry’s friend. Mind you, Sirius has spent the last three books being on the cover of the Daily Prophet and painted as a criminal, and in this moment, Neville is just like, “Oh, was he your friend? I’m sorry.”
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Laura: And that just shows his inner Gryffindor.
Andrew: This was also a tearjerker moment, though, just reading this line from Neville: “Harry… I’b really sorry… Was dat man – was Sirius Black a – a friend of yours?” [cries]
Eric: I know. It really speaks to the lack that… Harry was never able to parade around his godfather, and take him to family gatherings and parties, and say, “Yeah, this is my new father figure. This is my godfather here.” He was never able to do that. Neville doesn’t even know him. And I switch between, on the one hand, acknowledging what Laura said, Neville’s internal character growth, to say that this purported felon could have been a friend, obviously, because Harry is there crying, and wanting to slap Neville because J.K. Rowling is still writing him in the… whatever that speech term, because he’s bleeding profusely from the nose. [laughs] Just… man. But Harry must be feeling devastated that he never was able to even explain the context, because the odds were stacked against Sirius since day one of his escape.
Micah: “Was that the man that stole the password list from me back in year three?”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: “That bastard! I’m glad he’s gone!”
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: “Broke into Gryffindor tower and scared the crap out of all of us?”
Andrew: “How could he be a friend of yours?”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Yeah, so just a really tender moment there between Harry and Neville. But it is short-lived because Harry then begins to chase after the one responsible for Sirius’s death, and that is Bellatrix Lestrange. And they make their way out into the atrium of the Ministry; nobody thinks to follow suit, right? I understand there’s still a little bit of a battle happening, but Dumbledore seems to wrap things up pretty quickly.
Eric: [laughs] Right.
Micah: And Harry gives chase to Bellatrix, and he’s so furious that he attempts to use the Cruciatus Curse on her. And then he gets a little bit of a lesson from Bellatrix about the Unforgivable Curses, and she tells him flat out he has to mean it, because it has very little effect on her outside, I think, maybe, of does it knock her over?
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: Knocks her on her ass.
Andrew: The effects don’t last long. That’s the key difference here.
Eric: Right. It shocks her enough that she’s no longer laughing and no longer talking like a baby at him, thank God.
Andrew: But it’s only temporary.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: So this is interesting, though. Did Harry not mean it? I mean, Bellatrix tries to explain how it works, which is actually kind of nice of her.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: She and Lucius are very helpful in these later chapters.
Eric: Well, what is it they say? Failure is the great teacher? There you go.
Andrew: Yeah, and I mean, Bellatrix says, “You need to really want to cause pain, to enjoy it. Righteous anger isn’t enough.”
Eric: Oh, you’re right. That’s pretty much the whole recipe, right there.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Man, her and Lucius.
Laura: I had a question for the panel: Do we think that somebody needs to be broken to be capable of successfully performing an Unforgivable Curse? And the reason I think of this is because the only people we’ve seen perform them, to my knowledge, are Voldemort, Bellatrix, Barty Crouch, Jr., and Snape, who’ve all killed people.
Eric: I think Harry could do it if he worked at it.
Andrew: I’m more inclined to side with Laura. I think you need to be broken, or you just need to be plain old evil, and Harry does not have that within him.
Eric: I mean, he has lost so much, though. I think he could begin to cross the threshold, if not… if nobody’s looking at his mental health, I think Harry could very well… because he’s been Voldemort. He’s seen Voldemort when Voldemort is torturing and using the Cruciatus Curse. I think Harry would actually be able to quickly get to the place where he needed to be to be able to do it, because he’s seen it done from the first person before; he’s just never done it.
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Laura: I think it’s possible that you could be right later in the series, but in this moment, I don’t think Harry is broken enough to be able to do this.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: But doesn’t he use the Imperius Curse in Gringotts?
Eric: Yeah, yeah, he does.
Micah: So he is capable to some… but I always think of the Imperius Curse as more skillful and less unforgivable. Not that we need to analyze the Unforgivable Curses…
Eric: Right.
Micah: … but the other two are very much extreme in terms of harm and pain, and death, in one case.
Eric: Yeah, but you are taking over somebody’s entire will, something that they rarely are separated from in their entire lives. I feel like it’s just a different kind of magic. But we always see Harry is adept at fighting off the Imperius Curse, so maybe that helps him two years from now when he needs to use it.
