Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #578, “Chapter by Chapter Begins! Harry Deserves a Zoo Day (Sorcerer’s Stone, Chapters 1-3)”
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: This week, it begins! We’re returning to Chapter by Chapter, a classic MuggleCast segment that began on Episode 31 back in March 2006.
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: And this time, we’re going in order. We’re introducing new segments; we’ll get into this more in a moment. I actually listened to a little bit of Episode 31 earlier this week. It’s hard to listen back to those old episodes for us. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, it is.
Andrew: But I think we were taking credit for being the original Chapter by Chapter show. Is that fair to say?
Eric: We definitely were the first Harry Potter one, because we were the first Harry Potter podcast.
Andrew: Okay.
Eric: But I think… I wouldn’t be surprised, actually – I was going to preface this as a really bold, insane claim – but I think we really were one of the first podcasts, if not the very first podcast, to dissect any medium, any medium, on a individual basis the way Chapter by Chapter did, because we beat a lot of TV show podcasts out there that would do episodes based on an episode of the show. We beat all of that. We were ahead of all of that.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s a bold claim to say we were the first Chapter by Chapter. I don’t know if we need to make that claim.
Eric: No, no, no, no.
Andrew: I don’t know if it’s true or not. [laughs]
Eric: But I think it is. I think it is.
Andrew: Yeah, it might be.
Eric: But it’s not like it’s… I’m not claiming that we had the idea that was the best idea.
Andrew: No, no, right.
Eric: You know what I’m saying? That is something that very easily could have been thought up, and was, by millions of other people independently of us. But it’s interesting to think of us, because we’ve been doing this so long, as really being the first podcast that did that, though. It’s still interesting, even if we’re not trying to brag or anything.
Micah: We should brag a little bit, though.
Andrew: You can be the one in charge of bragging.
Micah: Okay, fine.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: But in that case, I will just say, I mean, because we have been around for so long, there is a good chance that we did things before other people decided to do them. And I know that there are podcasts now that are specifically all about going through not just Harry Potter, but other book series chapter by chapter, and I think that there’s a place for all of it. But we did it first.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Thank you, Micah. Thank you for saying what was on my heart. So Andrew, you may ask, because we’re going to do this again: We’ve already done this once before, right? And most recently, we finished up Books 5 and 6, which were stragglers. So my question is, what’s different?
Andrew: First of all, four new panelists. This is our final episode, and they’re coming in now.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: No, so we’ll still be here, of course. We’re also bringing back the Seven-Word Summary, at least for the books that we haven’t done this for, which is most of them at this point. But we have lots of new segments as well, and of course, one of the biggest differences now is that we’re all grownups. We started Chapter by Chapter with Book 1 back in 2006, but we were all teenagers.
Micah: Some of us.
Andrew: Or maybe very early 20s.
Micah: Yeah, thanks.
Andrew: Right, Micah may have been early 20s. [laughs] And we’ll still have links to those original Chapter by Chapter segments on the website, by the way, but we will also be keeping a list on the website, MuggleCast.com, of all the new Chapter by Chapter episodes, so you can listen to everything in order if you need a little assistance there. So what is new is we’ll have some new segments, and a couple of them will appear today, but we have some other segments planned that will come up in the future as we need them. For Books 1 through 3, we’re going to default to three chapters per episode, but there might be some episodes where we spend the entire episode on just one or two chapters, depending on what’s going on in the chapter. We also want to incorporate as much listener feedback as possible, so as always, feel free to contact us about the chapter that you’re listening to, or maybe a chapter that’s coming up if you think we should talk about something in particular.
Laura: And we’ll just add one more thing here: While we’ve all changed throughout the years, so has JKR. MuggleCast does not agree with nor support her hateful and harmful views on trans people. We are all here because this story about magic brought us together and encouraged us to excel in our differences, and we intend to keep that message dear to our hearts as we undertake our reread.
Andrew: With all that said, I have an important question for everybody: What version or copy of Book 1 are you using for Chapter by Chapter?
Laura: I’m going to alternate; I’ll be perfectly honest. For this round, I used my ebook.
Micah: Ooh.
Andrew: Okay.
Laura: But I have physical copies too.
Andrew: Ooh!
Laura: It’s just going to depend on my mood. Do I want to be in a cozy reading corner, or do I want to have the doc up so I can read and go back and forth and add notes while I’m reading?
Micah: That’s smart. That’s what I was going to say; doesn’t it allow you to highlight and take notes?
Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: It’s so much easier to just hold an ebook sometimes.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Depending where you are.
Micah: Well, Andrew, you actually inspired me. I think it was you who posted a photo of the MinaLima.
Andrew: Yes, I’m using the MinaLima edition, too, for now. This edition, I hadn’t really read it before. It came out, what, two, three years ago at this point? Oh my God.
Micah: You’ve got to be careful. [laughs]
Andrew: You’ve got to be careful; there’s a lot of elements in it. There’s a pull-out Hogwarts acceptance letter; you can open it up and read it. Here’s the Fat Lady portrait, and you can open this up. This book is beautiful, and unlike the Jim Kay illustrated edition, it’s a little easier to hold because it’s smaller, and yet it’s packed with illustrations. So I think I’m going to be sticking with this one. I’d say it’s about the same size as the classic Sorcerer’s Stone.
Eric: But when they get to Order, they’re going to have to split it in two.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Ohhh-kay.
Micah: It’s pretty close to the size of Sorcerer’s Stone, the normal US edition. So I agree, I like it. I actually found myself getting through the chapters a lot more quickly. I don’t know if they put more copy on the pages than what they do in the regular US edition, but the drawings are, like you said, Andrew, just really beautiful, and the artwork inserts are very, very cool.
Andrew: And this has inspired me to pick up the Chamber of Secrets illustrated edition. I previously said I’m not going to be buying these, but I think I’ve evolved on this matter. You can get Chamber of Secrets used at this point, because that’s been out for about a year, so I’m going to keep my eye out for that.
Micah: Hurry up, because you’re going to need it by October.
Andrew: I’ll start looking now. But really impressed by these. Eric, what edition are you using?
Eric: The Scots edition.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Are you really?
Eric: All of my notes are going to be in Scots.
Andrew: Oh no. Okay.
Eric: [laughs] No, just kidding.
Andrew: Oh.
Eric: I feel like I have these books memorized at this point, but one thing I did point out to our patrons is that there actually exists recordings, audio recordings Micah and Andrew and me did of the first three books. One of our earliest Patreon perks was chapter readings of those books for patrons, and they’re all still available on Patreon, so shout-out to Kyle who said he actually… in terms of reading along with us and reading along with the show, actually used those versions to prep for this episode. That must be a special kind of inception, is have us read the books to you, and then on MuggleCast, have us dissect the chapters in depth.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s amazing. And you actually just made a Patreon post with all the links for Book 1, so people can easily access those, so thanks for doing that. And if you are a patron, check those out.
Eric: But mostly, just doing a ebook. I have a PDF that I’ve been going through.
Micah: Well, Southern Hagrid thanks you too.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Southern Hagrid appears in the chapter readings.
Eric: Yeah, in case anyone’s curious, don’t miss it. Anytime Micah reads a chapter that has Hagrid in it.
Andrew: I am going to be using the ebook from time to time as well, because sometimes, like I said, it’s just easier to hold depending on where you’re sitting.
Eric: Copy/paste.
Andrew: I mean, I’m using an actual Kindle. That’s what I meant.
Eric: Oh, okay.
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary (“The Boy Who Lived”)
Andrew: So let’s get started with Chapter by Chapter, Chapter 1 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, “The Boy Who Lived.” Ah, feels so good to dive back in. And to kick things off, like we said, we’re bringing back the Seven-Word Summary. Now, how this works is we’re going to have a little music playing for 40 seconds, and we’re each going to take turns contributing a word to the Seven-Word Summary. We don’t know what words we’re all going to pick. This can go off the rails really quick. This could be really good. This could be a disaster. We’re going to find out. And panel, I need to remind you of the rules. This is a 40-second song. If that timer runs out and we haven’t completed it, that’s it! It’s a five-word summary. It’s a four-word summary. So don’t dilly dally.
Laura: [laughs] I’ll point out, Andrew, the direction of our sentence depends entirely upon the first person.
Micah: Yes.
