Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #581, What if Petunia had been accepted to Hogwarts? And more MuggleMail
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: And today we’re opening up the Muggle Mailbag, to see what listeners have to say about our Chapter by Chapter series so far. It’s nice to take this little pause in Chapter by Chapter and see what our listeners think, and spend a little more time with these chapters, because we don’t want to fly through them too fast. I mean, we’re not on a Firebolt, after all; we’re just on a Nimbus 2000.
Eric: [laughs] Or a Cleansweep.
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: We’re almost halfway through Book 1 already! Can you believe that, guys?
Andrew: I know. We’re going too fast. Should have done one chapter at a time.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, I think we’re finding the right pace now. Two chapters an episode. I think that’s a good pace.
Micah: I think Rohan kept us in order last week too. He did a really good job.
Laura: Agree.
Eric: He was great.
Andrew: Yeah, it was really fun having him on. Little bit of housekeeping before we jump into the mailbag, though. First, on our Patreon this week at Patreon.com/MuggleCast, we’ll have a new bonus MuggleCast in which we discuss excerpts from Alan Rickman’s diaries. His diaries are being published! This was all above board; he wanted these out there. He had some things to say about filming Harry Potter, many of which are not good.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: So this is going to be a gossipy installment of Bonus MuggleCast. I question why all of this is being published, because some of this is, woof, pretty rough.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: On our Patreon, we release lots of benefits to thank you for supporting us. And speaking of supporting us, Apple Podcast users, for just $2.99 a month, you can now receive ad-free MuggleCast and early access to each new episode of the show right within the Apple Podcasts app. By subscribing to the show, you’re supporting us just like our patrons do. Of course, you can pledge to our Patreon to receive many more benefits, but if you’d prefer to support us through Apple – maybe you don’t want to get started with Patreon – no problem. We’ll hook you up with no more advertising, and you’ll get each episode of MuggleCast on Mondays instead of Tuesdays. So just tap into the show in the Apple Podcasts app, and you’ll see the subscribe button.
Eric: It’s like using a Time-Turner. MuggleCast a whole day early!
Andrew: I know! So yeah, check that out.
Listener Feedback
Andrew: Okay, so let’s get to some MuggleMail now. And I think, Laura, you’re kicking things off.
Laura: Yeah, so our first email comes from Ronald, who coincidentally shares a name with our favorite Ronald Weasley, so that’s a nice tie-in there. Ron says,
“Hi. My name is Ron and I’m a Hufflepuff. I wanted to chime in on Hagrid and why he was sent for Harry. Any other professor would have been held to the fact that the Dursleys could say no. And they would have, given the chance. Hagrid doesn’t have any concept that no was an option. He made it rather clear Harry was going to go. No choice was really given. I think this same thing happened when Harry was left on the doorstep. Why leave a note? Because for the magic to work, they had to accept him. In person, they would have said no, and this would have broken the protection. Dumbledore didn’t truly give them a choice. This is why Hagrid was chosen.”
Andrew: Hmm.
Laura: That’s interesting. I’ve never thought about it that way. I definitely agree on the point of Dumbledore leaving the letter with Harry, because leaving an infant on your doorstep is really not much of a choice.
Micah: Yeah. How do you say no?
Laura: Yeah, how do you say no to that? But also, how do you say no to a giant thundering into your cabin on the sea and saying, “Hey, this kid that you actually hate and that you would prefer not to have in your home, I’m taking him”?
Eric: In other words, Hagrid was just the right amount of unhinged to get the job done. Get it? Unhinged, because he bursts down the door and the door falls off its hinges.
Laura: Right.
Andrew: Oh, good one.
Laura: I was on the same wavelength. [laughs]
Eric: Can always count on you, Laura. In terms of Hagrid, he’s a giant security nightmare. But Dumbledore in this case is sending him out; he’s being able to play his security nightmares like cards. So you need somebody who’s going to frighten Vernon Dursley, which is nuts, because… I mean, any wizard could take him probably, but somebody who can be physically intimidating a little bit more off the cuff? I think Hagrid was the very right amount for that.
Micah: Right.
Andrew: Yeah, and I think what I was saying in the first Chapter by Chapter was that Hagrid wouldn’t have accepted no for an answer either. He’s going to get the job done on his own terms.
Micah: Right, and it’s interesting because we talked about whether or not he was the best person for this job, but I’m not sure we came up with any better solutions, and I think that Ron does a really good job in terms of pointing out why he was best suited for the job. I think also we never mentioned one of the most iconic lines in the entire series: Vernon calls Dumbledore the crackpot old fool, and then Hagrid says, “Never insult Albus Dumbledore in front of me!” And I think that just shows you why he was the right person for the job. Clearly, Dumbledore gave him a mission, and he was going to see it through no matter what.
Eric: Before Harry was Dumbledore’s man through and through, we had Hagrid.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: Well, and actually, our next email ties into this nicely too.
Eric: This one comes from Reid. She says,
“Hi guys! I’m a relatively new listener and am delighted that you are revisiting the books chapter by chapter, as it coincidentally coincides with me listening to the Stephen Fry narration of them. I have one comment, and then a couple of questions as points for discussion. First, in regards to Hagrid being sent to retrieve Harry on his birthday, a point that wasn’t mentioned in your discussion was that Dumbledore may have done that as much for Hagrid as for Harry. I think Dumbledore knew they were likely to become friends, and that Hagrid’s childlike simplicity is what Harry would need by way of introduction to the wizarding life. It certainly plays out over the series that Harry becomes an important source of support for Hagrid. Separately, we never really get a sense of the scale of the student body population at Hogwarts, but it must be quite small since all the students can fit on the train and in the Great Hall simultaneously. And in Gryffindor at least, there are only five boys in the same year as Harry (which begs the question – are there 14 different dormitory rooms in Gryffindor Tower? One for each year and gender?)”
So thank you, Reid, for sending that in. I have always wanted – in any of the media that we’ve seen around the books – a Gryffindor dormitory that made sense. As far as even just that simple math there, there would be 14 separate dormitories at least, but all we really see is where Harry lives because it’s Harry.
Laura: Right. Do y’all think that Gryffindor Tower can expand depending on the student body? I’m just thinking about other times where we’ve seen the Room of Requirement expand or contract to accommodate the user’s request; thinking about Arthur Weasley’s tent. I’m wondering if there’s some kind of enchantment on the dormitories to adjust for student body size year after year, because it doesn’t seem very likely that there would be exactly five boys and five girls getting Sorted into each House every year.
Andrew and Eric: Right.
Andrew: They’d have to control the population. They would have to limit… I mean, it just wouldn’t work. [laughs]
Laura: Sorry, you can’t come to Hogwarts this year, Andrew. There’s already five boys.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Right, the founders didn’t account for population growth and inflation and all of that stuff.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: There’s only one bathroom. There’s 14 dormitories, but there’s only one bathroom. [laughs]
Andrew: I think the only other explanation is there’s another Hogwarts in England, or they get sent abroad.
