Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #582, Have a Broomstick, Potter (Sorcerer’s Stone, Chapters 9-10)
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 Chapter by Chapter continues this week, but first, we do have a little bit of news.
News
Andrew: And it’s kind of some sad news about the Harry Potter Illustrated Edition series. I guess I should call it the original Illustrated Edition series.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: The illustrator Jim Kay, who has illustrated Books 1 through 5 – Book 5 actually comes out this week – has announced he’s stepping down from continuing to illustrate this original illustrated series. He’s leaving due to mental health reasons. He said,
“When I received a phone call back in 2013 with an offer of an illustration job, I could never have anticipated the impact it would have upon my life. I am extremely lucky to have been involved in a franchise that has meant so much to so many people across the world. [After ten years, I’m stepping down.] I have been struggling with mental health illness for some time, and it would be wrong to try and continue when I can no longer give the fans and the series the full commitment and energy it deserves. What comforts me is the knowledge that Bloomsbury will continue working with and supporting other artists to make the remaining books both beautiful and inspiring for new generations of young readers.”
So yeah, the next two books will be illustrated by somebody else. A bummer that he’s going through this, but also totally understandable that he needs to step down.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, here’s the thing: I really respect this announcement, and he’s talking about putting his health first and doing this after so many years of loving to do what he did for the fans. But I would have just accepted “It was a lot of art for a very long time” as a reason for stepping down.
Andrew: “I’m done. Peace.”
Eric: He did so much art. If you pick up these books, and I’m sure all of us have, it’s astonishing how much work he’s done. So really just bravo, sir. Take care of yourself. Thank you for all of the hard work.
Laura: Agreed. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Micah: And I was just looking this up; he is only 48 years old, and I think I have… we may all do this. We associate Jim Kay with Jim Dale, who is a little bit older.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And I actually thought Jim Kay was older as well. But yeah, it’s really sad to hear this news, and I hope that he does take care of himself. He’s done an amazing service to the Harry Potter fan community. These books, as we’ve said, are beautifully illustrated, and whoever is following him has a very big task to fill.
Andrew: Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how close they’re going to try to get to Jim Kay to continue on, because I would like to see it look similar to what he’s already created, just for consistency’s sake. But yeah, I cannot imagine committing ten years to basically one project. Sure, they’re different books, but you’re in the world of Harry Potter for ten years, and you’re kind of stuck there. And I’m sure it’s not easy working with Bloomsbury. [laughs] I’m sure they have a world of corrections and suggestions for him, so that was probably a huge pain in the butt. So I don’t blame him for a second. Maybe the writing was on the wall, because with Order of the Phoenix, it’s actually co-illustrated by somebody else, so maybe they already were transitioning.
Eric: I think that’s probably likely.
Andrew: Yeah. They haven’t announced who the next illustrator will be, but maybe it’s this person who worked with Jim Kay on Order of the Phoenix. So yeah, like I said, Order of the Phoenix does come out this week. I’ve been blown away since Book 1, and I look forward to looking at Order of the Phoenix later this week. That’s my favorite Harry Potter book, so I’m very, very excited for that one. A little bit of housekeeping before we jump into Chapter by Chapter. This is for Apple Podcasts users, another reminder: 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 maybe you prefer to just stick within the Apple Podcasts app and support us that way, and that’s cool. And if you do that, we’ll hook you up with no more advertising, and you’ll get each new episode of MuggleCast on Mondays instead of Tuesdays. Hashtag #MuggleCastMondays. So just tap into the show, and you’ll see that subscribe button. There’s also an annual subscription, and you’ll receive a little discount if you want to sign up for a year upfront, so thank you. No matter how you support us, whether it’s just listening, whether it’s using our sponsors, whether it’s through Patreon, Apple Podcasts, through spreading the word to friends, through leaving reviews… there’s so many ways to support us, and we greatly appreciate all of them, so thank you very much, everybody.
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary (“The Midnight Duel”)
Andrew: And with that, we’re going to get into Chapter by Chapter, and it’s Laura’s turn to take us through a couple chapters.
Laura: All right, y’all. Today we are talking about Chapters 9 and 10, “The Midnight Duel” and “Halloween.” So kicking it off with Chapter 9, let’s start with our Seven-Word Summary. Andrew, you are up.
Andrew: [in an agonized voice] Oh, okay, oh…
Laura: [laughs] You’re welcome.
Andrew: Thank you. Okay.
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Andrew: Draco…
Laura: … challenges…
Eric: … Harry…
Micah: … to…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: … a…
Eric: Oh my God.
Laura: Oh, really? Are we going to do this?
Eric: Let’s do it. Let’s do it. Let’s follow… let’s see this through.
Laura: Okay.
Eric: Come on.
Laura: … midnight…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Yes, yes!
Laura: I hate this.
Micah: … fake-out.
Laura: Oh! There we go. There we go. Micah, you saved that. [laughs]
Andrew: That actually… yeah, that wins. Hey, look, it just happened to fit perfectly into the Seven-Word Summary.
Laura: Yeah, it did. It did. I saw it coming together halfway through, and I was like, “Oh no, we’re literally just doing that.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion (“The Midnight Duel”)
Laura: All right, well, getting into this chapter, there are a couple of key themes that I identified, and the first one I want to talk about is core memories from school. I think that we’ve been picking up on a lot of this, reading these books through the lens of being adults who are 20 plus years beyond our schooling days, and the first thing I wanted to chat about is Harry and Parvati both speaking up for Neville when Draco and other Slytherins begin making fun of him. This is after he accidentally takes off on his broom during flying lessons, falls, and breaks his wrist, and Madam Hooch has to take him to the hospital wing, and leaves the students there with all of their brooms, which we’ll get there in a moment. [laughs] But we see Draco immediately starting to kick off the bullying by saying, “Did you see his face, the great lump?” And I was surprised to see, actually, that Parvati was the first person to jump in here in defense of Neville. I feel like someone like Parvati doesn’t get a ton of fanfare in the books, and I’m trying to recall how they did this in the movie, but I think they immediately jumped to Harry being the one who stepped in instead of showing another character being involved. Is that correct?
Eric: Yeah, I’ve really noticed it hones in on the trio. All the Gryffindors are all there, but as far as who gets the dialogue, it’s usually Ron or Harry.
Laura: Yeah. And I want to chat about speaking up for someone here in a moment, but first, we have a security nightmare alert here we have to chat about. Flying lessons are dangerous enough; why did Madam Hooch…? Or what did she think was going to happen when she left a group of first years unattended with broomsticks?
Eric: Destiny. Absolutely destiny.
[Everyone laughs]
[“It’s starting to sound like a security nightmare!” sound effect plays with sirens]
Eric: Yeah, there had to have been a better way to escort Neville to the… the teacher does not need to leave the class for a broken wrist, especially in the wizarding world.