Laura: I see that you are up first this round, so please, I beg you, set us up for success.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: Yeah, this is not just for this book, too, Andrew. You’re setting us up for success for the entire series now.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Oh no, the pressure’s on. I was thinking of trolling y’all, but now y’all are threatening me.
Micah: Just like last week where you had to go first, the pressure’s on again.
Andrew: I know what I’m starting with. Okay, here we go.
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Andrew: Vernon…
Eric: … thinks…
Laura: … that…
Micah: … people…
Andrew: … are…
Eric: … behaving…
Laura: … oddly.
Andrew: Ooh, that’s a good one! Okay.
Laura: Good job, everyone!
Andrew: And we got it done in about 20 seconds.
Laura: Wow! Look at us dusting off Seven-Word Summary. We did a good job.
Eric: We were so eager to get back into it. I love these.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: I love how we started off with a indefensible character for the Seven-Word Summary.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Eric: Well, and he’s also the POV character this chapter.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion (“The Boy Who Lived”)
Eric: As we get into our first major point – and we are breaking these down, these chapters down into main points with a couple of odds and ends later – I’m finding myself feeling very old. [laughs] We started this when I was 17; now I’m 34, and reading these first couple chapters, I can’t help but think like an adult would, and all of these people that are out in the world at the beginning of the Harry Potter books, that are breaking the Statute of Secrecy with their reckless behavior… as an adult, I’m like, “What are they thinking? This is against the law! This is nuts!” So my first major point is everything surrounding this Statute of Secrecy, the fact that Voldemort has gone, possibly for good, and even the Muggles are noticing the wizarding world. The wizarding community has really one major rule, one prime directive, if you will, and it’s “Don’t be figured out. Don’t be found out.” And I think that based on all of the evidence throughout this chapter – shooting stars, the owls during daytime – couldn’t they wait ten hours to send a message? Because something like that to communicate the news… I know everyone’s excited, but it really does bend, if not break, the law entirely, what everyone’s doing.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Something that this made me think of – and again, I think it’s a reflection of us being older now, having more life experience – I remember being a kid and reading this, and even having the same thought, like, “Wow, these people are kind of… they’re being a little reckless.” But then I think of the world over the last two years and how people reacted to a global pandemic, and how at the first chance that people had to go back out into the world, a lot of people were throwing caution to the wind, disregarding precautions, thinking that everything was okay and that the pandemic was over, and I think we still see themes of that today, even though things are a little bit better than they were this time a year ago. I walked away from rereading this chapter thinking, actually, it’s not that weird that people are reacting this way, because wizards, at the end of the day, are still people, and people react, I think, in very reckless ways, especially when they feel like they’ve been cooped up and fearing for their lives for so long, that at the first chance, the first opportunity to go out and be with people and celebrate, they’re going to take it without thinking about the potential consequences.
Micah: Yeah. This also reminded me, Laura, of something that happened during the course of the pandemic. Won’t go into specifics, but it was November of 2020, and people behaved much the same after a certain election result came out, and it was party in the streets.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Yep.
Micah: People were behaving much the same way when they learned that Voldemort had fallen. So if we’re citing examples, if you watch the news around that time, people were playing music, they were dancing… it was a party.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: Where’d the masks go? But I guess my main question here is, what do the wizarding governments think about this? Because there is the International Statute of Secrecy. Are they willing to let things slide in light of what has occurred? Are they saying, “Well, there’s so many people out on the streets, partying and playing a little fast and loose with the rules, that there’s no reprimanding all these people”?
Eric: Punishment? Yeah, I mean, I really would like to have met in later books somebody who was in jail for being too… really breaking the Statute. McGonagall zeroes in on Dedalus Diggle; she knows exactly who’s been breaking the Statute down in Kent. It’s like, wow. That’s so… it isn’t outside of the realm of possibility that these people can be identified, but if you really think about what’s at stake… and Vernon, who’s just a guy that’s going to work – he’s doing his thing, he’s going to the pastry shop for lunch – there really aren’t that many wizards, but there are so many that he cannot help but see, and I think that’s what really clinches it for me, is Vernon is not the most perceptive person, and that’s the whole point. But it even makes the Muggle news that something really weird has happened. And it’s November 1; it’s nowhere near… well, they’re not at Guy Fawkes Day; there’s really no reason for people to be dressed up. The only thing I can think of is if the UK celebrated Halloween, it’s the day after Halloween, right? So there’d be some holdover. Maybe people just decided to make Halloween a two-day affair that year or something.
Andrew: That is a good point, yeah.
Eric: I can’t explain it out.
Micah: My question would be, though, how would the wizarding government communicate to people to stop behaving that way?
Eric: They’d send an owl. [laughs]
Micah: Because it’s literally a message that you would have to reach every person to try and get them to stop behaving in this way, and I don’t think they have radio or television, so what’s their means?
Andrew: Right, it would have to be through the newspaper…
Laura: Howlers.
Andrew: … but that’s a slow method of dispersing information. What did you say, Laura?
Laura: Howlers. The Ministry is sending out Howlers to everybody. [laughs]
Andrew: To everybody! The wizard who uses the phrase “You-Know-Who”; seems especially risky. Even McGonagall notes how careless all the wizards are being, so not everybody in the wizarding community agrees with all the open celebrating that’s going on.
Eric: Yeah, I just thought of it like… [laughs] Picture a very raucous party happening next door to you, and it’s so loud, you really want to call the cops for disturbing the peace. But wait a minute, nobody lives next door to you; that house wasn’t even there yesterday. What’s this house doing here? All of a sudden, there’s these people and they’re dressed funny and they’re setting off fireworks next door to you. It’s like if you really think about the depths with which wizards have hidden themselves from the Muggles, to then think of just all of that coming crashing down is especially absurd. But Laura, I think your point is very, very, very apt regarding the pandemic, because like you said, people were cooped up and people were fearing, and to have that be released, there’s an emotional release that occurs when something as significant as that happens.
Laura: Yeah. It is interesting, though, how nonchalantly the newscasters talk about this. The weatherman talks about shooting stars over Kent and says, “Hey, folks, don’t forget Bonfire Day isn’t until next week” or something like that. And I thought it was interesting that they were just so cavalier about something so odd.
Eric: That’s a celestial phenomenon.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: That cannot be affected. So far as Muggles know, that can’t be affected by humans, so I would think that somebody at a space observatory is freaking the hell out right there, going, “Okay, it is the end times now.”
Laura: [laughs] Right.
Eric: Because stars are shooting. Is there a meteor shower? What is going on?
Micah: And is the Ted that’s mentioned…? Are we meant to believe that that is Ted Tonks? Was that ever confirmed?
Eric: I don’t think so. I think it was denied, but I like to believe it still is.
Micah: But I’m curious, though, in talking about how this was covered on the news, do we think that all people reacted in the same way that Vernon does? Because we know Vernon; he clearly likes things to be normal and not deviate from his boring daily routine. Because we see something as simple as a cat kind of ruffled his feathers…
Andrew: Right.
Micah: … because it wasn’t part of his normal routine of getting in the car and driving to work. He’s thrown off by a lot of things that just aren’t normal to him.
Andrew: Yeah, he has reason to be on edge because of Harry. Maybe other Muggles are looking at it like, “Oh, it is an extended Halloween party,” like Eric said. Maybe they’re just saying, “Did I miss the memo? Did I miss the news report about some special holiday that’s occurring where people will just wear these cloaks and robes?”
Laura: And it is a good point, too, because I can see the Dursleys being people who do not celebrate or acknowledge Halloween.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Laura: So to them, it was a normal day, and then the next day they’re seeing a bunch of people potentially going home from their Halloween celebrations, and they wouldn’t know the difference; they would just think these are just weird people taking on new fashion trends.
Andrew: The Dursleys are totally the neighbors who never put up holiday decorations because they’re plain and miserable.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: Unless everyone else did. Then they could be pressured to do the same thing.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: I can just imagine Privet Drive having one of those Christmas decoration competitions where each house tries to outdo the other, but I think they’re mostly just obsessed with the conformity of it all that they probably wouldn’t even do that. I’ve got to say, one of the things we didn’t have the first time we did these Chapter by Chapters but we have now is a live Discord session going with our patrons, and it was pointed out to us just now by Court that Ted Tonks is actually a Hufflepuff; he’s a wizard. And that doesn’t necessarily rule out that he’s Ted the weatherman – wizards can get Muggle jobs, after all – but he is, I think, commonly mistaken, maybe due to this major theory that he’s the guy from the first chapter of Harry Potter, that he is actually a wizard.