Laura: Didn’t Draco almost do that?
Eric: Go abroad? Yeah.
Laura: He talked about almost going to Durmstrang.
Eric: It was at one point – specifically in a year 2000 Scholastic chat – asked of J.K. Rowling, “How many students are there at Hogwarts?” And her reply was that there were a thousand; she said about a thousand. But just doing some quick math here, that boils down to 143 students a year, and if you divide that by four, it’s 36 new students per year per House. So there would have to be seven other dormitories just like Harry’s, just for other first years, if that was the case, if that number is accurate. So suffice to say, there’s actually a lot more students than the ones that it is capable to be written about.
Micah: I mean, they didn’t have the budget, let’s be real, on film. They just didn’t have the budget. And as we saw…
Eric: And it would have affected the pacing to show all of those other students.
Andrew: And why? What does it add, really? I mean, I think the movies give the impression there’s many more students going to Hogwarts than the books say.
Laura: I agree.
Micah: Yeah, they just don’t have a place to sleep.
Andrew: [laughs] Right. Well, maybe we’ll find out… I bet in the Hogwarts Legacy video game, this open world video game, it’s going to be very similar to the movies. There’s just a few dormitories, and that’s it.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: There’s a lot of holes you can poke in this whole aspect of Hogwarts.
Micah: This actually ties back nicely, though, to our last Chapter by Chapter, because when the Sorting is going on, we get all of these characters that are mentioned that we never hear about again in the entire Harry Potter series.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Eric: Like Mandy Brocklehurst.
Micah: But I do like how Reid brought up the Hagrid/Harry connection and how Dumbledore sent Hagrid just as much for Hagrid as he did for Harry, because Hagrid brings Harry to Privet Drive initially, he takes him away from Privet Drive in Deathly Hallows, and he’s really Harry’s introduction to the wizarding world, right? He takes him to Diagon Alley; he’s there in Hogsmeade when Harry first arrives at Hogwarts. So there’s a lot of firsts for Harry that Hagrid is present for.
Laura: Yeah. And Hagrid is also somewhat of an outsider, right? So what better way to make someone else who also feels like an outsider feel welcome than to foster this connection with Hagrid this early on in the series as his introduction?
Eric: I really would like to give Dumbledore credit for thinking about that and thinking that Hagrid and Harry… I don’t know that I do, but I would like to, because it’s very sweet.
Laura: Yeah, my jury’s out on that too. I don’t know if Dumbledore thought about that. [laughs]
Micah: All right, our next email comes from Lisa asking about Harry’s grandparents. She said, “Hi! It’s Lisa from Newcastle (Australia) here. You’ve probably discussed this already, but on my reread (and re-listen, thanks Stephen Fry!)…” So another Stephen Fry listener.
Eric: Shout-out.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: “… it struck me that all four of Harry’s grandparents must have died quite young for them to all be gone before Lily and James died aged 21. How did they die? Was there foul play involved? Did the Evans’ death affect the Petunia/Lily soured relationship even more? As a mother of a child about the same age as Harry was when he was orphaned, it really made me think about how hard it must have been for Lily and Petunia as young mums to not have their parents around. And so sad for Dudley and Harry to never meet them. Maybe another reason Petunia wanted to stamp the magic out of Harry? And Sirius loved James’s parents like his own. That grief must have been exponential too. Ah, the thoughts you have when you reread books from your childhood! Thanks for all your amazing content!”
Thank you, Lisa. And Eric, you have a note here at least about James’s parents.
Eric: Yeah, it’s interesting. I did some research, and jury’s out on Lily’s parents as far as official answers, but there is actually an extensive write-up on Harry’s entire ancestry via his dad, and it is said that actually James’s parents did die sometime between when James and Lily were married. So they were there for James and Lily’s wedding, but they never did get to meet Harry, and that is because a swift bout of Dragon Pox actually came, and unfortunately they succumbed to it. But also, they were considerably older; they had actually already retired from their main jobs when they had James, so he grew up with fairly older parents, and then they got ill and died before Harry was born.
Andrew: Okay. That was going to be my guess; they were just older. It’s sad.
Eric: It’s sad that Lily and Petunia would have also lost their parents, though.
Micah: And it’s quite possible, to the point Lisa raised, that it did affect the dynamic between Lily and Petunia. We know that Petunia even calls out in some of these earlier chapters how Lily was basically the favorite of her parents, and particularly because she was a witch and she did go to Hogwarts. So there’s definitely some animosity there, some unresolved issues for Petunia. But I have to imagine it affected how she ultimately grew up and then chooses to raise Dudley.
Laura: Yeah. And she never got that opportunity to resolve – to your point, Micah – those frustrations with her parents, right? Had her parents lived to a ripe old age, those opportunities may have come along, they may have been able to bury the hatchet, and Petunia might have been able to let go of some of these sentiments. But she never gets a chance.
Micah: Right. And grandparents are the natural option for somebody like Harry to be raised by, so I think in this case, J.K. Rowling just needed to eliminate the possibility of Harry going to his grandparents on either side.
Andrew: Yeah, absolutely.
Laura: Is Neville the only character whose grandparent we see in the series? I don’t think we see any other grandparents.
Eric: Everybody dies young. I hear some music in the background going, “Live like you’re gonna die young.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: But yes, apparently… so I did some more digging here just now, and during the chat with Melissa Annelli and Emerson Spartz, yeah, it’s confirmed that Lily’s parents had a normal Muggle death.
Andrew: This next email is from Chase on what happened to Dudley’s pig tail. He says, “Hi MuggleCast! Fantastic work again this week on Chapter by Chapter. Solid Exceeds Expectations on the chapter summaries!”
Eric and Laura: Oh!
Eric: We’re back to rating.
Andrew: That’s generous. Thank you.
Laura: That was very kind. Thank you. [laughs]
Andrew: “I’m rereading alongside you all and noticed you all didn’t really have many thoughts about the repercussions of Dudley’s pig tail. Shouldn’t Hagrid be charged by the Wizengamot for magic in front of and against a Muggle? The Ministry definitely should know about this magic since Harry has the Trace on him. Or since Dumbledore is the head of the court, did he just see the case file and laugh it off or blame his old age again? Maybe the Hogwarts rep that gets to give a Muggle-born their letter is allowed to do a certain amount of magic in front of Muggles and this fell within Hagrid’s quota? Also, I’ve always wondered if the Dursleys went to St. Mungo’s or a Muggle hospital? Did Dudley go under anesthesia for this, or was the pig tail vanished to poop mountain?”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: That phrase caught on. Way to go, us.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: That’s our legacy.