Micah: I definitely think there’s some negligence going on here, to your point. There are other means of getting Neville to the hospital wing. You could have another student take him; you could have somebody from the hospital wing come and get him. It just seems a poor choice on Madam Hooch’s part to just leave a bunch of first years alone while they’re all trying out something, most of them, for the first time.
Eric: She could have just gotten on her broom and been to the hospital wing and back in 60 seconds. [laughs] Just carry Neville on the broom, get there.
Laura: Couldn’t she have Apparated?
Eric: Not within Hogwarts, right? Or maybe?
Laura: Yeah, but I mean, she’s a professor, right? And Dumbledore Apparates in Hogwarts, so there’s…
Eric: Yeah, but he has to utter those subvocal spells in order to do it.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: You would think, given how dangerous Hogwarts is, and in many cases how dangerous lessons potentially are, they would have some sort of protocols for getting students to the hospital wing, and it’s surely not the teacher brings them directly to the hospital wing. It just doesn’t make sense.
Micah: Right, that doesn’t happen in school. Usually, you get sent with a note by yourself, or somebody else takes you.
Andrew: Yeah, you walk yourself there, right.
Eric: Well, I wouldn’t trust Neville not to get lost. [laughs]
Micah: That’s true too.
Laura: Oh, maybe that’s what Madam Hooch is thinking here. She’s like, “Oh, man, this boy needs all the help he can get.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: And leaving students behind is bad enough in most classrooms at Hogwarts, but a field, and they’re sitting right in front of brooms that they can fly away on, potentially fall off to their death… it’s a horrible choice by Hooch.
Eric: That is a great point that reminds me there were no protection spells discussed. Okay, so if you do go very high up, what happens if you slip? If you fall? Or is there any way of preventing yourself from death if your flying doesn’t go as planned? Because we see with Neville’s, he’s really not even accidentally willing it to go higher. It just is. To an untrained wizard… and they’re 11. This is like giving 11-year-olds the keys to your car, where they’re not yet tall enough to see over the dashboard. Kind of a situation where there should have been many more lessons. I think this is the only flying lesson we get in all of the books, and yeah, I feel like there could have been better precautions for all of this.
Laura: I tend to agree. I mean, there’s the fact that… I mean, we were all this age once, and we remember what it was like when our teachers left the classroom, and they would very sternly tell us, “No funny business, be quiet,” and what happened the second they were out of the room?
Eric: Spitballs.
Andrew: [laughs] Right.
Laura: It was bananas in there every time. So I feel like this would have been easy to predict.
Micah: The simplest thing would have just been “Class dismissed.”
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Micah: But that’s too easy.
Eric: But they only get one flying lesson, and it’s only been five minutes. [laughs]
Micah: Well, I think that’s really just because Harry goes on to play Quidditch, so it would’ve been redundant to have flying lessons.
Eric: That’s the real point, is the more you look at it, the only reason this exists in the book is to set Harry up for his Quidditch journey, because I really don’t think… apart from maybe in the Room of Requirement when they have to use brooms to escape in Book 7, I can’t think of another instance where another character that we know really uses brooms later, so it’s a lot of plot… or a lot of class for just this one thing.
Laura: Yeah, and it’s also surprising to me that the brooms, especially for an initial flying lesson at a school, wouldn’t have some kind of charm on them to limit how far and how high they could fly to prevent something like what happened to Neville from happening in the first place.
Andrew: Yeah. And on a related note, if Hooch does have to walk away, she just waves her wand, and the brooms are locked down. They can’t be used by anybody, because they are student brooms.
Laura: Or she sends them to Poop Mountain.
Andrew: Evanesco all of them.
Laura: [laughs] That was definitely fun to chat about. We know, of course, to Eric’s point, the whole point of the setup here is to get Harry on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and for him to discover the ease with which flying comes to him, right? But thinking back about this moment where Harry and Parvati are standing up for Neville, even when Neville is not there, right? I think it would be super easy, thinking back to being that age… if somebody’s being made fun of and they’re not there to defend themselves, I tend to remember a lot of silence coming from other students in my class.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Laura: So I’m wondering if we can remember a time where we either spoke up for someone, or when someone spoke up for us.
Andrew: I kind of regret to say I don’t remember speaking up for people at any time, but I was also bullied quite a bit in elementary and middle school, in particular, so I was the one who needed speaking up for. [laughs] But what I remember is school being very cliquey, we all had our own circles, and everybody just kind of kept to themselves in those circles, so you didn’t really see a lot of speaking out for other people for that reason. And in terms of what makes speaking out so hard, I think you just don’t want to rock the boat. You don’t want people to turn on you or start making fun of you, so you just stay in your lane. I’m sure there are kids in every school who do speak up, and we do have younger listeners, so maybe let’s use this as an opportunity to say, hey, if you ever see anybody being bullied, speak up for them. It might be tough to do in the moment, but it’ll be well worth it.
Micah: Yeah. I think it’s important to remember that these kids are only 11 years old, so to your point, Andrew, it’s actually quite impressive, in my opinion, that Harry and others are actually standing up for Neville. One would think that they would maybe be more inclined to make him the House outcast and even double down on Draco’s bullying. Talked about being silent, but oftentimes other people will jump in because they see an opportunity to not be put down themselves and they join the crowd. For Harry, though, I think why he’s so inclined to stand up for Neville is because he’s been bullied himself for most of his childhood.
Eric: I think it’s personal with Draco as well, the chapter opening with him thinking, “Oh, he never met a boy he hated as much as Dudley until Draco Malfoy.” It’s like very much whatever Malfoy is doing, Harry much wants to do not that. But it is brave, and maybe that’s the whole bravery thing showing forward. I’m sure this happened to me, and I can’t think of an instance where I spoke up, but it reminds me of a song – if anybody wants to cry – called “Caught in the Crowd” by an Australian artist, Kate Miller-Heidke. And look that up; it’s about this exact topic.
Andrew: Okay.
Laura: Cool, will definitely give that a listen. Yeah, I mean, for myself, I only remember… and I regret this; I only have one memory of a time where I stood up for somebody. I definitely remember being stood up for multiple times when I was in school, because like Andrew, I also experienced some bullying, and it can be really hard when you find yourself in that instance to stand up for yourself, so it means a whole lot. It means the whole world, actually, for somebody to stand up for you, especially when you’re not even there to stand up for yourself in the first place. So I agree with Micah’s takeaway here; it’s pretty impressive that these are… I mean, these are really young children who are doing this. Pivoting a little bit here, though, Harry realizes for once in his life that something comes easy to him when he takes off after Draco to try and get Neville’s Remembrall back. “In a rush of fierce joy he realized he’d found something he could do without being taught – this was easy, this was wonderful.” This moment warmed my heart so much because it’s the first time in the book that we see Harry feeling self-assured about something, and I wanted to know: What do we attribute Harry’s natural skill to here? Is it purely because his father was an athlete, or is there something else?