Laura: He’s Muggle-born, right?
Eric: He’s Muggle-born, yeah. So maybe he comes from a long line of weathermen.
Laura: Yeah. I’m kind of living for this headcanon that wizards take on somewhat high-profile, influential Muggle jobs in order to keep the peace and steer the narrative away from Muggles learning about wizards.
Eric: So kind of like Kingsley was put in such a strategic position to be the Prime Minister’s assistant or attaché.
Laura: Right.
Micah: And let’s be real, they’re celebrating. So Ted could be… “Hey, I’ve always wanted to be on TV, so I’m going to go crash the broadcast studio for the day. That’s how I’m going to celebrate.”
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: But one of the things, though, too, that I think is really important about this chapter is that we start to see how strong the Dursleys’ prejudice is, even in what you were talking about earlier, Eric, just the interactions with other people. He doesn’t know that they’re wizards, but he starts to get a sense that they’re not his kind, and that just really starts to let the reader know that this family is not going to be one, I think, that we’re going to enjoy too much throughout the course of the series.
Eric: Yeah, it starts low, and then in the subsequent chapters, just gets totally worse once you see how they treat Harry. But to that point, my second major point I wanted to point out here is through the events of the chapter, we see how Harry comes to live on Privet Drive, how he’s dropped off by Hagrid using a particularly interesting flying motorcycle. Dumbledore’s rationale is that Harry is best served by being raised without knowing who he is, or what he is, by his family because they’re [imitating Dumbledore] “the only family he has.” But… sorry, Andrew. I’m sure you could do that better.
Andrew: No, that was good. No, no, that was good.
Eric: Okay, thank you. And I’ve just got to ask, because we know about Petunia’s protection that is through Harry’s mother’s side, through blood, Dumbledore has worked enchantments on Privet Drive, setting it all up. But I’ve got to say, it has to come at a cost. Is it really worth all of the abuse that Harry faces to have him be raised by the Dursleys? Again, we’re old now, so we talk about things like parenting. I feel like Harry would have been better served literally anywhere else than he was on Privet Drive. It is a miracle that this child is raised to be the hero, or turns out to be the hero that he is, because he had everything working against him in terms of all of the abuse that we read about in the subsequent chapter. So is Dumbledore just pushing Harry off? Shouldn’t Dumbledore have raised Harry himself?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I mean, if he really cares, right?
Andrew: Yeah, I was going to ask you what your alternative is. You said literally anything. Dumbledore is probably a little too busy, but yeah, maybe ask Figg if she wants to raise him. Maybe ask somebody from the Order if they want to raise him. There are other options. But bloodline, the Dursleys are the only option.
Micah: I think, too, if we’re going to even suggest the idea of putting Harry in an orphanage, Dumbledore has gone down that road already…
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: … and he didn’t have a great experience with that, so he’s trying the family route this time.
Eric: Well, yeah, sure, some family is probably better than none, and that’s a good point, Micah, about how Voldemort turned out. But I will… that was another loveless situation. I’m saying there were probably plenty of families who would jump at the opportunity to take Harry in after the Potters died. The Potters had friends; they were well liked. I’m not even just talking about the other Marauders, who for understandable reasons were out of the picture at the time that this all went down, but even the Weasleys, who may have been part of the first Order of the Phoenix. Or hell, Emmeline Vance. Some of them might have really been able and willing to raise Harry, they would have done a good job, and they wouldn’t be swatting him with frying pans or telling him that he’s so much less important than his cousin. It just… when you really think about all of the abuse – which reading through these chapters reinvigorates – wow, Harry is so abused, that I just can’t get on Dumbledore’s side about all of this.
Laura: Yeah, I know. And on the one hand, I can see where Dumbledore is coming from in thinking, “If we placed him with some other wizarding family, he doesn’t have the blood protection, so we would probably have to set up some kind of Fidelius Charm situation, but that didn’t work very well the first time. And Harry is going to be such a notable sought-after figure that having him in the wizarding world at this point in time could be dangerous for him.” However, we see a couple of examples in these first three chapters of Harry referring to having strange people in cloaks stop him on the street to shake his hand or wave to him, so it’s not as though sending him to live with the Dursleys completely removes him from all wizarding contact. I think it just comes down to the blood magic, unfortunately.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: It’s like Dumbledore doesn’t know anything stronger. And if we want to put it in the context of Secrets of Dumbledore, for instance, he knows a lot about blood pact and blood magic due to his experience. So I will say, on the point of the Marauders possibly raising Harry, Mela over on Discord said, as a reminder, Sirius did ask Hagrid to give Harry to him, and that, to me, is really interesting, because as the number one Sirius Black lover and apologist here on this panel, I think that Sirius, had he been given Harry to raise, he actually would not have sought the vengeance against Peter that ends up putting him in Azkaban. I feel like the opportunity to raise your best friend since childhood’s son, in the event of your best friend’s death, would have steered Sirius to a safer existence. And there were plenty of protections that could have been put on the two of them, Sirius and Harry, so maybe that was a possibility. Do you guys agree Sirius would have taken to raising Harry and put care into it?
Laura: I think he would have, but I think we would have seen a very different Harry if he had been raised by Sirius. In some respects, I think that would be a good thing, but in other ways, Harry might have taken on some of the less desirable personality traits that we’ve talked about with Sirius. But I mean, overall, for his wellbeing and mental health, yeah, it would have been a way better situation for him.
Eric: And to that point, we’re meant to believe that Harry is such a nice guy because he’s humble, because he literally comes from nothing. He didn’t know he was a wizard, so he’s not expecting to be a wizard or the best at anything. He’s humbled by how famous he is. But I don’t think Harry ever really was at risk of becoming bigheaded the way that Dumbledore seems to make the case in this chapter. Do you guys have a thought on that?
Micah: Yeah, this was actually a point I wanted to bring up too, and knowing now what we know about Dumbledore, the fact that he is so consumed by Harry’s potential celebrity if he were to grow up in the wizarding world, I think, says more about Dumbledore than it does about Harry.
Eric: Oooh.
Laura: Yeah, he’s projecting.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: That’s such a good point!
Micah: Yeah, he says something about “famous before he can even walk,” or something along those lines, and it’s just like, well, who are you to decide that?
Eric: Yeah, well, he’s Dumbledore. He’s friggin’ Dumbledore.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: But the idea that it comes from his own inability to manage the temptation of fame, that it comes from Dumbledore’s own failings, is such a good point. I love that.
Laura: So on a related note, as I was reading this I found myself reading the portion where Harry is left on the Dursleys’ doorstep in the middle of the night with a letter, and I’m thinking, like, “Why, though?”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: How is that supposed to be safe for a baby? I guess Harry is in the toddler stage at this point; he’s just over a year old, right? But he’s left on a stoop in the middle of the night with nobody watching him, unless Arabella is across the street just with the binoculars out, keeping an eye on things. [laughs]
Andrew: Maybe.
Laura: But I don’t know if I’m going to be able to believe that there’s zero threat to leaving a baby that is the center of the wizarding world’s attention right now. There are obviously Voldemort sympathizers who, they’ve gone into hiding, but I think if they knew that this baby was just sitting exposed somewhere, it would be attractive to them, perhaps, to pursue that. Additionally, it’s November. Isn’t it cold? We’re just leaving babies out on doorsteps?
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: He has a little blanket. The blanket is a huge plot point in Cursed Child, isn’t it?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: No, I had the same thought. I don’t care if the Death Eaters are shaken and retreating due to the fall of Voldemort; it would just take one of them being like, “I have to avenge the death of Voldemort. I must go out and find Harry.”
Laura: Right.
Andrew: Going to Harry’s only existing family seems like a pretty good place to start, so they’d probably find him quick as well. I mean, what time is it? How many hours does he end up actually sitting out there on the doorstep? It’s probably several hours. I’m guessing six?
Micah: Right.
Laura: Yeah, because it says it’s midnight, right? When Dumbledore gets there.
Andrew: Okay, okay.
Laura: Around midnight.
Andrew: Yeah, so it’ll be a good six hours.
Micah: Yeah, it just depends what time Petunia puts out those empty milk bottles.
Andrew: The milk, yeah.