Andrew: “All important questions that should have been answered on Potter-No-More, in my opinion. Anyway, can’t wait for the next episode! You all rock!” Well, Chase, first of all, shout-out for all the little references to the show throughout this email. Second of all, we actually were planning on discussing this a little more, but we had just run out of time in that episode, but this is why our MuggleMail episodes are great. A lot of questions here. Yes, if Dumbledore did see the case file, I’m sure he just would have quietly pushed it aside, given it a little Evanesco, and moved on from it because you know he’s going to do Hagrid a favor like that for doing Dumbledore a favor in the first place. As for the tale, though, Eric, you have a quote here. Apparently, Rowling did answer this, but I don’t buy this. Read us this quote.
Eric: This fits perfectly within their character, I think. The answer is, “They went to a private hospital where the staff was very discreet, and said that a wart had gotten out of control.”
Andrew: Okay, a pig tail looks nothing like a wart. I don’t buy this for a second!
Eric: They had to say something. [laughs]
Andrew: Well, I think what happened is they went to the hospital, and then the Ministry or Dumbledore… somebody wiped the memories of whoever fixed Dudley’s butt. That’s the only possible explanation in my mind.
Eric: I think there are a lot of potentially embarrassing medical conditions that people would go to the hospital for, and then when asked at check-in what’s wrong, they would lie about it slightly to save face here. And nevertheless, the doctor sees what the issue is, and corrects it or works on it. I think that all fits within perfect norm.
Andrew: But humans don’t grow pig tails! That doctor would sound the alarm; tell the world that a human has grown a pig tail!
Eric: [laughs] This is a special case.
Laura: Well, I don’t think the doctor would be allowed to do that.
Andrew: Oh, right. Hmm.
Micah: The repercussions for Hagrid, though, are pretty severe if he were to be found out, though, because number one, he’s not supposed to have a wand, and he uses it in this instance against a Muggle, a child, he doesn’t do anything to correct it before he leaves, and I’m just wondering what happens if, in fact, he is found out having done this. I think it… isn’t it in Ollivanders? Ollivander questions him whether or not he still even has his wand or is using it, almost in a cautionary way? So I would think Hagrid would get in a lot of trouble for this. And also, I’m surprised that they don’t go to St. Mungo’s, because they do in Goblet of Fire, right? When the Weasley twins give Dudley the toffee?
Eric: Oh. Well, they did that in front of a Ministry official, who had no choice but to cart them off there, I think.
Laura: You know what it could be? Remember a couple episodes ago when we were thinking about our own headcanon of wizards having normal Muggle jobs to infiltrate the Muggle space and control the narrative? I wonder if this discreet hospital has some affiliation with St. Mungo’s…
Eric: That’s hilarious.
Laura: … and they just take care of issues like this, probably for large sums of money.
Andrew: Maybe.
Laura: And they probably don’t take insurance, although I don’t know exactly how that works in the UK with the National Health System. But yeah, I like to think that maybe there’s some kind of magical affiliation here, and that’s why it’s kind of off the books, as it were.
Andrew: Yeah. There’s definitely some strings being pulled. I’m not buying that it was just a doctor looking at this and being like, “Oh, a pig tail. Okay, I’ll cut it off. All right, on your way.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: He would at least go to the parents and be like, “Yo, your child grew a pig tail. Something is seriously wrong. I’m referring you to another doctor.”
Laura: Or like, “Can we send it for a biopsy?” Something.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: Yeah! This would rock the medical world.
Eric: I do feel slightly bad for Dudley about the whole situation.
Andrew: It wasn’t fair.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, he was still a child. I mean, a horrible child, but a child. All right, our next email comes from Thomas, who’s getting in touch about Harry’s Horcrux potentially impacting the Dursleys. Thomas says, “Hey, y’all…” I inserted that “Hey, y’all.” That’s me.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: It’s automatically how I start a greeting.
Andrew: There was no hello here. There’s no hello.
Laura: No, there’s… I know, and so I substituted it. I didn’t even intend to do it. Anyway.
Andrew: Oh, that is hilarious.
Micah: Meanwhile, Thomas is from London or Australia.
Laura: I know. Thomas, you’re probably not from the southern United States, and I apologize.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Meanwhile, I’m reprogramming the feedback form to insert a “Hey, y’all.”
Andrew: I was just thinking this as well, yeah.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Oh my gosh. Okay, so Thomas says,
“Listening to the new reread and I heard a theory that the Dursleys are so mean to Harry because he is a part Horcrux. After all the years with him, he has turned them evil. The trio became mean when they wore the necklace. This may not explain away all the behavior. It’s more of a slow poison, and the people at Hogwarts don’t get enough to be as vitriolic towards him as the Dursleys. There’s lots to extrapolate from this theory.”
I agree. I mean, Harry was in close quarters with them for 11 years.
Eric: Classic victim blaming.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: No, I’m just wondering if the Horcrux that’s in Harry was really a full Horcrux. Remember, it’s kind of like an accidental Horcrux; the scar is there. I think the only person affected by that Horcrux was Harry himself.
Laura: That’s what I wonder too.
Eric: It’s really not the same as a full conscious Lord Voldemort living in an encased thing that wishes to grow and get power. Harry’s scar at no point tries to take even him over; it’s really only a doorway for Voldemort to try and do so. So I think the negative effects… while interesting to consider a different angle about why the Dursleys are so horrible to Harry, I personally fall back on, no, they’re just abusive and horrible people.
Micah: Yeah, the only counterargument I can see to that is in the first chapter we’re introduced to Vernon, and he’s already very much himself. Harry hasn’t been put on his doorstep yet, he’s not in his home, and we get a very good sense for who he is as a person. So I don’t think that Harry necessarily had any real effect on Vernon. Maybe on Petunia, maybe on Dudley, but I don’t see any evidence of that really either.
Laura: And we have to remember, too, when Ron and Hermione were impacted by the Horcrux, they became grouchy, but they did not become mentally and physically abusive towards each other, and I think that’s a key difference too.
Andrew: Right. By the way, exciting news: I have updated the contact form, and now by default, it starts with, “Hey, y’all”!
Laura: Oh my God.
Andrew: Somebody remind me to update this, get rid of this in a week or two. [laughs] But for now, it’s starting with “Hey, y’all”!
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Laura, I love it.
Laura: The next MuggleMail episode is just going to be hearing from people from Ireland and Scotland, and the emails start with “Hey, y’all.”
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: We should also request that anybody who sends a voice memo or leaves a voicemail also begin with “Hey, y’all.”
Eric: Otherwise, we will not accept… we won’t even listen to the rest of your voicemail if you don’t start it with “Hey, y’all.”
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: You know what? Chloe’s pointing something out that I have to agree with: “Hey, y’all” is very inclusive.
Eric: It’s very good. It’s possibly the best thing to come out of the South.
Laura: I agree. Well, apart from biscuits and gravy. Can’t downplay those.