Micah: He still does struggle, though, in Deathly Hallows with the Cruciatus Curse, because he uses it on… I want to say it’s Amycus Carrow for spitting in McGonagall’s face. And he only gets thrown; he doesn’t… there’s no effect like what we see with Neville in this chapter. So I’m not sure. Is it a factor of intent? Could it be age? Could it be magical ability? It may be a combination of all those things.
Andrew: I think so, yeah. Age is an interesting question, because I guess the older you get, probably the more broken you likely are.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: Right.
Andrew: So yeah, and I think it would take a lot of strength to be able to pull this off, and if you’re a younger kid, you just might not have the focus to be able to pull this off yet. I’m not saying… I think Harry is old enough and experienced enough at this point to successfully cast this curse, but most kids probably aren’t, and certainly younger kids are not.
Laura: Well, for comparison’s sake, I think Tom Riddle would have been able to do this at Harry’s age, because he already enjoyed torturing people.
Andrew: Yeah, he was beyond broken.
Eric: Yeah. Well, I was just thinking of those children that he took to the cave, and we don’t know exactly what he showed them or did to them; it might have been something along the lines of a Cruciatus Curse. But he would be ridiculously young at that age, because that was before 11.
Micah: I think there has to be also just an understanding of what you’re doing to the person. And I don’t know; I’m sure by 15, you have a sense. But I think there has to be… to Bellatrix’s point, you want to inflict pain upon the other person, which I think Harry obviously does in this moment because of what she’s done to Sirius, but I don’t know if he would enjoy that. As much as he wants to do it to Bellatrix, I don’t think… what’s the satisfaction level that he’s going to get out of that?
Eric: Right.
Andrew: Well, Revenge. Revenge is important to him in this moment.
Eric: It might be his wand rejected, too. I mean, he has two things working against him: his purity of heart, and the fact that there’s phoenix feather in his wand, and it might be that phoenix feather wands can’t cast those types of curses.
Andrew: Nicole, who’s listening live right now, she says, “For Harry, I feel like it’s when you were a kid and said you hated someone but rarely actually meant it.” I think that’s a good observation.
Micah: Yeah, and I don’t think Harry – the other piece for him in this moment – I don’t think he’s truly focused. I think he’s just reacting to what’s happening, and there’s a difference, and that could be part of his age and just not knowing how to compartmentalize. The other thing that comes up, though, in this exchange between Harry and Bellatrix is the fact that, “By the way, I broke the prophecy. Sorry, guys.”
Andrew: [laughs] And she doesn’t believe him. “Wha-wha-what?”
Micah: Right, yeah. After they get through the whole Cruciatus Curse lesson, he drops the little piece of information that “You know the prophecy? It’s gone. Sorry, you’re screwed.” Death Eaters: screwed. Voldemort: not going to be happy.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: I love how he’s trolling her in this sequence. At one point he’s hiding behind the fountain, and he holds up his empty hand and wiggles his fingers like, “Look! Look, it’s not here!”
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: But this is where Bellatrix’s demeanor completely changes, though. You can actually sense the fear that’s coming from her once she does start to realize that the prophecy has, in fact, been destroyed. And it’s not something we often see from Death Eaters, but she’s definitely afraid.
Laura: Yeah, and she starts wailing and shouting her apologies to the Dark Lord, and to Harry, he’s like, “Why are you shouting at him? He’s not here,” until Voldemort is like, “Excuse me, I am.”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: And in this moment, I just wanted to call out the fact that Voldemort calls her Bella. We have this to thank for every fanfiction referring to her this way.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: Every fanfiction tried to call her Bella to soften her in a way, so just…
Andrew: Is Voldemort using it as a term of affection?
Laura: So that’s what I’m wondering.
Andrew: “Bella, baby.”
Laura: Knowing what we know now. Do we think their love affair has already started, based on these interactions?
Eric: I mean…
Andrew: I think so. [laughs]
Eric: Probably. You know what Bellatrix says to Harry during this chapter, is she says that she learned the Dark Arts from Voldemort, that Voldemort has taught her crazy things. And I’m thinking that’s a lot of one-on-one class time, if true.