Micah: But yeah, I mean, here’s my question: If McGonagall could sit on the brick wall all day long, what’s six more hours?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: What’s six more hours?
Micah: Just watch the kid.
Andrew: She was really sore by that point; didn’t she say that?
Micah: I know. She made a point of telling Dumbledore.
Andrew: Sit on the grass, then. Sit somewhere more comfortable.
Eric: Yeah, give yourself a… sit on Harry’s lap.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, curl up.
Eric: That’ll prevent him from moving. Babies crawl from six to nine months. They can really move.
Andrew: Keep Harry warm. Snuggle up with Harry. Purr. That’ll probably keep him sleeping softly.
Laura: Harry can also probably walk by this point.
Eric: Yeah, he’s 15 months, by the way.
Andrew: Maybe Dumbledore thought they had a Ring Camera…
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Andrew: … so if somebody tried to kidnap Harry, they would know who it was, and then they can easily find them.
Eric: But to your point, the blood magic that works doesn’t really work until Petunia agrees to take him in and shelter him.
Laura: Right.
Eric: So Harry is just a sitting duck at that point.
Andrew: Security nightmare. Well, we have a foreshadow alert.
[Foreshadowing sound effect plays]
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Micah: That’s amazing.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: We stan a new segment sound.
Andrew: Designed by Eric.
Eric: The foreshadow alert is, as we mentioned before, because the name that we may be familiar with now, having read all the Harry Potter books, of Sirius Black gets name dropped in Chapter 1 of Book 1. And when I first saw that this was the case… because I read the books in order. When I first read back and saw that Sirius Black was mentioned – Hagrid says, “Oh, yeah, he lent me his motorbike” – my mind was blown. I don’t think it gets better than this in terms of foreshadowing. For the first example in these books being that the character who’s going to be a major villain in Book 3 for most of the book, and is going to be against Harry, was the one that… it was such a close call for Hagrid to have given Harry to him. And so my mind remains blown by that fact, and it’s definitely this book’s first foreshadowing.
Micah: I thought about you, Eric, actually, when I was reading the end of the next chapter, because I know we’ve talked a lot about parallels between Sorcerer’s Stone and Prisoner of Azkaban in terms of the ring theory, and there’s this mention of Harry dreaming and wanting this unknown relation to come and pick him up from Privet Drive, and I think that’s kind of what Sirius attempts to do in Prisoner of Azkaban, but fails, and he is really Harry’s only other unofficial relation that’s out there. So I thought that was interesting that she would include it, and I know it’s at the end of the next chapter, but since you were talking about Sirius, I thought I would bring that up.
Eric: Yeah, that we know that there is a distant relation out there who could take him off. It’s just… having all the puzzle pieces, but only writing about some of the puzzle pieces is so thrilling. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, it’s always exciting.
Eric: And it’s what makes Hagrid’s tale in Book 3, or when Rosmerta and Fudge and all them are in the Three Broomsticks talking about this, it’s what makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, because it is the other piece of the puzzle that circles directly back to Sirius’s first mention in Chapter 1 of Book 1.
Odds & Ends (“The Boy Who Lived”)
Andrew: A couple of odds and ends I wanted to mention before we move to the next chapter. Dumbledore says, on how Harry survived, “We can only guess. We may never know.” Which I thought was an interesting line…
Micah: Liar.
Andrew: Well, well, it’s an interesting line.
Micah: Can we get a Dumbledore lie detector sound?
Andrew: Okay.
Laura: Ohh.
Micah: For every time he lies?
Andrew: Get on it.
Laura: Let’s start Dumbledore Lie Count.
Andrew: Oooh.
Laura: We had the Umbridge Suck Count when we did Order of the Phoenix. Now that we’re doing the whole series, we can do a Dumbledore Lie Count. [laughs]
Eric: I love this.
Andrew: I do love that, because I was also thinking we need a series wide count, like the Umbridge one, and that seems like the perfect one to go with since he’s all over these books.
Eric: We’re just making this up on the fly, y’all. [laughs]
Andrew: Man, it’s going to hurt to call out my boy like this, but he says… I guess McGonagall is the one who says, “How did he survive?” And like I said, Dumbledore said, “We can only guess. We may never know.” I just wanted to bring this up because in Deathly Hallows, in the “King’s Cross” chapter, Harry says to Dumbledore when Dumbledore is trying to explain everything, “And you knew this? You knew – all along?” And Dumbledore said, “‘I guessed. But my guesses have usually been good,’ said Dumbledore happily.” And I just thought… it just reminded me of that moment from the “King’s Cross” chapter, and it’s a nice bookend to Dumbledore’s initial alleged guessing in Book 1. I don’t think he’s totally lying here, but sure, we can say he’s lying.
Eric: Well, it’s like whether or not you believe he knew that Horcruxes were the thing that Voldemort is using prior to being when he says he did, which is when the diary, destroyed, comes into his possession. If you don’t believe that Dumbledore didn’t know about Horcruxes prior to that moment, it was a lie. But if you do believe it, then we’re stuck in this valley where Dumbledore is kind of certain, but not. So he’s not lying to McGonagall in Chapter 1 when he says, “We may never know,” but he kind of has most of an idea. So is that a lie? Or is it his… he also can’t betray every secret that he knows, because it’s too damn important. The stakes are too high.
Laura and Micah: Right.
Micah: I think it’s just too early.
Laura: I was wondering, too, if he thinks that he’s offering Harry protection by not speculating, even to people that he trusts, right? Because if you put any kind of speculation out there, and it’s known that it comes from Dumbledore, I think that carries a lot of weight, and maybe he’s thinking that he’s doing Harry a favor by not putting that out into the ether.
Andrew: Thank you so much to Sam for pointing out that Harry says, “You liar!” in the Sorcerer’s Stone movie.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: That has to be the sound effect that we use. I’m trying to pull up the movie on Peacock right now.
Laura: Can we use that? Will we get sued?
Andrew: Eh, who cares?
[Laura laughs]
Eric: I was thinking of, Andrew, you doing your best Dumbledore impression and saying, “Trust me” or something like that every time that goes up, with a ding in the background.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Well, it could be “Trust me” and “You liar” paired together.
Eric: Yeah, “You liar!”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: That is so perfect.
Andrew: Other thing I wanted to mention was the number 12 comes up here. Across the Harry Potter series, the number 12 gets used a lot, and maybe we can mention these from time to time. The reason I was thinking about it is because MuggleNet.com has a whole page dedicated to all the times that the number 12 is used across the series. Dumbledore had removed and replaced 12 lights on Privet Drive, and he also has 12 planets on his watch. They’re both noted in this chapter. So keep an eye out for the number 12 across the series, because Rowling really liked using that number. It’s fun to catch those.
Eric: I want to thank Wizarding World Press and their Ultimate Unofficial Guide for really opening our eyes to all the usages and repetitive things, like the number 12, that were going on in these first four Harry Potter books.
Micah: And then just one quick note for me: I thought it was interesting that we get introduced to both Apparition with Dumbledore and then an Animagus with McGonagall in the first chapter, but we aren’t explicitly told what they are.
Laura: I love how subtle it is too. We don’t see McGonagall transform; Dumbledore just turns to her, and she is herself. When Dumbledore appears on Privet Drive, he just sort of appears into existence; there’s not even a sound associated with it. I like it. It keeps the mystery alive for the reader. But it would be interesting to compare this to maybe examples of people transforming in and out of their Animagus forms, people Apparating, to what we see in later books, because I’m pretty sure in later books, Apparition happens with a pop.
Eric: Yes. And it’s very uncomfortable for the person doing it, but we’ll get into that in the next chapter.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: My last bit and bob is Dumbledore’s joke about having a scar on his knee.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: He says, “Scars can come in useful. I, for one, have one above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground.” If you guys have… I think a lot of us have ridden the Underground, but if you look at a map, I think the joke here is that it’s insane.
Andrew: It is.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: This is like New York City’s subway system. So Dumbledore has a very nasty scar, and his joke about it coming in handy – that he can always find where he’s going if he takes the tube because of his scar – is hilarious. It’s one of Dumbledore’s best lines, I think.
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary (“The Vanishing Glass”)
Andrew: Chapter 2, “The Vanishing Glass.” Seven-Word Summary. Okay?
Laura: All right.
Andrew: Laura is starting. Here we go.
Laura: Here we go.