Eric: This next message comes from Kristin. She says, “Listening to MuggleCast 579 where you begin Chapter by Chapter discussing Petunia. I wanted to combine this with one of your other segments: ‘What if?'” Ooh, should we play the “What if?” sound effect? Andrew, do you have it ready?
[“What if?” sound effect plays]
Eric: There we go.
“What if Petunia had magical ability and had been accepted at Hogwarts along with Lily? What would she have been like then (personality-wise)? What would Harry’s future have looked like with an aunt who was wise to the wizarding world’s ways? Do you think she would still be shallow-minded and bigoted, maybe towards Muggles now? Do you think she would feel superiority or shame? Her personality is legitimate trash in the HP world. I wonder if she would have been better if she did have magical ability, or if she still would have exhibited the same negativity and superiority? Would love to hear your take; have a great day.”
Andrew: Yeah, I think she would have been a much happier person. I think the relationship between Petunia and Harry would have been incredible to see. Seeing Petunia be the mentor to Harry as he goes to Hogwarts? I don’t know if Petunia would have been an entirely different person, but I like to think she would have been a much better person, an improved person.
Laura: Yeah. You know what, though? She’s a couple years older than Lily, right? So she would have gone first in this scenario, and I am imagining Petunia with her superiority complex still manifesting that in a way by getting to be a witch first, treating Lily maybe like the annoying younger sister who’s following her everywhere.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: But I think a lot of people grow out of those things, too, so that might have been the possibility for Petunia here. But yeah, she’s…
Micah: Do you think there’s a chance she would have gone Dark?
Eric: Wow.
Laura: Yeah, actually.
Andrew: Oh.
Laura: I mean, she’s so… and again, there’s a lot that we don’t know. What came first, the chicken or the egg? Is her predisposed positive perceptions towards normality something that came because she didn’t get to go to Hogwarts, or is it something that would have existed all the time? I feel like I’m jumbling my words here. But if Petunia had gone to the wizarding world, would she still have formed biases around what was normal and good and what was weird and bad? I think she still would have found opportunities to do that, no matter what environment she was in.
Eric: Possibly.
Micah: I think Kristin raises a good point, and it’s along the lines of what you’re saying, Laura, where she’s asking, “Would she still be shallow-minded and bigoted, but maybe towards Muggles now?”
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Micah: She almost does an about-face.
Laura: Even though she’d be Muggle-born.
Micah: Right.
Eric: Well, I think we can all agree Dudley would have been way different. [laughs]
Andrew: You think so? Like a wizard, for starters?
Eric: I mean, well… yeah, well, possibly a wizard; there’s that too. But just… I think it affects everything. I think it affects her choice in husband, I think that… because Petunia, for us at least, is so defined as the person who lost something who wasn’t able to go to Hogwarts, and her bigoted views are kind of like her answer, how she can explain it to herself why she wasn’t special, is because they’re lesser. The wizards are lesser, and that’s how she… so I see the inciting event happening when Lily turned 11, affecting Petunia’s entire personality and outlook. But no any one person in real life is any one thing or one way, so I do like this whole thought process of what if she still would have turned out poorly?
Micah: It would have been great to have seen a sister showdown: Lily and Petunia versus Bellatrix and Narcissa.
Andrew: Ohh.
Eric: That would have been great.
Laura: I don’t know who would win that one. [laughs]
Andrew: Well, we don’t know how skilled of a witch Petunia would be, so I’m just defaulting to Narcissa and Bellatrix.
Laura: Well, we know more about them, right?
Andrew: Right.
Laura: So it’s the natural choice.
Micah: All right, well, Eric, you may get the answer to your question here, because Ty wants to know what if Dudley became a wizard? So Andrew, I might need that sound effect too. He writes in to say,
“Love the show! Listening to you guys reading Book 1, preparing for the new Chapter by Chapter, and I had a random thought. Maybe you guys have talked about it before when pondering ‘What if?’ scenarios. If so, maybe you can direct me to that episode.”
Don’t worry, Ty, we’re going to do it right now.
“But I was thinking… what if Dudley was also a wizard and received a letter from Hogwarts along with Harry? Would Petunia and Vernon disown him? Would they shift their views? How would that have affected Harry at school? So many fun things to think about.”
[“What if?” sound effect plays]
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I think they would be total hypocrites. I think Petunia would be so excited that Dudley is a wizard and got an acceptance letter.
Micah: Because now she gets to go, kind of.
Andrew: [laughs] In a way! She gets to take him halfway, I guess. Though she does with Harry, too, and she doesn’t seem particularly excited about that.
Eric: Do you think Petunia would be a helicopter parent? She would move to Hogsmeade, and Dudley would meet her for tea every day?
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: That’s an interesting point, though, because Petunia probably could have been Harry’s… chaperone? I don’t know what the right word is.
Eric: Best friend, yeah.
Micah: She could have taken him to get his things in Hogsmeade. If there were opportunities to go to Hogwarts, she probably could have finessed her way in.
Andrew: Parent/teacher days.
Micah: She looked about this entirely the wrong way.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: But I can just see Dudley befriending Draco, and then them… basically Dudley remounting his whole anti-Harry gang, but at Hogwarts with other wizards. And Draco would be there, and probably a bunch of other Slytherins, because of the books, and it wouldn’t be pleasant for Harry.
Micah: I don’t think Vernon would have been okay with this, though.
Andrew: Yeah, I wanted to bring this up too. We have to still keep in mind that Vernon is a huge factor here. We were talking a couple episodes ago; if Vernon wasn’t in the picture, then Petunia may have been a different person. We don’t know how different, but it seems like his opinions on wizards are deeply affecting how Petunia acts in terms of Harry, in terms of the wizarding world on a whole. We know Petunia has her own reasons to be bitter about the wizarding world, but I still think if Vernon wasn’t in the picture, things would be different for Petunia.
Laura: Well, and it seems like Petunia really lets Vernon drive both physically and metaphorically throughout the whole beginning of this book.
Andrew: Yes.
Laura: So the choice to do all of these crazy things around the house – like boarding up the mail slot on the door, driving off in random directions to try and lose whatever trace is on them so the letters can keep reaching Harry, the choice to go stay on this rocky island in the middle of a storm – those are all Vernon’s choices, and I feel like it’s clear when you read it that Petunia and Dudley are not crazy about what’s happening, but they’re letting it happen because Vernon is the decider, right? So I think that it would have been really hard for Petunia to do a 180, and then to get Vernon to do the same thing.