Micah: Especially now that she’s been to the love room.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Yeah, she says, “I was and am the Dark Lord’s most loyal servant, I learned the Dark Arts from him, and I know spells of such power that you, pathetic little boy, can never hope to compete,” so it’s great that he is able to get away and all that, but Bellatrix is terrifying. And I think, yeah, the connection… there’s a lot more to their relationship that we don’t even know about even in Cursed Child.
Micah: I’m trying to think of other characters that may have referred to her that way. Do we ever hear Narcissa call her Bella?
Eric: Yes.
Laura: I think so, yeah.
Eric: It’s Cissy and Bella.
Laura: I feel like she’s the only other person, though.
Micah: I want to say Snape. It may just be a movie-ism, but I think Snape, when they’re in Spinner’s End, says to her, “We shouldn’t touch things that aren’t ours, Bella,” as only Alan Rickman can.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Right. But see, that comes across kind of mocking, like, “Yeah, I know that you’re Voldemort’s boo thang.”
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Well, there’s the social media post for the week.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Yeah, so we’ll get to Voldemort’s arrival in just a minute, but one other thing that Bellatrix does before… she actually gets pinned down by the witch statue. I was going to say before she escapes, but that’s in the movie.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: She refers to Sirius as “the Animagus Black,” and I just wondered, was this a distancing measure on her part, so that when she’s talking with Voldemort, there’s no direct affiliation that she has with him? They’re related, they’re cousins, they’re blood, but in this moment, she wants no attachment. She’s referring to him as if he’s a dog, literally.
Eric: Right, yeah, absolutely.
Andrew: I think it’s an insult on purpose.
Eric: Yeah, there’s also that mental detachment of, “I did not just kill my cousin; I killed the Animagis Black.”
Andrew: Yeah, right, right. There’s no emotional connection there.
Eric: Exactly. But I mean, just as an indicator of how close they really are, it’s Kreacher’s whole ownership issue… Sirius and Bellatrix are closely related enough that Kreacher goes to… we already rehashed this, but you know what I’m saying. So they’re a lot closer than her statement would seem to acknowledge. She just committed almost fratricide.
Micah: Yeah, I mean, she kills a family member. And I think it’s also just evidence of probably how Death Eaters and Voldemort talk about those that aren’t in their inner circle. They probably find ways to degrade them or talk to them or talk about them.
Eric: Or other them.
Micah: Yeah, exactly. Okay, so Voldemort has arrived at the Ministry finally, but he’s not the only one in the atrium. We know Harry is there. We know Bellatrix is there. He has a little bit of a dialogue. He shoots a Killing Curse at him because he just had enough; he doesn’t want to deal with Harry anymore. Harry is not worth his time.
Andrew: [laughs] “Be gone!”
Micah: Yeah, exactly. He casts Avada Kedavra, and all of a sudden, one of the statues jumps out in front of Harry and takes the Killing Curse straight in its chest.
Andrew: Nice.
Micah: And Voldemort is like “… Dumbledore.”
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: He just knows. He knows.
Andrew: Thwarted again.
Micah: And it’s probably worth mentioning, I think Bellatrix also lets Voldemort know by just saying he’s below, like she’s trying to warn him that Dumbledore is here, but Voldemort doesn’t really catch what she’s throwing out there. But we decided that this is too epic of a moment to leave to the films…
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: … and we asked on Twitter, with both Voldemort and Dumbledore making their entrance to the atrium of the Ministry, what would be their theme song? Think about as they’re stepping down to the ring. They’re about to get in and go 12 rounds with each other.
Andrew: Right, walking in. What’s their entrance music?
Micah: Yep.
Andrew: what do we hear in our version of the movie? And let’s hear this suggestion from Issy. This is Voldemort’s entrance music. Please Welcome to the stage. Lord Voldemort!
[“Cold-Hearted” by Paula Abdul plays]
He’s a cold-hearted snake
Look into his eyes
Uh-oh, he’s been telling lies
He’s a lover boy at play
He don’t play by rules
Uh-oh, girl, don’t play the fool, no
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: So that is “Cold-Hearted” by Paula Abdul. Thank you, Issy. And now Dumbledore is coming out through the curtain, and here is his entrance song, as suggested by LauraTheKiwi7. Please welcome to the stage, Albus Dumbledore!
[“The Power” by Snap! plays]
I’ve got the power!