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Laura: Dudley…
Micah: … can’t…
Andrew: … understand…
Eric: … why…
Laura: … he…
Micah: .. sucks…
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: … badly.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Andrew: That could have gotten…
Laura: You know what? You can’t win them all, y’all.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: I guess I would have said, “Dudley can’t understand why Harry must come.”
Andrew: Oh.
Eric: “Along.” But that’s the point, is no one of us is in charge of all seven words, so we do what we can.
Laura: I mean, it’s true. Dudley does suck, and we really see that in this chapter.
Andrew: And sucks badly, so this is a great summary, actually.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: And he doesn’t understand why either.
[Andrew laughs]
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion (“The Vanishing Glass”)
Eric: Well, my favorite part of this short chapter… these are all pretty short, 10 to 18 pages tops for all of the chapters in the first couple books. But my favorite part is when the book talks about all of the things that Harry did sort of inadvertently. Because the problem is he’s with this family that mistreat him, that want to stamp out the magic, they don’t acknowledge that it’s a thing, and they punish Harry every time he uses magic, such as with the vanishing glass. But the book says something like, “But the problem was inevitably strange things do happen around Harry.” And so talking about a kid who is a wizard, that doesn’t know he’s a wizard and can’t control his magic, these instances that are given in the book, I think, are pitch perfect, of Harry using magic and not knowing about it, and some of these things are presumably pretty advanced magic. We might not even know how Harry did it as a kid. And so that’s kind of my question, is how do we think he did these things? Which are as following: regrowing his hair overnight, shrinking the sweater that he didn’t want to wear to the point where it could not effectively been even shoved over his head by Petunia, and possibly the best one is the finding of himself on the roof of the school kitchens when he’s being chased, and the way he explains it to himself is a gust of wind must have caught him just right. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah. I mean, it’s Apparition, right? And I think when you’re younger, and especially when you don’t know you’re a wizard, you don’t know how to control what is happening inside of you. You don’t have any guidance. You don’t even know what you are, so these things can just get out of control.
Micah: Right. I would like to think, though, that something is happening on a subconscious level with Harry, and it’s almost like a protection mechanism, because we’ll talk about this, I’m sure, but he is so severely abused by the Dursleys, and by Dudley and his friends, there’s something within him that is starting to resist all of what he’s been put through, and I think that is why we see him regrowing his hair. As somebody who just got their hair cut, I can sympathize with him. [laughs] The sweater that he really doesn’t want to wear. And then when he’s running away, it’s for his own protection and safety; it’s almost like he has this subconscious part of himself that is just being activated.
Eric: Like a protector, like a big brother within himself that protects him. Because remember the discussion when the first Fantastic Beasts movie came out about Obscuruses and Obscurials, and the question was raised: Why is Harry not an Obscurial? For how abused he is. And the author did answer this, and I don’t love the answer, but it’s said specifically it’s because the Dursleys didn’t name that it was magic they were hiding from Harry, that they were treating him so badly, but because they wouldn’t name it and make him shamed of being a wizard, he couldn’t effectively develop an Obscurus.
Andrew: But I think the difference also was that Harry’s magic was happening, whereas you look at Credence, and it just wasn’t allowed to get out, period.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: So that’s a key difference.
Laura: I always got the impression – and we hear about other examples of this in the books – that young wizards can’t control their magic, which is why they’re given a pass by the Ministry, even though the Ministry is aware when they’re performing magic in places where they’re not supposed to be. There’s a lack of control around it, which makes me think that it’s linked to emotional states. And in thinking about that, I remembered Neville and how we hear later on in the books that his first magical outburst happened out of self-preservation because his uncle was literally putting him in danger to bring his magic out, and I thought that was such an interesting parallel to Harry, who is being neglected and put in a different kind of danger because his caregivers are trying to keep his magic in.
Eric: Poor Neville.
Laura: I know.
Eric: I’m pretty sure his Uncle Algie dangles him out a window by his ankle, and then he drops him. He actually drops him, and Neville is like, “But I bounced!”
Laura: “I bounced to the ground.” [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, this self-preservation aspect, which, there’s a through-line there – including when Harry Apparates or whatever, ends up on the roof – and that is that the hardest magic that you have to do is all about intentionality. Apparition is all about “Destination, determination, deliberation,” all these things that 16-year-olds have trouble with that Harry did when he was like, 8. And it’s because, I think, of that self-preservation, nothing can convince you more that you need to do something, even if you don’t know you can do it. The magic is there; Harry can tap into it in those moments of extreme need. The other thing I wanted to touch on regarding Chapter 2 is the logistics nightmare that Harry causes at the zoo. We could talk about the escaped boa constrictor, but also I’m just thinking about the fact that in the book, the glass is gone forever.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: It does not show up back, which I do love the movie-ism of Dudley being stuck because the glass is back. But I think in the book, it remains off. And in that case, how do you explain this as an adult? As a Muggle? How do you explain…? Are there security cameras that would be able to indicate what the hell happened to this entire…? It’s thick glass that they use in these exhibits; it doesn’t just disappear, or if it did, there would be shards and little pieces of it everywhere. What happened? How do they possibly explain this away?
Micah: Well, see our episode on physics in the Harry Potter world.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: It had to go somewhere.
Laura: Poop Mountain. It went to Poop Mountain.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: I think this is just a massive security nightmare for the owners of the zoo, because they’ll never find out what actually occurred, and it’s a massive problem for them if they can’t contain their animals. Some of these animals could kill attendees at the zoo or other animals. This is so dangerous, and they’ll never get a true answer. So I think the only solution is for wizards to come in and wipe the memories of everybody at the zoo who works at the zoo and who was there when the snake got out. They would never find out what happened, and I would be so paranoid. I would have to close my zoo.
Eric: Right. Yeah, the zoo could never be in business again if a huge boa… I mean, it’s nice that the boa constrictor is a pretty chill dude, but if he wasn’t, if he was just like any other snake…
Andrew: “Hey, man. Peace and love, peace and love.”
Eric: Yeah, “Peace and love, peace and love. Thanks, amigo.”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: “I’m not going to kill anybody. I just want to hang around Britney Spears’s neck, yo.”
Laura: That’s where he went.
Micah: I do think, though, that there is something to be said for the fact that Harry is essentially connecting with a caged animal, and that’s the only real interaction we see thus far in the book. And of course, we’re only two chapters in, but I think what he’s seeing in the snake is what he feels deep down himself, that he is a trapped individual within the Dursley home.
Eric: Wow.
Laura: I love the way this is written. There are so many layers to it, because you’re totally right, Micah; that’s the approach Harry is taking towards the snake. Even the way that the exchange is written, it’s very clear that Harry thinks that he’s personifying and kind of aligning with the snake in that way, where it says, “It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly…” So I think we’re led to believe in this moment, before we know about Parseltongue, that Harry is just connecting with this animal that he sees some commonalities with, and then later we learn, “Oh, actually that, but he also can speak to snakes.”
Eric: Speak to snakes. And yeah, it’s one of the most brilliant bits of writing, honestly, the way that it’s hidden in plain sight what Harry is doing. And we think, “Oh, if he met a badger that was trapped, he could be like, ‘That’s me as well. Yes, this is sad.'”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: But the fact that it’s a snake, and the whole Voldemort connection and Parselmouth and all that stuff that comes in his… I’m glad it also wasn’t held back for a very long time, that it’s the very next book that retroactively reveals this puzzle piece, but it’s amazing. It’s such good writing. It really is.
Micah: It is, because this is also… it’s a really sad chapter. When you read it from Harry’s perspective, and just the pure joy that he has in being able to get out of the house and do something that a normal kid would do, and the fact that he’s happy with the ice cream lady recognizing him as sort of a normal human being, and he gets a lemon pop or something like that, and then he also gets to eat the leftover of Dudley’s lunch, but it’s just the smallest of things are making him happy because he’s been treated so horribly for the better part of his life up until this point.
Laura: Right.
Micah: I don’t know. I have a completely different perspective of this chapter than I did probably when I read it for the first time.
Eric: I was trying to reconnect with how I felt when I read it the first time, and you’re still on Harry’s side, there’s no question, but it’s kind of quirky. It feels a lot more like, “Oh, man, he’s had a rough go of things. Yeah, down with the Dursleys. He showed Dudley.” But when you put into context just how abused he is, it’s nothing but sad now and depressing reading this chapter.