Eric: My read on their relationship – I think I said this a few chapters ago – was that Petunia drives, actually. Vernon is bigoted, and Vernon does take steps to further that himself, but I think he defers to her almost on every matter. We see that when he’s afraid to talk to her coming home from work in Chapter 1 of the books; he doesn’t want to bring it up because it would upset his wife. I think that she’s perfectly happy to let him take the family to a hut on the rock or board up the mailbox because it means she’s not the one being bigoted; I think she’s trying to maintain a level of deniability about her own horribleness. But I think that if she were to try and get Vernon to come around on Dudley being a wizard, I think it would be problematic because he would look at her and go, “But wait, what? This whole time you felt totally differently. What’s going on?” And whether or not their marriage would survive is another topic entirely.
Laura: Yeah, it would definitely be hard on the marriage. But we also get to spend quite a bit of time in Vernon’s head and seeing his perspective in Chapter 1, and the way he regards anything slightly abnormal, to me, implies that he would not be easily won over if his son were to receive a letter from Hogwarts. It would take quite a bit of finesse to get him there, in my opinion.
Micah: I agree.
Laura: But you’re right; he doesn’t want to upset Petunia. That’s a big part of it.
Micah: No, he doesn’t. But I think you’re definitely right, Laura. You see almost a fear start to develop, particularly in Dudley, as they start to experience Vernon losing his mind a little bit over this entire situation.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And you can say that Petunia is the one who’s in control initially, but I feel like once things start to get real, and the letters show up and everything that follows, that’s when Vernon’s neuroses really start to kick in, and he starts to do things that scare even his wife and his child. So I think he would be gone. I think he would leave if, in fact, Dudley turned out to be a wizard. He’s not there for it.
Laura: Yeah, I could see him saying, “You’re no son of mine,” and just dipping out.
Eric: Oh, God. Wow. Okay. [laughs]
Micah: And then we find out that Dudley is actually Snape’s.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: Snape’s love child.
Micah: There’s probably a fanfiction.
Laura: I’m sure there is.
Eric: Twist.
Andrew: So let’s get to our next email. This is from Anna. She says,
“Hello, I just have some thoughts on Chapters 1-3 on Chapter by Chapter. Firstly, I have always thought that the letters from Hogwarts were potentially sent by house-elves. I think that would work for a few reasons. They don’t need to cook in the summer and need something to fill their time, as they don’t get holidays (sorry, Hermione!). We know that house-elves are able to locate Harry because of Dobby visiting Privet Drive, and I can imagine house-elves being very specific about the address and being determined to do the job, so they send more and more letters.”
I like that theory.
“Also, you discussed how the wizards found out the news of Voldemort’s disappearance in Chapter 1, and actually, we are told in Deathly Hallows that wizards used radio to communicate, as Potterwatch is based on the communication from Voldemort’s first rise to power. Finally, on a personal note, I’m a pediatrician in the UK and do a lot of work in terms of safeguarding, so I really hope Harry’s abuse wouldn’t go unnoticed if it happened now! Thank you for the podcast. Anna, Hufflepuff.”
All well said. Thank you, Anna.
Laura: And thank you for your work.
Micah: I think further evidence, too, is in Chamber of Secrets, Dobby is responsible for Harry not getting his post, so maybe the house-elves do have some kind of control over that.
Laura: Yeah. Well, and he even blocks Platform Nine and Three Quarters so Harry and Ron literally cannot get on the train.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: It does kind of ring true of it being elf… not humor, but elf magic. That’s the consequences of elf magic having a humorous tint, the way that the letters keep changing addresses and things like that. So I do wonder if he wasn’t spied on by some elves.
Micah: It’s also extremely tedious work, and we know that in this series, house-elves are treated the equivalent of slaves.
Andrew: It’s tedious, and it’s also work that needs to be done quietly. You look at Harry’s situation; the letters have to be delivered to a Muggle neighborhood, so you have to do that without being noticed.
Laura: All right, our next email comes from Kyle, who’s in touch to talk about punishment in schools in the UK. I think this was based on a question I might have asked a couple weeks ago. Kyle says, “Hey everyone, listener since Episode 2.” Wow. Kyle is an OG, y’all.
Andrew: Nice.
Laura: Kyle says,
“Loved the Chapter by Chapter reboot. Just worth noting that in the UK, corporal punishment wasn’t banned from state-run schools until 1986, just five years before our story. It continued to be legal in private schools until 1998. Remember Marge asking to make sure they use the cane at St. Brutus’s? It was not uncommon for prefects to cane or swat (with leather) misbehaving students at this time in private schools. As for corporal punishment in the home, it still isn’t explicitly illegal in the UK, and is still fairly accepted. That makes the visible neglect quite a bit harder to prove as abuse. The UK also has no duty to report/mandatory reporter laws for educators. Thanks for everything you do, and I massively appreciate all the adult-lens discussion of Harry’s childhood.”
Well, this is great perspective and explains a lot.
Eric: Sure does.
Andrew: Yeah. Thank you, Kyle.
Laura: Thank you for getting in touch.
Andrew: So those are our Chapter by Chapter emails, and now we have some other MuggleMail.
Eric: This one comes from Jerri, and it’s about love potions. “Hey, y’all…” I inserted that.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: “65-year-old Hufflepuff, HP fan since Prisoner of Azkaban was published.”
Well, that’s real cool.
“In response to the comments about females being the only/major users of love potions or other forms of extorted ‘love’ in the HP world, what about the Lestrange who forces Laurena Kama to leave her husband and child to live with him and produce Leta in Fantastic Beasts? It seems he used the Imperius Curse rather than a love potion, but the result was much the same. And it was a man doing it. The end result, Leta, seems to show that a child born of a forced relationship (like Tom Riddle the younger) may well be damaged, but can make choices to try to be good. Leta might have acted in a way that resulted in the death of her baby brother, but that was not her intent (and he might well have died anyway). Other than that, she seems to have tried to avoid the Dark side. Or Theseus and Newt wouldn’t have both cared for her.”
That’s a great point, Jerri.
Andrew: A really great point.
Laura: Yeah, it is, and it’s interesting to see depictions of this in the wizarding world kind of evolve over time. When we talked about love potions, I think we were talking specifically about the books, but this could be an example of Wizarding World as a franchise trying to evolve on topics of diversity and inclusion, and making sure that we’re not stereotyping people on the basis of race and gender, which is a good thing. But it is interesting to me that if Leta’s father uses the Imperius Curse, that something different results with her as a person than would have resulted potentially from her being conceived of via love potion? Or is the takeaway here just that people who are conceived without consent are just doomed in one way or another? Is that what we’re supposed to believe?
Eric: Under this writing, yes.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: It seems that way. But it’s definitely… I think the issue comes with that now famous answer that Lord Voldemort couldn’t love even if he wanted to because of the love potion. I think while that is a good zing and makes you feel certain things hearing that, I think it undercuts the potential for Voldemort to be seen as somebody who just chose to be evil and could have not. And so I would go back to that decision in the writing as sort of being the point of no return for other characters, now we’re seeing Leta, who also were born in similar circumstances, but who changed to be good. I don’t know why Voldemort should be special as far as all that goes.