I’ve got the power!
Andrew: I think these were excellent suggestions. Thank you, Laura and Issy.
Eric: They’re perfect.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I’m just imagining Voldemort and Dumbledore coming out for a lip-syncing battle.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Well, it’s interesting you say that, because the photo we posted with this on Twitter is actually Ralph Fiennes and Michael Gambon just sitting on the atrium statue pool, just kind of in casual conversation, so I wouldn’t be surprised if those two actually would engage in a karaoke battle.
Eric: Absolutely.
Micah: Andrew, I don’t know if you want to do your best Dumbledore impression, but the line that Dumbledore delivers.
Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “It was foolish of you to come here tonight, Tom.”
Micah: Thank you, Dumbledore.
Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “You’re welcome.”
Micah: But Voldemort is just stunned that Dumbledore is not trying to kill him, and Dumbledore responds by saying that there are things that are worse than death.
Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] Yes, yes. That’s because “We both know that there are other ways of destroying a man.”
Micah: And so I was wondering…
Andrew: What does he mean?
Micah: Yeah, is this a hint, maybe, at Dumbledore’s own personal situation? Or do you think it’s directly applied to Voldemort?
Eric: I think this is the setup for the eventual payoff of the creature under the bench in “King’s Cross”; that is a fate worse than death. It’s a part of Voldemort’s soul that is alone in the world and doesn’t really know anything about who it is or where it is, or anything. That’s the fate worse than death.
Andrew: That’s interesting.
Laura: Yeah, I think this is multi-faceted. I think it can refer to Dumbledore’s own experience. I think it can refer to the reality that he knows about Voldemort’s soul situation. And also, I think this could be a subtle way of teasing that he knows about the Horcruxes, or he at least suspects them. Because we know, as we read in Half-Blood Prince, that Tom Riddle is informed that ripping his soul up is not a good thing.
Eric: It’s an act against nature. And Dumbledore, back to Book 1, is the guy who said, “To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” So of course, Dumbledore would take this position in this moment by saying, “Eh, there’s things worse than death. Like taxes, for instance.” Dumbledore is not afraid to die.
Micah: No, but I think for him, he could be alluding to what we learn more about in Deathly Hallows and his own personal struggle after the death of his sister, his torn relationship with his brother… I think living the life that he’s lived, there’s a lot of regret, and that doesn’t even take into account everything with Grindelwald, which we’re going to learn more about in the Fantastic Beasts series. So I think that that’s probably a bit of what’s going on here. But also, to the points raised about the Horcruxes, Voldemort at this point is way less than human, and I think he realizes that he can’t kill Voldemort in this moment, because it doesn’t achieve the ultimate end, right? If he kills him, then Voldemort’s soul is going to find a way to latch itself on to something else, because the Horcruxes exist. He can’t be killed. So I don’t even know how you would be able to contain Voldemort in this moment.
Andrew: I’m also wondering if Dumbledore doesn’t want to kill Voldemort because he needs Fudge to see him alive. He needs to prove that he did come back. If he killed Voldemort in this moment, he would disintegrate and float into the air, and then there would be no proof.
Eric: Right.
Micah: Yes. I’m actually glad you mentioned that, because right as the battle starts, he sends two of the members of this magical fountain off to get presumably Fudge and the Aurors to show up at the Ministry; the elf and the goblin both run to the fireplaces and disappear. And I think we can start talking a little bit about the movie here. I was really disappointed that the fountain wasn’t used more, and it actually wasn’t used at all; it just gets destroyed a bit as part of the battle between Dumbledore and Voldemort, and I just think the way that all these different pieces of the fountain were used throughout the battle would have been really cool to see on screen.
Andrew: Yeah, you’re right, and it reminds you of Deathly Hallows – Part 2, because McGonagall says, “Do your duty to the school,” just like she does in the book, and that scene is awesome, watching those statues come to life and watching them help save Hogwarts. So yeah, I think they should have adapted this for the movie. Maybe in the TV show one day.
Eric: But this goes back to the thing that Fantastic Beasts may have now retconned, that Dumbledore was a Transfiguration teacher prior to McGonagall being the Transfiguration teacher, prior to Dumbledore’s becoming the headmaster. And this is the biggest use of Transfiguration up until the thing that you just mentioned with the school statues. But this is just like the chess pieces, too; these inanimate objects are all of a sudden given life and some form of sentience, and Dumbledore creating this whole thing to help his cause is amazing. He literally just built himself an army, so his skills are really unparalleled.