Eric: Destiny, again.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Let’s just push a button now and it’ll just say, “Destiny.”
Micah: It’s all destiny.
Laura: Push a button for destiny?
Eric: It’s a really, really good question. I guess because if you think… if I thought about this earlier, while reading the books in previous iterations, I would have just assumed, “Yeah, some kind of thing in his blood because his dad was a good…” It’s kind of like if you have the right genes to be a doctor or a surgeon or a pilot, some of those same… yeah, it’s discipline, but there is also maybe some kind of ingrown knack for using the same muscles that your family member, your ancestor, did.
Andrew: What’s interesting about Harry’s situation is that he didn’t know that his dad was a good Quidditch player until he got on the broom, and then other people told him he’s just like his father in terms of his skillset, so he didn’t have that thrust where he might have if he knew that ahead of time. I think it is just natural talent carried on from his father. I think that’s awesome. I just think it’s as simple as that.
Micah: He’s also really excited about it before he even gets to flying lessons, so I think there’s something to be said for that. He’s also able to do something that Hermione is not able to do…
Laura: Ooh, great point.
Micah: … and so you can talk about book smarts versus street smarts here. But it’s nice to see something in the wizarding world come natural to Harry, similar to Defense Against the Dark Arts in the third book, because we don’t really get proper instruction in these first two. So it’s also worth noting that in Deathly Hallows, Harry finds a note in Sirius’s room when he’s at Grimmauld Place from Lily thanking Sirius for Harry’s birthday gift, which was in fact a broom, and there’s a picture of Harry riding it. So presumably Harry was a good flyer from very much early on in his life; he just doesn’t remember it.
Eric: Prior to age one.
Andrew: Is this a baby broom? Yeah, what is going on? Why is a small, small, small child allowed to fly? [laughs] Is it like a Fisher-Price thing; it goes six inches off…?
Eric: It’s the toy vibrating… Andrew, you know about this vibrating broomstick.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Oh, I should have brought my broomstick for today’s… let me go get it. Hold on.
Micah: You could have given us flying lessons.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Everybody say, “Up!” Everybody say, “Vibrate!”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: He’s going to bring it. I love this.
Laura: Oh no, he’s actually getting it.
Eric: Think about how many years he talked about owning one of these, and he didn’t have one of these, and then he got one of these.
Laura: I know.
Eric: It’s unbelievable. The unboxing video is on our Patreon, by the way.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: It’s still in the box.
Eric: Oh, he didn’t…? No, I thought he unboxed it.
Micah: Did he put it back? Is he looking to resell it?
Eric: Did you put it back in the box?
Andrew: Yeah, it’s halfway back in the box. Come on, this is a collector’s item. I’ve got to keep the box.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I haven’t actually ridden on it.
[vibrating sound]
Andrew: Oh, the battery still works, though. You hear that?
Eric: Oh, wow.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: I put a new battery in.
[vibrating sound]
Andrew: Wow.
Eric: So that was the broom that Harry had, and it all just comes back to him from there. Yeah, it’s possible his parents taught him some techniques. Oh, I do like the idea that because it feels right for him to sit on it, he is connecting with some kind of deeply repressed subconscious connection to his parents. They were there with him when they put him on his first broom, so maybe there’s something to that. But I just think brooms are cool as hell. If you really think about it, the way that Harry describes this turning at the slightest touch, and it really is more like an extension of his own psyche here to be riding a broom. It just feels right. I think each of us maybe have done something where we’ve had that kind of a connection to something. It’s just intuitive, like an extra sense around a habit.
Laura: Yeah, I tend to agree, and I think if we were to look at studied childhood psychologists, they would say that a lot of what happens in those infant and toddler years before we have conscious memories does have a direct impact on how we interact with and see the world as teenagers and adults and so on. So I think there’s definitely something there. I had a kind of dark thought that made me sad, but I wondered if all that running from Dudley helped.
Andrew: Ooh. [laughs]
Laura: Because Harry, he had to be fast, he had to be strategic, because Dudley was chasing him with his crew of bullies. He had to know where to go, what to say, what to do, and he had to act really, really fast all the time to keep himself out of danger from his cousin.
Andrew: Right, like cut left unexpectedly, cut right to avoid Dudley/Bludgers.
Eric: I agree that would have sharpened his reflexes for sure.
Andrew: Yeah, I wouldn’t call that wrong. I wouldn’t call that a bad theory.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: It could only help him play Quidditch.
Laura: So maybe he goes home that summer and he’s like, “Thanks, Dudley. You and Draco Malfoy really hooked me up this year.” [laughs]
Andrew: “I won the cup thanks to you.”
Laura: Well, what do we think of Professor McGonagall bending the school rules here? In light of Harry’s obvious talent, to be fair.
Eric: [laughs] It’s so interesting because it’s a forced way of showing preferential treatment to Harry, which is nice for him to receive that kind of attention from the school staff, and it does kind of put him right foot forward. He feels real good about this. But yeah, why does that have to be a rule, necessarily? It could just be, again, on merit, yes, it’s highly unusual for 11-year-olds to make a House team, but why does it have to be a rule that is then overcome? Because when McGonagall says, “I’m going to see the headmaster about potentially bending this rule,” is he going to say no?
Andrew: Right.
Eric: Or what makes him say yes? And if it’s just the fact that Gryffindor has lost a bunch of years in a row ever since Charlie Weasley was not a thing…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: … then why would Dumbledore, who’s supposed to be impartial, actually say yes to this? Because it seems like the only thing McGonagall’s got is “Lately Gryffindor has sucked some, and I’m tired of looking at Snape’s oily, self-confident face.”
Andrew: I think she also has “Harry clearly has a lot of talent here. He’ll be able to hold his own on the Quidditch pitch.” That’s probably key. But I do agree that, why is it not okay for a first year, but it’s okay for a second year? They’re both 11 and 12 years old. Quidditch is very dangerous. I don’t think there’s much of a difference there between year one and year two.
Eric: Especially because they’re not riding their broom in the off hours. It’s not like 12-year-olds or second years at Hogwarts have had an entire year to just experience the broomstick in a non-Quidditch but very much safe setting at school. We never see people just riding around on their brooms to have fun, or even borrowing the school brooms to do things. It just doesn’t… presumably it happens maybe in the background, but there’s no real time to practice riding a broom unless you’re a Quidditch player.
Micah: I think Dumbledore says yes because it’s Harry. Let’s be real. I don’t know that he would give a pass to anybody else. He probably feels bad for letting him grow up with the Dursleys, and now here’s a way to kind of give back to Harry and… but at the same time, I do think it sets him up as a bit of a teacher’s pet, as a bit of a favorite. But it is also important to remember, on McGonagall’s end, she’s a former Quidditch player herself, and I think she is very, very competitive when it comes to winning the cup. We talked about when she mentioned Snape and the fact that she couldn’t look at him for a couple of weeks. So this definitely means something to her, and she found her ace in the hole, and I bet she was very convincing in that argument to Dumbledore.