Laura: Because he’s the main protagonist of the core seven books.
Eric: The main antagonist?
Laura: Oh, yeah, excuse me.
Eric: Well, don’t make him so…
Micah: But he hugs. He’s a hugger.
Eric and Laura: He’s a hugger, yeah.
Andrew: We’ve spoken before about the newer works and writing improving some of the criticisms we’ve had in the past – see the love potion example – and this is one of my favorite examples of how the newer works are improving the original story. Featuring a Hufflepuff in Fantastic Beasts, or putting Albus Severus in Slytherin. These things are just improving the overall health of the wizarding world, if you ask me. Filling in some gaps, some disappointments here and there.
Laura: Yeah. It’s just… I mean, what’s disappointing about it, though, is that work like this was done to try and improve and future-proof Wizarding World for the 21st century, but the story left so much to be desired that we’re not going to get any more of that, probably, at least in the Fantastic Beasts world. So it just kind of feels like they had a lot of really positive changes in mind, but maybe didn’t have a strong enough story to support this franchise and the ability to continue expanding the tent, really, of who all can be a wizard and who all is capable of what.
Andrew: There will be more opportunities, though.
Laura: Yeah, there will.
Andrew: Max that!
[Laura laughs]
Micah: It seems like, though, there just wasn’t the opportunity to be able to tell Leta’s story more, because even in as much as how she feels about herself… because doesn’t she say to Newt, “You’ve never met a beast you couldn’t love”? So that tells you a lot about how she thinks of herself, and I wonder if this ties back to any of the email that Jerri sent in here. The only thing that I kind of disagree with is the last point that Theseus or Newt wouldn’t have both cared for her, because that then puts the onus on them as opposed to her, so I just… I don’t know about that part of it. I still think they could have cared for her regardless.
Laura: Especially Newt. Theseus seems a little more buttoned up to me, and I could see him not even wanting to engage with someone that he perceived to be bad, whereas I can see Newt taking a more nuanced approach to it and wanting to crack that exterior and kind of figure out more about the person, so I could see him leading with some empathy there.
Micah: All right. Well, our next email comes from Rachel, who has a question about the Elder Wand. She says, “Hey, MuggleCast!” Not “Hey, y’all,” but “Hey, MuggleCast.” “I’ve been playing catchup from the last month or two, and on Episode 569, y’all…”
Laura: Yeah!
Micah: “… are talking about burning questions from Book 7. Y’all talk about…” These are actually in here; I’m not making this up.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: “… how Harry should have kept the Elder Wand instead of putting it back in Dumbledore’s grave. If Harry had kept it, in Cursed Child, he would have gone back in time with it to when he was a baby. At that time, Dumbledore was the owner of the wand. I was wondering what if the owner of the wand went back in time and dueled a previous owner of the wand? What would happen? The same wand dueling itself with two true owners? Just a thought.
Keep up the good work with the pod! I’ve loved listening for the past couple years.”
Laura: Oooh, this is a good question. I wonder if the same rules apply to wands. We hear when it comes to traveling back in time using the Time-Turner, you’re supposed to stay discreet. You’re not supposed to be seen.
Andrew: Right.
Laura: Which is already a problem for adult Harry going back in time to when he was baby Harry. I wonder if the same is true for wands, that the same wand would not be able to fight itself, or something would go terribly wrong if you tried. Seems like a recipe for disaster.
Andrew: Yeah, this is why we don’t mess with time travel.
Micah: Also, why would Harry duel Dumbledore?
[Laura laughs]
Micah: That would be an odd matchup.
Eric: Revenge, much overdue.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: He’s like, “Why weren’t you my parents’ Secret Keeper?”
Andrew: “You liar!”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: “Why didn’t you raise me?”
Micah: I actually watched that last night, Andrew. I thought of you.
Andrew: Oh, the Sorcerer’s Stone movie?
Micah: I was missing the part that came before it, though. I was expecting that in the movie, and it never happened.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Andrew: “Harry, trust me. Trust me, please.” Okay, this next email actually kind of ties into something we were talking about earlier in regards to Vernon and Petunia. This is from Katie on Narcissa Malfoy.
“Hello! I loved your discussion of indefensible and interesting characters. I wanted to add an angle to Narcissa that I think was overlooked. To me, the Malfoy family represents the old-fashioned and traditional family dynamic. The husband is the head of the household and guides the family. Narcissa would be the dutiful wife that is responsible for keeping house and raising the children in the view that her husband says is best. Although we know she did advocate for Draco, she would otherwise be expected to be 100% supportive of her husband, his wishes, and his endeavors, as that is what a good wife should do. We know she carries the same prejudice as Lucius, but we never know if they’re on the same level. I would also question how much she actually knows about her husband’s daily business beyond him being a powerful player. Then when Lucius goes to Azkaban, she and Draco are thrust into a new world they only barely knew about, all while Draco is also now suddenly the man of the house. I think both of their arcs start to shift in this time, but curve at different intervals throughout the remainder of the story. All of this to say, she likely hasn’t been her own person for a long time, and only in desperation does she do something to protect her son (Unbreakable Vow and saving Harry). As a mother myself, I respect her love for her child and the desire to protect him, but I also pity Narcissa for allowing herself to be such a follower. But it’s also what makes her so fascinating to me. Love the discussions, please keep up the great work! Katie King, Ravenclaw.”
So yeah, getting back to what I was saying before reading this email, this is describing the Petunia/Vernon dynamic as well, if you ask me.
Eric: That’s interesting. I think of Narcissa as being a person who enjoys the luxury that their union with their spouse has attained them.
Andrew: Yeah, the wealth. The social network, maybe.
Eric: Yeah, the wealth, and I’m sure they have designer rugs in the…
Andrew: [laughs] Designer rugs.
Eric: Fur coats, that kind of a thing. And at least that’s Harry’s impression at the Quidditch World Cup. I think he says to Draco that “Your mom looks like she has dung up her nose” or something, because she’s always just too good for the world. So there’s a possibility that there was a lot of comfort in her husband bringing home the bacon, and not so many scruples as to what it meant that they were turning into. But when Lucius is carted off to Azkaban, things do change, and her social status is not as protected as it was once before. So you do see her lashing out or having to come to terms with their newfound status, and also she kind of clutches closer to what’s hers, including her son.
Laura: Yeah. We have to remember what Sirius says, too, in Order of the Phoenix: “The world is not divided into good people and Death Eaters.” There are a lot of Death Eater sympathizers who themselves are not Death Eaters, and I think that we can look at Narcissa’s relationship with her sisters too, right? Bellatrix is obviously the more overtly extreme of the sisters, but Narcissa is someone who is happy to follow along in so far as it benefits her. The second that it no longer benefits her, and she becomes a target for this movement that she’s followed all these years, she’s happy to turn coat and make sure her son survives, which I agree is commendable, but she is representative of the kind of person – and you can look at historical events to find examples, real life examples of people like this – who are all for a movement until that movement is no longer advantageous for them, and I think that’s Narcissa.