Andrew: Of course Dumbledore sends the elf to go and get help. The elf couldn’t have been a warrior here?
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: It had to be a typical house-elf in this situation.
Eric: Well, he’s still a little short. Your average spell goes right over his head.
Andrew: Oh, I see.
Laura: I thought this was all really interesting, considering what we talked about a couple chapters ago with the centaurs feeling really resentful at the idea of wizards trying to use them to do their bidding. And this whole sequence, I think, is emblematic of… not necessarily Dumbledore feeling this way, but the way the wizarding community uses other magical creatures with sentience in order to do their bidding.
Eric: Because they can.
Micah: Totally. I couldn’t agree more, Laura; I think there’s a whole lot of symbolism just in what you said, but all… like the elf running off to get help. It sounds funny, but that’s what Dobby does throughout pretty much the entirety of the series, right? Kreacher does it, too, to some extent. The goblin is helpful in Deathly Hallows, right? To some extent. And great point about the centaur. And I just think the whole… just the symbolism, though, of the loss, though, right? All the different statues get bits of them blown apart; some of them get shattered completely. And I just think the fact, though, that they’re all stepping in to defend against Voldemort and what he represents is part of a larger theme.
Laura: Indeed.
Micah: So as it relates to the actual battle, I mean, I think it’s cool, seeing it on screen. I actually watched it again this morning because I know I was a little bit harsh on it in the last episode.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: But it is really awesome to watch these two wizards battle against each other, all the different spells and curses that are flying around, all the defensive magic that Dumbledore is able to come up with.
Andrew: Yeah, and doesn’t the scene have no music in the background? It’s just silent, and you’re just hearing the sound effects.
Micah: Yep.
Andrew: I really like that. It really brings the battle to life and makes it very raw.
Micah: Yeah, the snake that Voldemort is able to conjure up, the fact that Dumbledore is able to encapsulate Voldemort in the water from the fountain…
Andrew: Which happens in the book. I mean, he puts him in a bubble in the book.
Micah: Yeah, but it’s also because Voldemort is standing in the middle of the fountain, and not just random… I mean, it’s a cool effect in the movie. They’re able to get the water out of the fountain, wrap it around him… yeah, it’s fine. I’m good with it.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: But there’s a lot of other cool stuff, though, too. Voldemort fires a number of Killing Curses that Dumbledore is able to dodge. In one moment, he just completely vanishes. At the very end, Fawkes comes in and swallows the Killing Curse, which, again, would have been cool to have in the movie, but…
Andrew: Yeah. Poor Fawkes, dying so many times.
Micah: Exactly.
Andrew: I’m just picturing what happens when Fawkes swallows the Killing Curse. I think he would squawk like a chicken or something.
[Eric laughs]
[Andrew squawks like a chicken]
Laura: [laughs] Somebody give us the squawk cut. When Fawkes does this, edit in that sound effect.
Micah: Yeah. The only thing I would say, though, about the movie and in rewatching it was that when Michael Gambon is trying to control Voldemort within that orb, it’s just his hand motions look just so weird. And then he’s also… he keeps looking back to see where Harry is, and there’s one moment where he literally throws him with magic back onto the ground. I don’t know. That scene, that sequence, was just very odd for me.
Eric: Sure.
Micah: But this all kind of wraps up, Dumbledore versus Voldemort, with Voldemort’s possession of Harry, and he’s somehow able to get inside of his mind to the point where Harry’s scar is burning, and the one thing… and Harry is literally begging for death, by the way, in this moment; he just wants it to be over, so that he can be with Sirius, to tie it back to the beginning of the chapter. And it’s that moment, it’s that thought of Sirius, that love that he has for him, that makes Voldemort recoil and get away.