Andrew: Yeah. I would like to think that Dumbledore would allow bending the rules for any student who is showing a lot of talent. And this is a great scene in the book and the movie, by the way. We’re thinking that – and Harry is thinking – that he’s about to be in a lot of trouble, but McGonagall is actually blown away. I really love how this scene plays out. And she even says, “Your father would have been proud.” And I think this is the first time, or one of the first times, we don’t get the impression that McGonagall is stern or stubborn. We’re expecting that from her in this moment, but we don’t get that. We get her, as Micah, you just said, her competitive side, and she’s genuinely excited that Harry is just as talented as his father.
Eric: This is the “Have a biscuit” side of McGonagall…
Laura: It is.
Eric: … only it’s like, “Have a broomstick, Potter.”
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: That’s the name of the episode. “Have a broomstick, Potter.”
Andrew: Oh, yes. Perfect. All right.
Laura: [laughs] No, and I love that we brought up Harry initially thinking he’s going to be in trouble. He has this sort of rush of triumph after he rescues the Remembrall – he beats Malfoy, he shows him up in front of the class – but very clearly, Professor McGonagall seems not pleased in this moment. I think it’s safe to say that she probably isn’t pleased, but she’s also impressed. She strikes me as someone who would be like, “You idiot! Why would you do something like this? But also, good job.”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: If they really did a good job, and I think that’s what we see here. But Harry imagines having to go back to the Dursleys, which is his ultimate fear. It’s a nice juxtaposition to the start of the chapter where Harry notes that he never thought he’d hate someone more than Dudley until he met Draco, but now he’s like, “Oh, crap, I might have to go back to Dudley.” And I’m wondering if any of us ever had a similar heart-stopping experience with a teacher being upset at us, or we thought they were upset with us. Eric, it looks like you’ve got one.
Eric: Yeah, I have one. I’m not happy. I think it involved actually somebody that had been a bully to me at school or something, but was nevertheless a classmate. It was a long time ago, it was like fourth grade, but I still remember the disappointment in my teacher’s voice. I was saying something like, “Oh, you know he’ll…” We were doing some kind of extracurricular activity, and I was suggesting that this person would either cheat or not do the full thing, and the tone shifted, the warmth went out of the air, and all of a sudden, everyone that was right next to me was hundreds of feet away. And the teacher was like, “No one likes a smart aleck.” And I can still hear that voice. I can still hear the disappointment.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: And this was my favorite teacher, possibly of all time, and it still feels like it was yesterday. So yeah, I’ve upset a teacher.
Andrew: And it really hurt you because you want their validation. You want their approval.
Eric: That’s the thing, is the worst thing I ever could have done was disappoint a hero who’s in authority. It’s just nuts.
Laura: Yeah. I had not the same situation, but similar vibes. I was in a… it was a gym class that my school ran, but they called it ropes, and it was one of those classes where you did team-building activities, and then towards the end of the class, you got to do rock-climbing walls and walking across tightropes and stuff, and it was super fun. And one day, I was being careless with a piece of the equipment, and it wasn’t immediately putting me or anyone else in danger, but my teacher pulled me aside and was like, “Hey, it’s a good thing that one of your classmates didn’t do the same thing to that that you just did before you used it,” and I was like, “Oh my God.” [laughs] And I just wanted to immediately shrivel up on the spot and just dissolve into the earth.
Andrew and Eric: Aww.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: So I know the feeling. I know the feeling. It’s so rough. It’s so rough, but needed; I feel like those moments build character.
Micah: It’s also interesting to see how this impacts Draco, this decision, because clearly he’s a good flyer, Harry even notes it himself, and the fact that now his rival at school is getting the opportunity to play on his House Quidditch team, and Draco is not afforded that same opportunity, of course, until later on in the series. But I’ve got to imagine that that really pissed him off and sets him up to do what we see with the midnight duel.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Micah: That’s directly due to McGonagall, flat out. That’s her fault.
Eric: No wonder the Malfoy family wants to burn the school down. All these teachers are showing favoritism to Harry.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: Yeah, as if… because we know Snape doesn’t show favoritism to Draco, right?
Eric: Right.
Micah: True.
Eric: Yeah, not at all.
Micah: Never.
Laura: Micah, that sets us up perfectly to talk about the next school-age theme that we see in this chapter, which is Malfoy baiting Harry into a duel. Now, I’m not going to put anyone here on the spot and say, “Were you ever baited into a fight?”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: We don’t need to tell…
Andrew: “Playground. Big tree. 3 o’clock.”
[Laura laughs]
Micah: It was in the hallway after lunch.
Eric: Really?
Micah: One day in middle school, yeah.
Laura: I like how everyone’s like, “No, I’m going to tell my fight story.”
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Micah: Sorry, Laura, go ahead.
Laura: No, you go ahead.
Eric: I would have lost any fight that I participated in back then, I’m sure.
Andrew: Same.
Micah: I forget exactly what prompted it, but it was just somebody said it, and maybe they had said something, and they had just said it enough where I just had enough, and that was it.
Andrew: This is shocking.
Micah: I felt confident. I was taking karate at the time.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Oh, wow. Did you do the little bow beforehand to let him know you were coming?
Micah: No, I bowed afterwards when he was on the floor.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: I’m just kidding.
Andrew: Oh my God.
Micah: It never got that far because the teachers jumped in and pulled apart. But we both ended up with detention.
Laura: Right, so in the end, what did it do for you? Apart from…
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Nothing.
Eric: It teaches you if you have to fight, do it outside of the earshot of teachers.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Right, do it outside of school.
Laura: But don’t do that, kids.
Andrew: No, no, no.
Laura: MuggleCast does not condone fighting.
Andrew: I’m just kidding.
Laura: Micah, that story you shared really does speak to something I think primal in all of us when we’re in this young age, where if we feel like our pride, our status, our friends or family, whatever, is being challenged, there is this deep-seated need to seek justice, or what feels like justice in that moment. And we see that with Harry here when Malfoy challenges him to the midnight duel; he thinks, “This was his big chance to beat Malfoy face-to-face. He couldn’t miss it.” Even though he acknowledges he doesn’t know what a duel is; he doesn’t know how to participate in a duel. Ron shares, “You’ll have a second in the duel in case you die, but you probably won’t,” and Harry is still like, “Yeah, okay. Let’s do this.” But there’s also the question here – and I think we see Hermione raise this later in the chapter – of why wasn’t there any sort of forethought into this potentially being a setup, right, Micah?