Odds & Ends (“The Vanishing Glass”)
Andrew: A couple odds and ends before we move on to the next chapter.
Laura: Yeah, so we got an Aunt Marge mention in this chapter; Dudley has a present from her. Very interesting that we get a couple of name drops from people who play fairly significant roles in Prisoner of Azkaban.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: We’re connecting the threads between Books 1 and 3 now.
Laura: Yep.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: So I had an interesting… maybe it’s a crackpot theory about Figg. So Harry goes to the zoo with the Dursleys because Figg can’t take care of Harry for that day because she broke her leg. Do we think that she actually broke her leg, or was she/maybe Dumbledore thinking it’d be good to try and get Harry out of the house? So, “Oh, sorry, I can’t take him today. You’re going to have to find somebody else, or just take him along with you, be sort of nice for once.” Because he could have gone over Figg’s house and actually could have taken care of Figg. It could have been really nice to have Harry there. I’m suspicious. I think there might be something else at play here.
Laura: We do see her on crutches in the next chapter.
Andrew: We do. It’s an elaborate ruse, Laura.
Laura: Oh, I see. I see.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Here’s the problem with that theory that I have, is that if Dumbledore is telling Figg, “Oh, hey, maybe sit this one out, make up an excuse, because Harry deserves a zoo day,” that means he’s micromanaging to a level that we just haven’t seen before, and if he’s doing it now, why not sooner, right? There were plenty of days, I’m sure. Even his birthday every year. Harry was always constantly abused, but his birthdays managed somehow accidentally to turn out to all be nice, and then we learn that it’s Dumbledore’s fault that he’s going out of his way. But this time, yeah, it just doesn’t work for me.
Andrew: “Harry deserves a zoo day.” I like that.
Micah: One kind of odd and end for me, but it’s obviously a theme throughout these first couple of chapters, and that’s Harry’s abuse. I don’t think that we can talk about these chapters without recognizing the fact that this child was severely… if not physically – certainly we can talk about his physical abuse in the next chapter – but the mental abuse that he went through in the years that he spent leading up to the start of Sorcerer’s Stone. And we know he lives under the stairs. He wears hand-me-down clothing that is just too big for him, these baggy clothes. His glasses are kept together with Scotch tape. We hear all the verbal abuse he gets from Petunia, from Vernon, from Dudley. I even think back to when they’re going through the list of people that Harry could potentially stay with when they’re off to the zoo, and Vernon just keeps shutting them down one after the other, and it’s always a dig at Harry. And I’m just thinking, given that it is Dudley’s birthday in this chapter, it’s clear from all the presents that he gets that the Dursleys have the means to provide for Harry; they’re just choosing to be neglectful towards him.
Eric: Oh, that’s a key difference too. A key point there.
Micah: And in the next chapter, too, I think it is, Harry walks into the kitchen and Petunia is washing his school uniform, and it smells rank and it looks disgusting, and it’s just like… does this kid ever catch a break?
Laura: I know, and it really makes you wonder… I mean, he’s going to school, so it’s not as though he’s only around the Dursleys 24/7. I can’t speak for UK law, but I mean, here in the states, teachers are mandated reporters, so if they pick up on themes of abuse potentially happening at home, they have to report it. And I have to think something similar exists in the UK, and maybe this is a commentary on how well or not well that system works, or at least worked at the time.
Eric: Yeah, because he’s constantly wearing clothes that are too big for him, and it’s clear… you can’t make the argument based on where the Dursleys live that they don’t have money for better clothes.
Laura: Right.
Micah: Well, and to add on to what you’re saying, Laura, the Dursleys are setting Harry up to be ridiculed and bullied at school just by the clothes that they’re putting him in.
Laura: Right. Yeah, where is Child Protective Services?
Micah: Damn it, Dumbledore!
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Right. I mean, that’s the thing, is the situation is so bad that it so reflects retroactively back on Dumbledore.
Micah: Yeah, has this mother-…?
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Has he not checked in at all in 11 years?
Andrew: It’s a good question. Well, that’s what Figg is there for. [laughs]
Eric: He left her a letter. Yeah, yeah, that’s what Figg is there for, and he gave Petunia a letter. It’s cool. She’ll still remember it 16 years from now.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Even before he goes to Hogwarts – and I was shocked to discover this in Chapter 2 – they’re still giving him gifts that are a coat hanger and things like that for his birthday.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Eric: It must have been explained in Dumbledore’s letter what the bare minimum is, and they’re just doing that. But the whole giving him a gift… the reason the Dursleys still send him a gift at Hogwarts each year for Christmas is because that must be part of the protection. It must be the bare minimum that means they’re offering him space in their house and their “hearts,” quote. That’s got to be it.
Laura: Yeah. I will say, Becky in the Discord says, “I’m from the UK, and teachers don’t notice a thing.” So this could just be my American perspective coming out here, but it’s good to hear the perspective of someone who lives there and went to school there.
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary (“The Letters from No One”)
Andrew: Chapter 3, “The Letters from No One.” One more Seven-Word Summary today. Micah is starting off.
Micah: Oof.
Andrew: Here we go.
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Micah: … Chaos…
Andrew: … awaits…
Eric: … the…
Laura: … Dursleys…
Micah: … everywhere…
Andrew: … and… sorry. [laughs]
Eric: Oh, that was the wrong word, Andrew.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Chaos awaits the Dursleys everywhere and… above.
Andrew: Okay. [laughs] For some reason, I was hoping that was going to go “everywhere and nowhere.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: Well, I thought it was going “everywhere they go.”
Andrew: Ohhh.
Eric: “Everywhere they go” is what I was thinking, yeah.
Andrew: Oh, darn it! This is what happens with the Seven-Word Summary. The pressure’s on; sometimes you can’t think straight.
Eric: Yeah, my read… the music was very stressful, I agree.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: This was a very artful representation of the chapter. I think we can give ourselves some credit. The letters are pouring down on them…
Andrew: Yeah, “above” because of the owls coming in makes sense.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: To my mind, “everywhere and above” is like saying “everyone and their mother.” It just means the same thing; it’s redundant. It’s like “everywhere.” Chaos awaits the Dursleys everywhere.
Micah: I didn’t want to start with “letters” or “owls.” I felt like we needed a different twist.
Eric: No, that’s great.
Laura: Yeah, I agree.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion (“The Letters from No One”)
Eric: So one of the benefits of reading these books over and over again is I think a lot of the jokes and a lot of the humor still land. A lot of what made us fall in love with the series from the get-go is still as touching, as humorous, as special. These are really special books, and in an effort to kind of… not necessarily demystify the series, but to better understand and appreciate a lot of these questions that I thought of while reading the books, is how does this work? How does something work? Because we can enjoy it separate of itself because it’s funny, but then I also want to know, with specific reference to the letters that come for Harry in this chapter, what is the mechanism that must be in place for the letters, first of all, to keep coming – they know that Harry has not properly been able to open and read the letter, so they keep resending – and then how exactly is it that the letters change addresses to more accurately reflect where within Privet Drive Harry is living?
Andrew: It is a good question, especially looking back, having read the books, and you see how deep the magical world goes. I wonder if the house is being monitored, though I think today we’ve established that nobody seems to be looking after Harry other than Figg, so maybe not.
Laura: How messed up would that be, though, if they were being monitored?
Andrew: But how messed up are the Dursleys? Do they deserve it?
Eric: Yeah, they do, but then it’s on… whoever’s monitoring them, everything they witness as far as abuse, they’re not doing anything about it, so it’s on them.
Andrew: Oooh. True, true, true.
Eric: That’s the problem, is Vernon’s first suspicion is that they’re watching the house, that the wizards are paying close attention, and that’s why they graduate Harry from the cupboard under the stairs. For the first time in his life, he has a bedroom, and it’s Dudley’s extra bedroom. Not even the guest bedroom. The Dursleys have two extra bedrooms, by the way. There’s the guest bedroom that Marge occasionally stays in, and the one that has all of Dudley’s broken toys in it.
Micah: Probably smells like Marge.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I mean, this is classic and true with all bullies, I think, is that once somebody else is watching, you change your tune. You think twice about it. Literally, all it took was somebody writing on a letter “The Cupboard under the Stairs” as Harry’s domicile for them to be like, “Yeah, maybe we shouldn’t do this.” That’s accountability right there.