Eric: I’m so surprised by how few lines of dialogue are exchanged between Voldemort and Harry. There’s really only two lines. He says, “So you smashed my prophecy?” And then he says, “I have nothing more to say to you, Potter. You have irked me too often, for too long,” and he casts the Killing Curse. Then he tries to possess him entirely. And I know we get a little bit more explanation as far as what’s going on in the next chapter; Dumbledore kind of explains what Voldemort was trying to do. But I love how it’s written, this progression of, “I should die. I am dead. This is the worst I’ve ever felt. Life is not worth living. I can be with Sirius.” But his heart surges, and this is what literally repulses… it just expels Voldemort from him. It’s really well done. It’s just really well shown that it’s Harry’s capacity for love and affection that kicks Voldemort out. And in the next chapter, we get the suitable criticism of, “Oh, it’s love? Big deal,” but we do see from Harry’s perspective how it is this surge of emotion and how Voldemort just can’t keep a hold on him.
Micah: The one thing I was thinking about, though, as this whole battle was taking place, and really, once Fudge shows up and Dumbledore starts to talk to him and the other Aurors about the Death Eaters that are down in the Death Chamber… we finally get a name for where the veil is housed…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: I’m curious: How is Dumbledore’s magic working both down there… right? He says that he’s tied up all these Death Eaters basically like cattle, and they’re unable to Disapparate out of the Ministry, and yet he’s full on fighting Voldemort up in the atrium.
Laura: Yeah, he’s a baller.
Andrew: Well, but also think about when they Petrificus Totalus Neville. He didn’t suddenly unfreeze when they walked away. They applied the magic. It sticks.
Micah: All right. I’ll buy it.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Just be really impressed by Dumbledore’s work. Don’t question it.
Eric: But I mean, who had money on “Death Chamber” for the title of the room?
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, now they tell us it’s the Death Chamber. Why wasn’t there a sign out front? “Warning: Death Chamber. Do not enter.”
Eric: Also, I love how Harry just asks for the exit and gets it in the spinning room. Was there this magic all along that it was just voice-activated when you get in there?
Micah: You’ve got to be really angry. You’ve got to say, “I want to get out of here.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: “Let me out!”
Micah: That’s what it is.
Eric: They could have said that. Like, “I want to get to the prophecy room,” and then it would have just spun. Nobody thought to try “Hey, Siri”? Or “Okay, Google”?
Andrew: Right. Well, now you just set off a lot of devices.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, because I’m thinking about like, when you use Floo Powder, you announce your destination.
Eric: Right.
Micah: So wanted to wrap up the chapter talking about Fudge and the Ministry itself, and in my mind, Fudge just has the typical politician’s mindset, because the first thing that he talks about when he gets to the Ministry is the fact that the fountain is in shambles.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: That just shows you who he is and really where his head is at.
Andrew: “We don’t have money in the budget to fix this!”
Eric: Well, there’s money in the fountain.
Andrew: Oh, true. Yeah, and he’s being really rude to Dumbledore. He just saw Voldemort is back, and all Fudge can think about is how he can punish Dumbledore next.
Micah: Right.
Laura: Well, yeah, he’s pissed at Dumbledore for being right.
Andrew: Yeah, but this is such a shocking moment. You would think that in this moment, he would be able to put that aside and be like, “Okay, it’s time to get real about Voldemort, and it’s time to have Dumbledore on my side.”
Eric: It’s very lucky that they saw Voldemort at all, given the speedy departure that Voldemort has after failing to possess Harry. I’m just so glad that this is a tipping point for that. But yeah, Fudge has a slow realization that Dumbledore is there, he has a slow realization that Harry is there, and it’s really just an onset of his old prejudices that… because he spent all year thinking “Dumbledore is trying to usurp me.” He spent all year or more thinking Harry is a huge liar; they’re in cahoots together. So I’m not surprised that it takes Fudge a little bit of time to be sort of de-programmed, and he really doesn’t completely get there. Dumbledore is having to call the shots and say “You will do this and this and this. You’re going to send your Aurors downstairs. You’re going to then… I’ll give you 30 minutes of my time, but I’m too important, and after that, I’m going back to the school.” [laughs] “Oh yeah, where you’ve reinstated me, and fired Dolores Umbridge.”
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Yeah, he definitely asserts control, and it’s just good to see that finally Fudge has gotten his comeuppance. Unfortunately, it’s at the expense of the entire wizarding world and what’s about to happen. But one of the things that I just wanted to touch on before we wrap up, though, is the symbolism of all of this – and Laura, would love to get your thoughts – because Fudge is walking into a Ministry that has now been completely destroyed physically, right? The atrium has been just abolished – everything is shattered; everything is destroyed – and I thought that just spoke to the fact that Fudge is now destroyed. He is now finished.