Micah: Right. I know we’re still getting to know Draco as a character, but to me, just on the little bit that we’ve seen of him so far, he seems to be somebody who very much enjoys having an audience present, and going to meet up at midnight in the trophy room doesn’t present a big enough audience for Draco Malfoy to beat up Harry Potter. So I think this should have been a tip to him, to Harry, early on, if not to Ron and Hermione… even though I know Hermione comes along not because she wants to, because she’s kind of locked out of the common room. But the point is, I think they should have been smart enough to sniff out a setup here.
Andrew: I don’t know. The audience point is very good, but they haven’t known Draco that long. Sure, it’s been a couple months at this point; I just don’t think they’ve known him long enough and that’s strong enough evidence to assume that this is a setup. And when you think about how Draco and Harry both have an ax to grind with each other, Harry is looking past that. He just wants to go through with this, and clearly Ron wants it too. He seems to like it to some extent. [laughs]
Eric: It shocks me that Draco did this, though, because we don’t really see Draco before now as having an audience with Filch. What would that conversation have looked like? How would that have gone down? But the more I think about it, the more it actually sets up Draco ratting on Hagrid for the dragon.
Laura: Ah, yeah. Good point.
Eric: Which I think is how events go down in the book as well. I know I’m remembering the movie there.
Andrew: Draco wants to rat him out in the book.
Eric: Okay. But yeah, so that’s kind of interesting to me that I can’t believe Draco did that. Yes, it’s within his personality, but I still can’t believe that he would get first years out of bed. I don’t know. It’s kind of clever. I’m going to give him his due there.
Laura: Yeah, Draco is clever. Well, it’s pretty risky that Harry is doing this, right? Because…
Andrew: It’s so risky.
Laura: Yeah, Andrew, go on. I see this was a point for you.
Andrew: Harry recognizes he barely dodged real trouble with flying, and now he’s willing to take another risk by fighting Draco. This reminds me of if you nearly get in a car accident in the real world, you lose your confidence and your feeling of safety in driving for a temporary period of time. Harry had a brush with death, so to speak, when he thought he was getting in trouble with the broom and flying. But Harry doesn’t seem to have this type of feeling where he’s lost his confidence, and now he’s willing to go out for another fight. I’m surprised how gutsy Harry is.
Micah: Yeah, though one thing that just came to mind is this is starting to set up Harry as having a disregard for the rules, and that also ties back into his dad having a disregard for the rules. But this was Draco’s opportunity to get back at Harry for being put on the Quidditch team, going back to what we were talking about earlier, and that’s why I just think for him to take this risk – to your point, Andrew – he just got something given to him by both the Head of his House and the headmaster, something that no other student has been given in who knows how long. You’re risking throwing all of that away.
Andrew: Yeah, right. And he had just realized he was potentially about to get kicked out of Hogwarts, and now he’s willing to take that risk again, potentially getting kicked out of Hogwarts.
Eric: Man, children. You give them an inch, they take a mile.
Andrew: Yeah. This whole duel thing is really funny to me because Ron guesses that Draco doesn’t know enough spells to cause any real damage in this midnight duel, but how could he possibly think that when he has wizard parents, one of whom is evil, and we already know that Draco is actually a great broom flyer? How could you think Draco is not going to harm Harry too badly?
Eric: Not only this, but we see actually next year at the Dueling Club that Draco knows more spells, spells that are… he has to be reprimanded – “I said Disarm only!” – because he knows some extra stuff. He even summons, I think, the snake from the tip of his wand. I don’t know any other 12-year-olds that could do that.
Andrew: I don’t either. Ron wants the fight. Ron wants the fight. He doesn’t care if Harry is in danger; he wants to see the fight.
Eric: [laughs] The thing is, he intros himself as Harry’s second, which is only going to even get to fight if Harry dies.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: So Ron is bloodthirsty, and he wants his best friend to die so that he can fight Malfoy.
Micah: And Ron has a much better chance… I forget if it was Crabbe or Goyle that Draco chooses, but Ron has a much better chance against either of those two than Harry does against Draco.
Laura: Yeah, that’s true.
Micah: And just because Ron doesn’t think that Draco can do enough to actually inflict harm doesn’t mean he’s not going to try.
Andrew: Right!
Micah: I’m sure he knows the Unforgivable Curses. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind throwing a few of them out there.
Andrew: Especially if he feels like he’s losing the fight to Harry. Then he’s going to lose his temper, and things could get really bad.
Laura: I do wonder if Draco would actually be able to cast an Unforgivable Curse or even something that remotely resembles one at this stage, because we know that it’s one thing to know them, but it’s a completely other thing to be able to cast them and mean them. So I would just wonder if at age 11, if Draco really has that. I think we see later on in the books that he doesn’t have it, so I wonder if he would actually have it at this point in time. And I love that Ron gets brought up here, because I think a big thing that’s happening here that’s maybe more of a subtextual commentary is that Ron comes from an old pure-blood wizarding family, as does Draco, and their families obviously are extremely different, and Ron is probably seeing this as an opportunity to represent for his family in the face of someone like Draco Malfoy. So I think there’s more at play here than just Ron wanting to stand up for Harry; I think it means a whole lot more to him in this moment. Well, we can flash forward here a little bit to chat about the end of the chapter, which is really the whole point of the chapter. What I love about these early chapters in Sorcerer’s Stone is that they are masterfully written to distract you with the goings-on of school-age children experiencing things for the first time, having interpersonal conflicts with each other, but the real point of this chapter is finding out where the package from Gringotts must be. And as we do that, we can talk quickly about origins of Fluffy here. I know we’ve chatted about Fluffy on the show before, but I think this is maybe one of the first times in the series where we see a major nod to a mythological character or beast. We know that Fluffy is based off of Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guards the gates to the Underworld, and Fluffy is, of course, standing on top of a trap door. Hermione has to point this out to everyone because she’s actually observant.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: And in that moment, although Harry does not acknowledge it to her, he realizes where the package from Gringotts must have ended up.
Micah: It’s such a really cool nod to Greek mythology. And I wonder if there’s something to be said for once Harry and team do actually get into the Underworld, they have all of these tasks that are before them until they finally get to Voldemort/Quirrell, which maybe you can make some comparisons to Hades being the god of the Underworld.
Andrew: Oh, interesting.
Laura: And tasks that seem to be uniquely designed to suit each of their talents, right? I know we’ll get there once we get there, but it is certainly interesting the way that it is all structured. But again, just really wanting to emphasize here that the point of this chapter is literally the last sentence of the chapter.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: That’s really the big takeaway.
Eric: I do often think of this chapter as being the only chapter that wasn’t good enough to make the movie, because the trophy room incident is not in it, but quite a lot from this chapter, as it turns out, is in the movie. This chapter is really good for that interpersonal stuff. We actually get a lot of Hermione in this chapter before she’s their friend, and that’s a really cool angle.
Laura: Yes.
Eric: Because Harry and Ron are relying on each other, but they’re also shirking any involvement with Hermione. They tell her off a couple of times, because she’s right about things, and they’re not ready to admit it.