Micah: I also think it’s interesting that at some point in the chapter, Harry doesn’t even want to be in that second bedroom anymore; he would rather be back underneath the stairs, so I don’t know if that’s a little bit of PTSD maybe going on inside of his head. But as far as the letters, I’ve always thought that this was part of the magic. There’s something to be said for the fact that Harry is being denied his magical birthright by the Dursleys, in the sense that he is able to go to Hogwarts, and it’s almost as if the powers that be are fighting back against the Dursleys. Because this is a comical moment, but at the same time, it shows the Dursleys that they are being watched in some capacity, and that the magical world… I don’t know, it’s almost like a superiority. It’s a move of them being able to show, “Hey, we know what’s going on. We know where Harry is. You can’t run away, as hard as you might try,” and Vernon tries really hard…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: … they’re always going to know where their people are.
Eric: Just there is such a sort of indignance around it. The fact that Harry graduates from “The Cupboard under the Stairs” to “The Smallest Bedroom,” the smallest bedroom, that’s saying directly to the Dursleys, “You barely tried. We still know that he is an abused child, that you are not giving him more than the space that he is absolutely minimally required.” But my question is, that’s a human thing to write that, so is there a human at the end of this writing those letters or addressing those letters? Because no amount of, I don’t know, Trace or the quill that writes everybody’s name down from birth could possibly be so intelligent as to have that wit about it, that cutting admonishment of the Dursleys in writing these letters. And yet we see these letters, they do exist, so they’re coming from someone or somewhere or something.
Andrew: Well, I mean, the letter is from McGonagall, but yeah, I don’t see McGonagall herself doing all of this. It just seems like a lot of time and effort. I would assume it’s automated in some way.
Eric: For me, I wish it were somebody at the Ministry like Mafalda Hopkirk, for instance.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: We know that she’s in charge of, what, the Trace and the underage abuse of magic. So I’d like to see somebody at the government having this level of knowledge over Harry, but again, anybody that would know his situation, that would know he was living in a cupboard till age 10 and a half, is at fault for not stepping in and stopping it. So it’s kind of an inherent contradiction. It’s funny – it calls the Dursleys out in a hugely important way – but it’s almost unconscionable.
Micah: There also has to be some kind of intelligence that’s in place to know that Harry himself is not the one who is opening up these letters, because one of them does in fact get opened. It’s the first one; Vernon and Petunia read it, and after that, it’s just mass destruction of the letters. And I’m wondering, too, is there some version of the Gemino Curse that is on these letters? Where as they start to be destroyed, they just kind of multiply? And maybe it’s a little too early for that, but I don’t know. I was thinking about that too.
Andrew: Well, it is illegal, by the way, to open mail that is not addressed to you.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: That’s correct.
Andrew: In both the US and the UK. I just did a quick Google.
Eric: Oh, thank God. Okay.
Andrew: Same thing with the Royal Mail.
Laura: Thank you for checking that.
Eric: So the Dursleys are breaking the law.
Micah: It’s called obstruction of correspondence, yeah.
Laura: I wonder, too… I’m pretty sure the Hogwarts acceptance letter requests that you respond via owl to confirm your attendance, and maybe because they’re not getting that response, that’s how they know the letters aren’t being opened. The other side of this is, don’t we see examples later in the books of quills that are charmed to be snarky or write some kind of insult? And I wonder if that’s what’s going on here.
Eric: That’s a really good point, actually. The point of the quill.
Andrew: Yeah, or even Rita’s Quick Quotes Quill.
Laura: Right. Still leaves the question, how does it know where exactly he is in the house?
Andrew: I like the idea of the Trace, though. I think based on what we know, that makes the most sense.
Eric: But here is sort of the problem with that too: How good is the protection of Dumbledore’s on Privet Drive? Because they shouldn’t be able to see anything Harry does. If the protection is really good that anyone who wishes to do Harry harm can’t find him, then how is the government…? I mean, I know they don’t have malice right now for Harry, but I think the protection should work a little too well that Harry is completely off the grid, even to the government.
Andrew: In tech, it’s called a backdoor, so they can still get in. Dumbledore set up a backdoor, so he can still get a Hogwarts letter and any other correspondence to Harry. But once you add one of those backdoors, they can be taken advantage of, and that’s why big tech doesn’t like adding backdoors.
Eric: So here’s a question that follows completely with our discussion up to this point on this episode, is once the letters start coming, the Dursleys have a choice to make. They’ve denied Harry his existence up to this point, and they could have had a moment upon getting this letter – or the second one, or the third one, or the fourth, or 30-40 letters – rather than destroy their own front door or abandon the place where they live, they could have just had a conversation with Harry where they explain things, but they chose instead to double down. They’re running away. They’re running from the truth. They’re still going to deny Harry’s existence. And my question is, what makes them that way? Why are they so averse to just telling Harry? He’s going to find out, so what is the problem here?
Andrew: I think they’re convinced that Harry is not going to find out. They’ve spent 11 years keeping it a secret from him. They’re set in their ways. They believe they can continue getting away with it because they’ve gotten away with it for so long. There’s also the deeply rooted prejudice, as well, to consider. That said, I do wonder what Petunia is feeling about this. I think to some extent, she’s placating her husband, but maybe she’d be more willing to let Harry go to Hogwarts. I think at the least, she doesn’t feel as strongly as Vernon does, but she doesn’t show it.
Laura: Yeah, I mean, there was a time where she wanted to go to Hogwarts.
Andrew: Right.
Laura: So you have to think that somewhere deep down, she’s maybe a little softer on this issue than Vernon is. Perhaps in her anger towards her sister, towards Dumbledore, towards the idea of magic and wizards in general, Petunia really veered to a more extremist view of these things and that period of her life attracted someone like Vernon, who does have a tendency to look at things that way. But then as time goes on, and she has this magical nephew living with her, she starts to realize that some of this is just going to be out of their control because she saw the same thing happen with her sister. There was no controlling that. Lily went to Hogwarts.
Micah: This is also, too, where you can start to question Dumbledore a bit as well, because he is putting a constant reminder of what Petunia was never able to achieve right inside of her home.
Eric: Oh.
Micah: And I question that decision making. And then also, as it relates to Petunia, I’ve often wondered about her rationale. Why do we think she never came at it from the perspective of, “The wizarding world is dangerous. It killed my sister; it killed my brother-in-law. I don’t want it to kill my nephew.”
Andrew: Oooh.
Eric: Right. It’s a good question.
Micah: That would be if she was a loving, caring family member.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Right. She’s not.
Eric: She’s really, for a long time now, given into her darker nature. Instead of being happy for her sister, she’s resentful of her sister, and was throughout all the years. I mean, I don’t think she wanted Lily to die, but I think that she’s written it off as inevitable because of who her husband was, who Lily ended up marrying. And maybe there was a right way for Lily to have behaved, but it was nothing Lily would have ever done in Petunia’s eyes. So maybe that’s it. Because for Petunia, it’s personal; she’s had this sisterly connection. Vernon has never known another wizard, or any wizards, besides the ones that Petunia brought into his life, so for him, his prejudice is far more… not at all innocent, but he doesn’t have that personal connection that would temper it. And we see him in Chapter 1 deferring to Petunia, right? He’s afraid to tell her just in case she gets angry. He doesn’t want to upset her. I think Petunia is the ringmaster here, the ringleader that really enables both of them to walk through so cruelly and be so prejudiced in this world against wizards. I see Petunia as leading that charge, actually, more than Vernon, even though… well, because she has a personal connection.
Laura: Yeah, and they’re both deeply in denial too. We see that in these first couple of chapters. For the first 11 years of Harry’s life, they never had to think too much about him being a wizard because they were just denying it. They thought that if they denied him the knowledge of who he is, that it would never come out, and now, all of a sudden, they’re confronted with the consequences of their actions. Think about how people react when they have their heads buried in the sand for that long, and then the truth reveals itself to them. They don’t automatically say, “Oh, well, I guess I was wrong about that.”
Micah: Yeah. Along the lines of that, I was looking for this quote where Vernon says, “I’m not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn’t we swear when we took him in we’d stamp out that dangerous nonsense?”
Eric: But who reads that letter from Dumbledore and says, “Yeah, we’re not going to do any of this stuff; we’re going to make him not be a wizard anymore”? That’s a hell of a choice. It makes me want to read Dumbledore’s letter, how flawed it must have been for them to take a look at that and go, “No, we’re just going to deny any of this is happening to us.” But they’re ignorant. That’s kind of the point; that’s maybe their one defining trait of the Dursleys.