Micah: Yeah, and it’s important to remember, going off your point, Laura, where she comes from too. She’s part of a family that is very much one of those old wizarding families, and she marries into another old wizarding family. So a lot of what we see from her could be based on how she was raised.
Laura: Agreed. All right, our next email comes from Sherry, who is writing about Lupin. Sherry says, “Hi MuggleCast! I despise Lupin.”
[Eric gasps]
Laura: “To me, as a blind/disabled person, I thought Lupin could be a positive representation of disability. He was a huge disappointment. I remember all the fanfics after Book 3 and then after Book 5 had Lupin stepping up and practically becoming another father figure to Harry. It didn’t happen. Lupin was pretty much gone after Book 3, with a brief entrance at the beginning and end of 5, and then end of 6, and then his horrible behavior in Deathly Hallows. His woe-is-me, I’m-a-bad-werewolf, unworthy of acceptance by normal society, self-pitying attitude was disgusting. It made me feel ashamed of him. And then when he wanted to abandon his wife and unborn child, claiming James would have wanted that, I’m with Harry. I don’t believe James would have wanted Lupin to abandon his wife and child. His behavior is cowardly and extreme. There’s no positive way to spin it. If his child would have been a werewolf, which seems ludicrous when you remember that you have to be bitten to become one, then he should have been ready to stay by his wife and be prepared to help his child if the worst happened. It seems I’m the only Lupin despiser in the world. If you ever do have a Lupin-focused episode, I’d love to be on to be the voice of anti-Lupin people.”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Ah, this is a great email.
Eric: Oh my God.
Laura: So I have to… so Sherry, when it comes to the representation of Lupin in Book 7, I agree. I remember when we talked about this, I had so many problems with it, and I agree; there’s no way that you can positively spin his suggestion that he go camping with the trio and abandon his pregnant wife.
Andrew: Yeah, I mean, we were shaming Lupin for that. And I totally understand where you’re coming from, Sherry. You want positive representation of a disability in Harry Potter, and you didn’t get it with him because he’s being weak and making very bad choices. So I see your frustration. It’s an interesting angle that I really hadn’t thought of before, because there’s lots of reasons to love Lupin, too, as we’ve discussed over the years.
Eric: I tend to black out or blot out the second half trajectory of Lupin’s character. It is important, but I always think that it just didn’t happen. It’s not canon to me. [laughs] But I think what we really could have used, because the character was done, I think, a disservice in the writing… I was talking about this email with Meg last night, and she said, “You know what we needed, really, at some point was a ‘Lupin’s Tale’ chapter,” kind of like how we got “Hagrid’s Tale,” but to hear Lupin’s side of just where the heck he was in Book 5, Book 6, how things were going. He ostensibly was working with the werewolves to get them to not join Voldemort’s side. How is that going? What is that like? I think literally anything that comes close to the level of detail of what Hagrid was up to, which is not as consequential to the plot, I think was owed, especially due to the fact that Lupin is such an important character, both to Harry and throughout the course of Book 3, and we just never got it. He’s kind of sidelined and shoved into the back of these books, and I don’t think it’s fair, because when he was with Harry, when he was actively engaging with Harry and his wellbeing, he had the potential to be the best character in the whole series.
Laura: I think it’s also potentially a commentary on absent fathers. When you think about the choices that Lupin has to make, there’s no limit to his bravery when it comes to advocating against Death Eaters, against Voldemort, but it seems like he gets cold feet when there’s a baby in the picture, which is very interesting, and I think there’s some real life parallels that we can draw there around people not having fear over making certain big life changes, but as soon as there’s a pregnancy, as soon as there’s a child in the picture, then it all becomes more complicated, and they can sometimes get scared. I’m not a parent, so there’s probably some perspective that I am lacking here, but I would be interested to hear from people who are parents on this nuance, because it could help us unlock a little more context about what happened here with Lupin. I think that just enriches the discussion.
Micah: Yeah, and I know I’ve said many times Lupin is one of my favorite characters, and it makes you think when you get an email like this from Sherry because there are things about him that we don’t often talk about, and I think she does a really good job positioning them. But I don’t know that there is a character that goes off in the way that Lupin does after the Book 3 introduction. We’re so endeared to him as a character. Maybe Dumbledore is another good example, because we’re meant to have such high expectations of him as a character throughout pretty much the entire series up until Deathly Hallows, and then it’s kind of like the wool gets pulled off our eyes and we see him for who he truly is. But I don’t know if it’s the same with Lupin. I don’t know. Maybe we do need to do an episode on him at some point in the future.
Andrew: Yeah, I think so.
Laura: Unanswered questions about Lupin.
Andrew: Well, and I’m sure once we get to Prisoner of Azkaban in our Chapter by Chapter series, we’ll be spending a lot of time with Lupin as well. Discussing Lupin, I mean.
Micah: I’m sure we’ll say good things about him at that point, though.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: I was going to say, sorry, Sherry, the first 16 chapters are going to be very praising of him.
Andrew: Well, we’ll try to keep this email and the later context in mind as we’re discussing him.
Eric: Yeah. He does enable a lot of Sirius and James’s negative antics, because he just wants to be loved and in friendship with these people. So that’s not cool. All right, moving on in our extensive mailbag, we have this email from Maddie. She says,
“Hi MuggleCast! I have really wanted to email you about this for a while, but I’m just now actually doing it. It might be kinda controversial, but here we go: I really think Dumbledore should be a Slytherin. The way he manipulates everyone for the greater good I think is a very Slytherin thing to do. Also, when he was Sorted was before he started suppressing his ambition for power, another Slytherin quality. It would also be great for Slytherin overall to have a mostly good character in it. We wouldn’t hate Slytherin as much! And when Dumbledore says, ‘We Sort too soon,’ he could mean that he thinks he should be in Slytherin? That’s kinda reaching, but it’s a possibility. Anyways, thanks for reading this! I love your podcast!”
Andrew: Aww.
Eric: Well, Andrew, as a Slytherin – as our resident Slytherin – what do you think?
Andrew: Yes, as the Slytherin here, I absolutely agree with this idea. I would love to have Dumbledore in Slytherin House. I think it’s well reasoned. And I think I wanted to bring this up last week when we were talking about the Sorting: There should be an opportunity to re-Sort. Maybe year three or year four, you apply, the Sorting Hat goes on your head again, he takes another look. I think there should be an opportunity to be re-Sorted because you’re growing up pretty quick in Hogwarts, and it’s unfair to be Sorted into a House seconds into stepping into the school for the first time, not knowing how you’re going to be Sorted, by the way. So yeah, I’m all for this, and Dumbledore, we would be more than happy to have you.