Odds & Ends (“The Midnight Duel”)
Laura: And that takes us into some odds and ends for this chapter. So to your point, Eric, this is the first example in the books of Harry acknowledging that Hermione is right, in the privacy of his dormitory, but writing her off to her face.
Andrew: Yeah. And her concerns in this chapter are absolutely amazing. Her top concerns are, number one, losing well-earned House points for being caught out of bed, and being expelled – that’s number two – and then in third, death.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Cannot lose House points. Die? Eh, okay, but we cannot lose House points.
Laura: This stage in life, death is such a nebulous eventuality. I did not have a good concept of death when I was 11, and there were a whole lot of things in my life that I thought were more important than that.
Andrew: And of course, there’s this iconic line which made it to the movie as well. “Now, if you two don’t mind, I’m going to bed before either of you come up with another clever idea to get us killed, or worse, expelled.”
Eric: Yeah, I’m going to go on a limb and say that actually, this chapter is possibly the best or most cleverest adapted in the film, because even just the thing about McGonagall, they show her seeing Harry catch the Snitch right out her window. That didn’t happen in the book. I mean, she’s clearly watching from somewhere, but the way that everything was tied in, and they tweak these lines of dialogue ever so slightly, like the “going to bed,” and it really, really works. It’s really cool.
Micah: Another odd and end is Neville’s forgetfulness of passwords. We know how this comes into play later on in Prisoner of Azkaban, but Neville is literally sleeping outside of the dormitory because he forgot the password. And not only that, the Fat Lady is nowhere to be found. She’s off partying, I guess, with her friends.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: And I thought it’s interesting how in this chapter, Hermione is the one who’s sitting in the common room trying to stop Harry and Ron from sneaking out, and then they stumble upon Neville in the hallway. But it’s actually Neville later on in the book who’s the one who stands up to all three of them when they go in search of the Sorcerer’s Stone. And I’ll throw in a security nightmare here too, as well, Andrew, if you don’t mind, talking about poor Neville. Neville had been physically injured. Doesn’t the hospital wing make sure that injured students return to their House dorms safely instead of just letting them randomly sleep out in the hallway?
Andrew: [laughs] Yes.
[“It’s starting to sound like a security nightmare!” sound effect plays with sirens]
Micah: Thank you. Thank you.
Andrew: I think the hospital wing clearly needs more staff who can bring patients to and from the hospital wing. That’s the answer for what we’ve been discussing today.
Eric: But they’re not injured anymore after they leave the hospital wing. They’re right as rain. They’re perfectly good. They’re perfectly new.
Andrew: Evidently, they still need a chaperone.
Eric: Well, no, Neville just needs to write the passwords down on a list that he definitely keeps very close. [laughs]
Andrew: True, true.
Laura: I think that’s the key issue here. I think Neville probably got released from the hospital wing, he probably got lost going back to Gryffindor Tower, took him a long time to get there, and by the time he got there, he was like, “Oh, crap. Also, I don’t know the password, so I can’t get in.”
Micah: Where’s Percy?
Eric: Oh, yeah, right.
Micah: Send a prefect.
Eric: Exactly.
Laura: Oh, give the first years panic buttons.
Andrew: [laughs] A Life Alert. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
[Laura laughs]
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary (“Halloween”)
Andrew: [singing] “This is Halloween, this is…” Do you like my pumpkin back here? I came prepared.
Laura: Yeah, I can see that you’re prepared for the season.
Micah: It’s very good.
Eric: Ohh, nice.
Andrew: Got my broom, got my pumpkin… I am ready for Hogwarts, and these chapters in particular.
Laura: Love it. Well, yeah, we’re on to Chapter 10, “Halloween.” Coincidentally, my favorite holiday.
Andrew: Aww.
Laura: Let’s go ahead and kick it off with our Seven-Word Summary, starting with you, Eric.
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Eric: Dinner…
Andrew: … is…
Micah: … interrupted…
Laura: … by…
Eric: … a…
Andrew: … massive…
Micah: … disturbance.
Andrew: Oh.
Laura: Ooh, very nice.
Andrew: Micah’s always got the twists.
Eric: I appreciate that.
Micah: I had to go at the end both. I mean, that’s a lot of pressure.
Andrew: Well, I think you always need to go last.
Laura: Micah, you’re such a good sport.
Andrew: I’m calling you a bartender because you always add a good twist.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion (“Halloween”)
Laura: Well, obviously, a theme we need to talk about here at the top of this discussion is Halloween, not necessarily because there’s anything super Halloween-y about this chapter apart from the feast, the decorations, and the fact that this kicks off important events in the books happening on or around Halloween. Right, Micah?
Micah: Yeah, I think one of the things that’s so cool about the Harry Potter series is that so many important events happen on Halloween, the least of which not being it’s the anniversary of when Harry’s parents are killed by Voldemort. So if we fast forward to when Harry is at Hogwarts, the most important thing that comes out of Halloween in Sorcerer’s Stone is the formation of the trio, I think. We’ll get to the whole troll situation, but it’s really the trio coming together and becoming friends is the most important thing that happens on Halloween in Sorcerer’s Stone. In Chamber of Secrets, the Chamber is opened and the first Basilisk attack happens; in Prisoner of Azkaban, Sirius breaks into Hogwarts and attacks the Fat Lady; and then in Goblet of Fire, Harry’s name comes out of the goblet. So a lot of important things happening on Halloween in the Harry Potter series, and I’m curious as to why maybe the trend stopped when we got to Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, Deathly Hallows. It’s not referenced as much, maybe. What, Eric? You seem to have a thought here.
Eric: Yeah, I just think that as the books become more and more dense, it’s harder to pinpoint what happens at Halloween specifically, and also a lot of the books also become, I said, nonlinear, where Halloween as an event is less important overall than whatever personal crisis the upper teenage trio is facing. So I think maybe it’s still in there somewhere, but you kind of have to work to… if there’s a specific Educational Decree that gets passed at Halloween, we overlook it because it doesn’t happen at the Halloween ceremony, that kind of thing.
Micah: Umbridge outlawed Halloween.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: She would.
Micah: She might as well have, yeah.
Laura: I think that’s canon.
Andrew: [laughs] I strongly agree with that point, Eric, that the series is becoming nonlinear. The books are becoming more complicated, so there’s just less room to continue this tradition, if you will. And really, I don’t think it’s necessary. Just because something happens on every Halloween in the first four books doesn’t mean it needs to continue. It’s kind of fun, but there’s plenty of Easter eggs that run throughout the series.
Laura: Part of me also wonders if any of this has to do with the perceptions of a child aging into a teenager, a young adult, because I remember as a kid – and I still love Halloween as an adult – but it was obviously a much bigger deal when I was younger, and it was more notable. I had a sense that Halloween was right around the corner, and here we are in October, which obviously means Halloween is coming up, but is there any major event coming up for any of us around Halloween? I don’t think so.