Laura: Yeah. Well, and also the fact that it would be entirely possible for most of the wizarding world not to know this ever got destroyed in this way, because it’s all underground. It’s not something that’s immediately accessible to most people. So just like politics, it can be in shambles, but it’s still hidden.
Micah: That’s a great point.
Andrew: I don’t have anything to add because Micah only asked for Laura’s thoughts.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: No, Andrew, I want your opinion.
Laura: Andrew, you’re not allowed to think unless Micah tells you to.
Andrew: No, no, it was spot on. I have nothing to add, for that reason.
Eric: I do think the movie did a great job at showing the possession, though. We talked about Dumbledore and Voldemort, but the fact that in the movie, Harry is like, “You don’t have friends, and I pity you!”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Just kind of… Harry really gains the upper hand pretty quick, and it just does give a little bit more agency to Harry in the moment when he’s being completely helplessly possessed. And I love the way it’s shot with Voldemort in a black room, and then Harry in a black room. It’s really good stuff. Little creepy.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s emotional. And of course, Fudge’s line, “He’s back!” is classic. And Fudge says a lot more in the book, but I think that’s all they needed for the movie. It says it all. Fudge was shocked.
Micah: Right. Now Harry is heading back to Hogwarts via Portkey, and it’s actually the head, I think, of the wizard statue, which played a major role in this battle.
Andrew: Also symbolic.
Micah: It lost its head when he was fighting with Bellatrix, but then it took the Killing Curse flat in the chest, also, when Voldemort fired that first spell. And yeah, definitely some symbolism there. It saved him, and now it’s also taking him back to safety at Hogwarts.
Eric: So apparently you can’t Apparate in or out of Hogwarts, but you can Portkey into Hogwarts.
Micah: Well, Dumbledore is…
Eric: Yeah, okay, all right.
Micah: He was in control of that little creation there, so he can do things nobody can.
Eric: That’s right, because he does it in front of Fudge, and Fudge is like, “You can’t just create an unsanctioned Portkey in front of me! There’s paperwork!” And Dumbledore is like, “Look, dude, you’ve got 30 minutes.”
Andrew: [laughs] And now Dumbledore is going to explain everything. “Don’t worry, Harry; now I’m going to reveal all.”
Micah: It only took 36 chapters.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, we can discuss this more next week. But when Dumbledore says, “Sit down, I want to tell you everything,” I think they released that line as a teaser before the book was released…
Laura: Yep.
Eric: They did.
Andrew: … and that was so exciting. So exciting. God, when I was 14 or 15, I was looking forward to that so much.
Laura: Yeah, I remember they had it up on posters everywhere advertising the book.
Eric: That’s right! “But first, here’s 800 pages to slog through.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Not slog through. I love this book. Every chapter, almost.
Eric: Ah, well, we differ on our opinions.
Andrew: You and Laura slog through it.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: I’m trying to remember… somebody wrote in – it might have been in an email that we can find for next week – that were really disappointed, the fact that Harry didn’t show up in the movie in that scene the way that he does in the book, because he trashes Dumbledore’s office like no other.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And that doesn’t happen at all in the movie, right?
Laura: Yeah, that would have been very satisfying.
Micah: Yeah. I guess they had to save those props for the next three films.
Laura: Well, they knew Harry was going to be angry in the next three films, so they were like, “We can’t have him be angry here; it’d be too repetitive.”
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: Dumbledore will just Reparo those anyway, and I wouldn’t want to sacrifice the chance to not get to see the Reparo scene that Slughorn and Dumbledore do in the next movie, because that’s awesome.
Micah: [laughs] It was.
Eric: So if they can only show one scene of trashed stuff getting fixed, I’d rather it be…
Micah: They’re very limited, very limited. Budget. All right, well, I think that wraps up Chapter 36.
Laura: Well, before we move on to MVP of the Week and Rename the Chapter, I wanted to share a quick word about one of our sponsors.
[Ad break]
Andrew: We will skip over the Umbridge Suck count because once again, she is not in this chapter, and we don’t want to give her points just for existing.
[Eric and Laura laughs]
Andrew: So the Umbridge Suck count still stands at 114.
MVP of the Week
Andrew: And now it’s time for MVP of the Week.