Laura: I could see Dumbledore being a Hatstall, similar to Harry. I could see him choosing to be in Gryffindor.
Eric: I could see him as a Ravenclaw, also, for all the heady work that he’s done. You know what? I think his… my new headcanon is that Dumbledore’s Hatstalliness and his House percentages are just like Rohan’s last week. 67% Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and Slytherin, and definitely not Hufflepuff.
Micah: All right, our last email comes from Dylan. He says,
“I’ve been doing a reread recently of the books and I had a thought that never crossed my mind until now: Why the hell wasn’t Dobby asked to be a part of the Order of the Phoenix? I mean, he can do absolutely brilliant magic, and he is about as loyal a character as any in the series. I don’t think anyone could argue that he wasn’t more worthy than Mundungus, and Dobby definitely wouldn’t have abandoned Mad-Eye in a tense situation!”
Andrew: I wonder what Hermione would think of this, putting an elf into a feud between wizards. I’m not sure she would be a huge fan of it. It is a cool idea, though.
Micah: Diversity.
Laura: Well, it also it speaks to, again – we’ve discussed this before – Hermione’s heart is in the right place, but sometimes when she talks about house-elves, it’s very clear that she thinks that they want things that maybe they don’t want. She assigns a value to what she thinks house-elves should want, and I could see her in this case saying, “Well, this is abuse. We can’t put him in this circumstance.” But what if Dobby really wanted to be in the Order of the Phoenix? I think he would be.
Micah: Oh, he would be all about it.
Laura: I think he would burst into tears if he was asked to join the Order.
Micah: Being asked, yeah. And when I said diversity, though, this is… if you look back at Order of the Phoenix, right? The fountain that comes together to defend what’s going on in the atrium, right? We see that materialize over the course of the last few books, and there’s this expectation that the house-elves are going to join the fight, the centaurs are going to join the fight, the goblins are going to join… and I think, what better way to do that than to allow all of them, if they wanted to, to join something like the Order of the Phoenix?
Laura: Because even good wizards and good people have unconscious bias. Yeah, it’s really messed up.
Eric: I mean, I think that Dobby could take a wizard in a fight if he were so inclined.
Laura: I mean, look at what he does right before his death in Book 7. He’s very crafty.
Micah: Is it fair to say, though, that he does kind of unofficially join the Order? Because he is working with Aberforth, and Aberforth is part of the Order.
Laura: I think that Aberforth and others are happy to use Dobby, but he doesn’t get his official Order of the Phoenix member card.
Micah: He’s got a portrait in the Hog’s Head now.
Andrew: All right, well, that is MuggleMail. Next week on the show, we will be discussing Chapters 9 and 10 of Sorcerer’s Stone, which are “The Midnight Duel” and “Halloween.” Perfect timing with Halloween approaching.
Eric: Ohh.
Andrew: If you have any feedback about today’s MuggleMail or next week’s chapters, you can send an owl to MuggleCast@gmail.com, or use the new and improved contact form on MuggleCast.com to send a voice message.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: “Hey, y’all!” Laura, you think we’re teasing you; we’re really not. I loved that moment. That was great.
Laura: Oh, I love it too, and I mean, our emails are just… they’re all about to feel 20% friendlier, which I’m really looking forward to.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: I can’t wait to see how many people actually keep that versus how many people delete it. [laughs]
Eric: Oh, you gave them the option to remove it from the contact form? Augh.
Andrew: Well, yeah, I mean, it’s still in the form.
Eric: Okay, okay.
Laura: Yeah, I mean, look at this. Hey y’all… Poop Mountain…
Andrew: We’re trendsetters here.
Eric: We have to develop next year’s stickers for the Collector’s Club, so there’s two of them.
Andrew: Oh yeah, just one that says “Hey, y’all.” [laughs]
Eric: And then one that says Poop Mountain.
Andrew: Oh, God.
Micah: There needs to be a Poop Mountain sticker.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: That one I will not put on my water bottle.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: To send a voice message… oh, and by the way, patrons, the wands and the Collector’s Club stuff should be going out very soon, so we can’t wait to see those hitting your doorsteps. To send a voice message to the show, 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.
Quizzitch
Andrew: And now it’s time for some Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: All right, everybody, here it is, the hardest question I think we’ve asked to date. So hard that it even stumped me, and if it weren’t for one of our people writing in, I would have been confused and gotten it wrong. The question is: According to Book 1, if you’re in the Great Hall facing the staff table, from left to right, what is the order in which the Houses are seated? Well, the correct answer – and here it is – from left to right, if you’re facing the staff table, it goes Hufflepuff, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and then Gryffindor.
Andrew: Oh, wow.
Eric: On page 119 of Book 1, Harry talks about each of the tables as students are being Sorted; Hufflepuff are on the far right, etc., etc., etc. But three pages earlier, on page 116, it is said that the students are actually put up at the front of the Great Hall, facing their fellow students, so their backs are turned towards the staff table. So everything Harry recounts is actually inverted and backwards, in addition to the tables already not being anything like the movie. So this was a super, super difficult Quizzitch question, and only eight people got it right, and they were – congratulations, for a thousand Quizzitch points – Duuuval Ravenclaw, Rabbit out of the Sorting Hat, Jua Shmooa, Bort Voldemort, Micah Is Not My Real Dad, Elizabeth K., Diplomat Snail, and Quizzical Yet Quickly Querulous Cat. And Quizzical Yet Quickly Querulous Cat was the person who reiterated that the students are actually facing backwards, versus how they are in the movie.
Andrew: House points to you for saying that name so well, too, Eric. That sounds like a tongue twister.
Eric: It’s Quizzical Yet Quickly Querulous Cat. Congratulations to those who submitted, and thanks to everyone for trying. Next week’s Quizzitch question: In one of their very first History of Magic classes, which two famous wizards do the students in Harry’s class get mixed up? That one’s a little bit easier. Submit your answer to us via the Quizzitch form on MuggleCast.com. You can click “Quizzitch” on the main nav, or go to MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch.
Andrew: Don’t forget that coming up on bonus MuggleCast on our Patreon this week, we’re going to be discussing Alan Rickman’s diary entries about filming Harry Potter, many of which were pretty critical, and it sounds like he didn’t want to be there through the entire series. Kind of a bummer. So we’ll talk about this, and the shade he was throwing at a lot of the cast and crew.
Eric: I think he’s just a man, Andrew. I think he’s just a guy. [laughs]
Andrew: We’ll discuss it at Patreon.com/MuggleCast this week. Also, make sure you’re following the show for free in your favorite podcast app, so you never miss an episode. New episodes are released every Tuesday. And leave us a review if they allow you to. Also, don’t forget to follow us on social media; we are MuggleCast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Laura and Micah: Bye.
Andrew and Eric: Bye, y’all!