Eric: No, now we have to buy our own candy.
Andrew: [laughs] Right, we don’t get to go…
Laura: Yeah, that’s the thing. It doesn’t feel special anymore. [laughs]
Eric: It’s not free candy anymore.
Micah: Eric, just borrow a kid and go trick or treating. [laughs]
Eric: Borrow a kid?
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Okay. I’m accepting applications now.
Andrew: Well, look, we can still experience joy around Halloween. I am excited to announce that for the second year in a row, I will be the cool house in the neighborhood by handing out full-size candy bars to the children who come a-knockin’.
Micah: I’m coming.
Andrew: So come on over. They’re on sale at Costco right now; this is my time to shine. I’m going to buy these babies. And these brats, they come to the door; they don’t even say thank you, half of them. This year, I’m requiring a thank you. [laughs]
Eric: Listen, a Frankenstein’s monster would not say thank you, okay? He technically doesn’t speak; he just groans.
Andrew: [laughs] Oh, okay. Fair.
Eric: A vampire Dracula would not say thank you. He would probably say, [in a low, vampiric voice] “Thank you.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: That was an awful vampire. [in an Eastern European accent] “Thank you very much.”
Andrew: “Thank you very much.”
Laura: We’re going to put Andrew’s address in the show notes, so if anybody’s interested in showing up…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: For a full-size candy bar, visit…
Andrew: MuggleCast listeners get two full-size candy bars by wearing a MuggleCash shirt or other…
Eric: Aww.
Laura: But you have to say thank you.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Or it’s back to one. Back to one piece.
Laura: Oh my gosh. Andrew, I just feel like you’re… sometimes that energy is like, “Get off my lawn” energy, I just have to say.
Andrew: Really? Well, look, kids, say thank you. It’s not much to ask.
Eric: Yeah, I don’t think Andrew is in the wrong at all here.
Andrew: Thank you, thank you. [laughs]
Laura: I’m glad that you have some backup there. Well, let’s think about another major theme of this chapter: unexpected friendships. And we can start by weighing in on, are we as annoyed at Hermione as Harry and Ron are up through this point of the book?
Andrew: No. Ron calls her a nightmare for successfully making a feather float.
Eric: [laughs] That’s uncalled for.
Andrew: That one in particular seemed really bad because the pronunciation of the spell was vital.
Micah: It saves his butt later too.
Andrew: Yeah, so it’s not snobby for her to have explained that to Seamus. Ron, I think, is just super jealous – as is Harry, to some extent – that she’s better than he is, and maybe it hurts Ron extra because he’s the one from a wizard family and she’s not, and yet she’s beating him, and of course Ron hates that a girl is beating him specifically. If Hermione was Herm, it would be a very different story.
Micah: Herm?
Andrew: Herm. I don’t know.
Micah: Okay.
Laura: Like Herman?
Andrew: Herman. There we go. [laughs]
Micah: Herman, okay.
Eric: Herman Munster? I’m going to say that this whole thing, Ron’s whole deal here about being made a fool of in class because she’s your partner, right? Having her as a partner and she’s so good at what she does, and Ron can’t crack it. And then making a mess of things socially by maligning Hermione, she hears it, she runs off, not apologizing, but then using what she has shown you, which you were not grateful to receive, to then save your own ass later, and then also not getting a thank you, is peak childhood. That’s just how boys are. That’s just how kids are, I think, is they’re going to take what you give them, and they’re not going to give you a thank you, Andrew. I’m sorry about your Halloween candy. They’re not going to thank you.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: But wouldn’t it warm your heart, knowing that they’re going to enjoy the full-size Snickers bar? That’s Ron’s whole thing too; he paints Hermione as the worst thing for him. A nightmare? Come on. But she’s really good for him, and I think he probably at some point – definitely later – knows it, but he’s still not ever going to turn around and say thank you to her, because that’s just Ron.
Micah: Ron is also the youngest of how many brothers, and I think there might be some of that going on here too, where he feels like – again, to your point – he’s kind of being embarrassed in front of everybody else, at least in his mind, and so I think that there’s definitely some of that that’s playing into this. Also, comparing what’s going on with Hermione to a couple of other characters… so we talked earlier in the last chapter about Neville and how everybody was standing up for Neville, but nobody really stands up for Hermione here at all.
Eric: Ohh.
Micah: And I think it’s interesting that Harry and more so Ron pick on and criticize Hermione. She’s trying extremely hard to fit into a world that’s completely new to her, and Harry is actually in the same situation. He’s trying to fit into a world that’s completely new to him, but think about how Ron treats Harry versus how Ron treats Hermione. But all that said, I do think she’s very annoying at times.
Eric: Yeah, you just don’t realize each other’s humanity as a kid. You don’t.
Micah: Right.
Eric: And so they’re going to pick on Hermione. And if they’re not already best friends, that’s going to be your close unit is all. But Hermione is really annoying me about this whole broomstick thing. It reminds me so much of when Harry gets the Firebolt. She really is a stickler for the rules; it’s kind of too much. And yeah, so I can see why Ron and Harry kind of close rank around it.
Laura: Yeah, she can be really intrusive at times. That whole point about her approaching Harry and trying to lecture him about first years not being allowed to have brooms, and he was going to get them in so much trouble; I completely understood why in that moment Harry and Ron were like, “Yep, and it’s none of your business. Goodbye.”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Because it really wasn’t any of her business. But I think also, exploring these characters’ humanity, the only difference between Harry and Hermione with regard to how they deal with being in a new environment and the stresses that come along with it is that Harry internalizes and catastrophizes about how things can go the worst possible way. Hermione’s stress behavior is to become too involved and to try and insert herself into situations that really have nothing to do with her. So it’s just different reactions to the same stressors, and the only reason that Harry gets away with it is, again, he’s internalizing, so he’s not openly vocalizing and getting in anyone’s way with it, right? And then there’s all… unfortunately, girls and women being seen as bossy is an unfortunate way that I think everyone in Western culture in particular is socialized to see as a negative thing, so some of that plays in here too. But at the end of the day, they are kids. I see this as just kid behavior across the board. But I am wondering, did we ever become close friends with someone we didn’t expect to become friends with? Did you ever have somebody that you low-key didn’t love who later became a friend?
Eric: I think I’ve had friends whose older siblings might have either bullied me or rubbed me the wrong way, and I didn’t expect to like their family member because of that whole association. I think I’ve probably definitely had that happen. Or it turns out that as I grew even within school, people that I had initially not seen eye-to-eye with actually turned out to be kind of cool or chill or something like that. So in terms of unexpected friendships, that’s what I got. It was really just kind of coming in to see the people that I already had preconceived notions about in a different light.