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Andrew: I’m going to give it to every statue that sprang to life at Dumbledore’s command. Good work, y’all.
Eric: I’m going to give it to Dumbledore for bringing those statues to life and really just having a level of control over everything that we’ve never seen anyone do before or after.
Micah: I’m going to give it to Fawkes for always coming to Dumbledore’s aid.
Laura: I’m going to give it to Lupin for keeping Harry away from the damn veil.
[Andrew laughs]
Rename the Chapter
Andrew: Okay, now let’s rename the Chapter. Order of the Phoenix Chapter 36, “Duel of the Fates.”
Eric: Nice.
Micah: Dun-dun-dun.
Eric: I can hear that music.
Andrew: I’m not even a Star Wars nerd, but I know that song title.
Eric: It’s a good one. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 36, “Fightin’ Fountain.”
Micah: Order of the Phoenix Chapter 36, “He’s baaaaack!”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: Order of the Phoenix Chapter 36, “‘How to Talk Yourself Out of a Job’ by Cornelius Fudge.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Available now at bookstores everywhere. If you have any feedback about today’s discussion, send it on in, MuggleCast@gmail.com, or use the contact form on MuggleCast.com. You can also record a voice memo and send that to MuggleCast@gmail.com, or you can call us. 1-920-3- MUGGLE; that’s 1-920-368-4453.
Quizzitch
Andrew: It’s time for Quizzitch!
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: Last week’s question: Who tells Fudge that You-Know-Who is back? The correct answer is a ponytailed man by the name of Williamson. Correct answers were submitted to us over on Twitter by Hermione’s Unicorn, Peggy, SupSarahhh, Sara Weensie, Matthew McKay, Ferrax, BortVoldemort, Caleb McReynolds, Robbie Stillman, Jason King, and Ferrax, if I didn’t already say that.
Micah: When you said that last week, though, Eric, I thought of Yaxley, but it wasn’t correct, so I lost Quizzitch.
Eric: Oh, right, right. Yeah, there’s a ponytailed man. He might be the sort of crossover mashup that we’ve always wanted between Williamson from the books and Yaxley from the books.
Andrew: Yes, we were always clamoring for that crossover.
Eric: I mean, more ponytailed men. Can we just say that in general?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Lucius Malfoy pulls it off.
Andrew: Eric, that could be your next cosplay.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Eric: Several people do Lucius better than I do; I’ll tell you that. But eh, you never know. Won’t knock it till I try it.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: So next week’s question: What does Phineas Nigellus call Sirius when Dumbledore tells him he’s dead? Submit your correct answer to us over on Twitter using hashtag Quizzitch, and @ reply MuggleCast in your tweet.
Andrew: Over on our Patreon last week, we had a new installment of bonus MuggleCast. Laura, what did we talk about? You gave us kind of a history lesson, didn’t you?
Laura: Yeah, so we talked about the Death Eaters’ hypocrisy in acknowledging Voldemort’s lineage, and we made some comparisons to other historical figures who also had these sorts of hypocrisies.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, it was a really good discussion, and we played a game at the end of it; it was really cool. And we are about to record another new bonus MuggleCast installment, in which we will discuss a new article from Entertainment Weekly, in which they allege that Fantastic Beasts is now the world’s most problematic movie franchise. I actually disagree with this, and that was one of the reasons I wanted to talk about it. And I saw some conversations on Twitter that I also disagreed with about the box office potential for Fantastic Beasts 3, so we’ll talk about all of that in this installment of bonus MuggleCast. It will be available on Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and when you pledge, you get a custom RSS feed that you can pop into most podcasting apps so you can listen to the bonus content in addition to ad-free MuggleCast, so visit Patreon.com/MuggleCast for more information. We really appreciate everybody’s support. You will also get a personalized video “Thank you” message from one of the four MuggleCasters, and lots of other bonus content, so thank you in advance for pledging, and thanks to everybody who supports the show. You are the reason why we are a weekly podcast. Also, we would love if you followed us on social media. We are MuggleCast on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. We post Throwback Thursdays with old clips from the show, we post previews of each new episode, we post fun Harry Potter memes that we find, and some other things as well. So again, MuggleCast on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Thanks, everybody, for listening to today’s episode. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: Bye, everybody.
Laura and Micah: Bye.