Micah: Yes, they are. And Vernon, in particular, is a moron for thinking that after all of the attempts and places he goes in this chapter, that the letters are just going to stop.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: Well, actually, this discussion made me wonder, what if…
[“What if?” sound effect plays]
Andrew: … Harry did manage to open that first letter? How would that have changed the plot? How would Vernon and Petunia have responded? Would they just have called the letter fake, or would they have called it spam? Would they have said it’s a prank? Because obviously, they would try to push Harry off the scent, but then somebody from Hogwarts would show up at some point. And would that letter have known that the Dursleys were trying to tell Harry that, “Don’t worry about this, ignore this, it’s a prank,” and then would more letters have showed up? A lot of questions here.
Eric: It’s so interesting because if Harry had opened the letter while in the foyer and gotten to read most of it, I think he might have concluded that it was a prank, that he might have even concluded that it was some kind of sick joke. He wasn’t going to rise to the challenge; he wasn’t going to let the Dursleys get him down. But I think that something in the letter would have been like, “No, actually, this just rings true” to him. Even just maybe the word “wizardry,” and how “You’ve been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” the idea that one word could speak to him more than all the others, and that it would kind of reveal his identity. But the Dursleys could have done one better. If they had played along and said, “Oh, yeah, we signed up for this subscription joke letter service, and we need to send a letter back…”
Andrew: [laughs] Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.
Eric: They could have written a letter saying, “Dear Hogwarts, thank you, I will not be going. Sincerely, Harry,” and then that would have pushed people off even further, I think, a little bit more off their backs. But at this point, it’s inevitable.
Andrew: And Dumbledore and McGonagall would have known what was going on, and I guess… I think Hagrid still would have been the one to show up and be like, “Yo, we are taking him in.”
Laura: Can you imagine Hagrid just showing up on Privet Drive in the middle of the day? [laughs]
Andrew: That’s the other thing, yeah. Some memories probably would need to be wiped. Or maybe he would show up in the middle of the night, as soon as Harry did turn 11. The Hogwarts letter did say, “We await your owl by July 31,” so I would assume as soon as August 1 rolled over, somebody would have been at the Dursleys’ door saying, “Hey, give us Harry.” And it would have saved a lot of hassle for Vernon because then he wouldn’t have had to travel all these different places trying to avoid all these letters. It would have been a better outcome for him, I think.
Micah: Yeah, I mean, it’s the classic example, as we were saying, of running from the truth, literally. In this case, though, I still think Harry needs an explanation. You were talking about how he probably would have thought it was a joke or a ruse. The Hagrid setup provides us, the readers, as well, the full context of why he’s getting this letter. And I think that if Harry is just reading through this letter, he has absolutely no idea what it means. “Send an owl? Where am I going to get an owl?”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Right.
Micah: “What does this all mean?” So I think that it would have been probably… yeah, he might have even thrown it in the trash.
Andrew: [laughs] Well, no, but he would have been like, “Wait a second, this explains the sweater. This explains going on the roof.” He would have started putting the pieces together, I think.
Eric: But the other thing is that there are two types of… if you’re truly Muggle-born, I think you get a representative from Hogwarts that comes out and explains things to your parent.
Laura: That’s right.
Eric: Right? Don’t we find that out? Was it Hermione who that happened to, and she says that at some point? Maybe it was McGonagall, maybe it was somebody lesser, but somebody comes out. So with Harry, Hogwarts is just trusting… whoever it is – Dumbledore, whatever – is just trusting that the Dursleys would have filled Harry in, and they don’t know that they haven’t, so they don’t do that. They don’t send somebody to their house first to explain what wizards are to Muggles. They don’t do it, but they should have, is kind of my argument, is they really should have had somebody come out. And Hagrid perfectly serves that purpose, like you said, Micah, to give you the full context. But Harry doesn’t get that treatment because they just assume that the Dursleys would not abuse him so much as to not tell him.
Andrew: I think that’s it for Chapter 3, and that almost concludes Chapter by Chapter this week.
MVP of the Week
Andrew: But first, here’s another returning segment, MVP of the Week. We are going to either pick the most valuable wizard or most valuable chapter. It’s up to each of us; we can take it whichever direction we want. This is a little different than what we were doing previously; we were sticking with characters. Now we’re also going to potentially award a chapter the MVP award. So here we go.
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Eric: Ah, yeah!
Andrew: [laughs] I’m going to give it to Miss Figg. Miss Figg, love you. That’s my girl. I’m convinced that was a fake-out to get Harry out of the house, and big ups to you, Miss Figg, for helping out Harry right there.
Laura: I’m going to give mine to McGonagall. She really is the reader in Chapter 1. She’s been observing the Dursleys all day, as have we, and she is the first one to speak up and say, “Albus, these are terrible people. You cannot leave this child with them.” He does it anyway, but she tried to advocate, so I’ll give it to her.
Eric: She did try. And then never checked back in on Harry at all the rest of the… [laughs]
Laura: No, yeah. Kind of dropped the ball there.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. As far as chapters go, I would say that each of these three are very critical. They are introducing important concepts, they explain a lot of questions we would ordinarily have, so I can’t pick a favorite or a more critical one than the first three. So I’ll go back to character and say, you know what? That boa constrictor.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Good on that snake, the caged animal, for getting out! He’s free! We don’t find out later that he’s been trapped or caught, so I’d like to think he did make it to Brazil, found his people, found his clan, and just chilled, all because of Harry’s magic. So I’d like to believe that he became free long before Harry does.
Micah: Nice. I am going to give it to the letters from no one, not the chapter, but the actual letters…
Eric: Ahh, very nice.
Andrew: Fun.
Micah: … for giving Vernon his comeuppance.
Eric: Oh, it’s so good.
Micah: The first of many.
Laura: I love that.
Andrew: All right, well, that was a lot of fun. Chapter by Chapter… [imitating Fudge] is back.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: If you have any feedback about the chapters this week, or maybe something you want to add about next week’s chapters – we’re planning to discuss Chapters 4 through 6 – you can email MuggleCast@gmail.com, or you can use the contact form on MuggleCast.com. You can also send us a voice message; just record it using the voice memo app on your phone, and then email us that file. Or use our phone number, which is 1-920-3-MUGGLE; that’s 1-920-368-4453. And by the way, we’re aiming to do Muggle Mail episodes every four weeks, so we’ll do three Chapter by Chapter episodes, and then one Muggle Mail, and we’ll get feedback in primarily during that time.
Quizzitch
Andrew: All right, it’s time for some Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Andrew: So much music this week!
Eric: Ah, I love the new, more musical MuggleCast. Last week’s question: From what neighborhood does Harry first accidentally hail the Knight Bus? And I have to say, this might have been the biggest stumper we’ve ever had for as most wrong answers that were submitted.
Laura: Oooh.
Eric: Over 15 people, and only five got it correct.
Andrew: Whoa!
Eric: The correct answer – and this is said not once but twice in the same chapter, right before it happens – Harry hails the Knight Bus while he’s resting against a wall in Magnolia Crescent. Magnolia Crescent was the correct answer. Submitted correct answers are from Bort Voldemort, Artemis Fido the Second Junior, You Umbridge, Hoofly Poof, and Why Am I Yelling? Is it Because I Like to Giggle, Giggle, Jiggle?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Okay.
Micah: Of course it is.
Eric: Next week’s question: Based on the chapters we just read and covered in this episode, who are the four known members of Dudley’s gang? From Chapter 3 of Book 1. There you go, I felt so bad I gave you the exact chapter it’s in.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: This is an open book quiz that we do every week, ladies and gents. So submit your answers to us on the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or go to the website and click on “Quizzitch” in the nav bar.
Andrew: And make sure you follow MuggleCast for free in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode, and leave us a review if they allow you to. Thank you to everybody who takes a moment to do that. We really appreciate the reviews, and we love reading them. Also, don’t forget to follow us on social media. We are MuggleCast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. Glad to be back in the Chapter by Chapter zone, and very much looking forward to continuing this series in the weeks, months, and years ahead. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: Bye, everyone.
Eric, Laura, and Micah: Bye.
Andrew: We’re watching you, Dursleys.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Always watching.