Laura: I would agree with that. I’ve definitely found myself in the situation where I got the wrong impression of somebody based on an initial interaction, and then later came to like them very much. But that’s always kind of a bemusing feeling, especially when you’re young, because you acutely remember a time where you did not like that person, and now you feel very differently, which I think we see here at the end of the chapter, right? They’re all kind of embarrassed at the end of the chapter, and they’re just like, “Uh, thanks,” and they go their separate ways, so I think this is a very realistic interpretation of when that happens.
Micah: For sure. There’s two experiences that come to mind that I think you naturally create friendships with people around that maybe you otherwise wouldn’t. One is travel. I think especially if you travel… it doesn’t have to be internationally, but I think anytime you go to another country and you’re with other people and you’re experiencing things for the first time. College is another experience that came to mind. And you may find yourself drawn to people and having common interests with people that you otherwise didn’t think you would. But nothing like a mountain troll, sorry.
[Andre and Laura laugh]
Laura: No, nothing that we can really compare to that. But I love the point about travel. I’ve had the experience of staying in a hostel by myself, and then just ending up making friends with a group of other people who were around my age that were there. And probably we wouldn’t have become friends if we had met under a different circumstance, you know what I mean? It’s the circumstances in life that bring us together, oftentimes, which is what the trio sees here.
Andrew: Postfacto, who’s listening live in our Discord right now, has a good story. And by the way, this is their first livestream, so welcome.
Laura: Welcome.
Andrew: To answer your question, Laura, “My best friend in college. We were dorm mates and started off hating each other. The dorm manager had to intervene. And then we just became inseparable. We still think it’s hysterical.”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: That’s pretty crazy.
Laura: That’s funny. Your best friend from college is your Hermione.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Or Herman.
Laura: Or Herman, whoever. Let’s talk about the troll real quick here. There was some acknowledgement at the top of the conversation that really Hermione’s guidance in Charms class came in really clutch when fighting this troll. Ron wouldn’t have been able to take the troll out without Hermione’s pronunciation of Wingardium Leviosa, so in essence, did she really save herself, in a way?
Eric: [laughs] Well, you could see her taking that opinion and letting them get in trouble and not sticking up for them the way that she does. You could see her being like, “Thank me. No, you’re welcome that you knew the right spell.” But she doesn’t, and that’s the whole… her falling on the sword. They know how important the rules are to her, so when she lies directly to a teacher’s face, they know that it’s because she’s trying to help them, and I think that’s where she finally gets through, and it represents enough of a fall from the always rule-follower version of herself that they can then let her in. It’s just such a perfect circumstance to manufacture friendship.
Laura: Yeah, and I think, too, it’s such a nice comparison to how she is in the last chapter, where she follows them out of the common room into the hall – where she shouldn’t be, by her own admission – and when they all get locked out of Gryffindor Tower, she says, “Oh no, we’re going to go find help, and we’ll tell the truth that I was trying to stop you, and you can back me up.”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Which is just like… I mean, the audacity, right? To say something like that. But to see her go from that to this in one chapter, where she’s actively lying to teachers to protect Harry and Ron – who have not been very nice to her – because she appreciates what they did for her, I think is a lot of growth between two chapters.
Micah: Well, yeah, and let’s not forget, juxtaposing that she’s locked into the bathroom by Harry and Ron.
Laura: Right. So is it kind of their fault? I mean, we all know it’s Quirrell’s fault, really, but…
Andrew: It’s totally their fault.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: They bullied her into having to go to the bathroom to collect herself, and then they locked her in.
Micah: But how long is she there for, too? Can we talk about this for a minute? She’s in the bathroom for a good couple of hours.
Andrew: She’s upset, Micah.
Eric: She has no friends.
Odds & Ends (“Halloween”)
Andrew: Let’s move on to some odds and ends from this chapter.
Laura: Okay, well, something I have to bring up here…
Andrew: Uh-oh.
Laura: … Quirrell is being so obvious in this chapter. He’s the one person, apart from Hermione, who’s not in the Great Hall, presumably, for the Halloween feast. He comes bursting in, being like, “Yo, there’s a troll out there.”
Andrew: [laughs] “Can you believe it?”
Laura: “Thought you’d want to know.” And I’m not criticizing the writing here because I think the writing is still well done. I remember reading this as a kid; I had no suspicion that it was Quirrell.
Andrew: Right.
Laura: But I’m wondering, as a character, why didn’t he – or at least Voldemort – think to bewitch someone else to sound the alarm about the troll? In the words of a great philosopher, he who smelt it dealt it.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: What philosopher was that? I’m curious. [laughs] Got to read more of their work.
Laura: Think it might have been Kant.
Andrew: Snape is onto him, if not by this point, shortly thereafter, because he has a discussion with him coming soon, so I think Snape suspects him. Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe Voldemort is pulling the strings and Quirrell is not thinking this through clearly on his own. But yeah, what’s interesting about this to me is that in hindsight, yes, it’s very obvious that it’s him. But the first time you’re reading it, you’re being set up to be massively misdirected. Harry, Ron, Hermione are all putting it on Snape, and they even try to go to Hagrid about this, and Hagrid is just totally in denial that Snape could be bad, so you have that. But still, the trio is just totally convinced Snape is the bad guy. And when you do read it from their perspective, you can’t help but feel that way. It’s Quirrell who’s directing the spells as Harry’s broom is flying up and down and all over and all these other hints.
Eric: It’s so interesting because I like to think that Quirrell would bewitch somebody else, but that bewitchment wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny. So especially if it were something like the Imperius Curse, the sheer fact that Dumbledore would then interview somebody, determine that they had been under the Imperius Curse, immediately raises all the alarm bells that somebody in the school could cast that kind of an Unforgivable Curse and carry it out. It makes things so much more complicated, and I think raises the stakes so much sooner than if it’s Quirrell himself trying to act… what did he even say afterwards when questioned? I assume somebody questioned him afterwards, and he’s like, “Oh, yeah, I saw it,” or “Somebody left the door open, and the troll just walked in.” What I would have liked to have seen is where trolls come from, like if one was just in the area. Because of all the traipsing into the Forbidden Forest the next six books, I don’t think we see trolls living in there. We see a huge manner of other creatures, but really, where did that troll come from? Not only does he get this one, but he gets another one later for the Sorcerer’s Stone enchantment.
Micah: The larger tipoff for me – reading it back, obviously, because like you, Laura, the first time I read it, I don’t think any alarm bells really went off – but he’s the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. He can’t handle a mountain troll by himself? That seems suspicious to me.
Andrew: [laughs] The DADA teacher who’s also very nervous with all the stuttering.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: Something I noticed while reading this chapter, and I have to bring it up since it is Halloween: The students never wear costumes for Halloween at Hogwarts, do they? And this was one of the best parts of being in school when we were kids, so that kind of jumped out to me. Then I Googled it, because there’s an answer to literally every Harry Potter-related question on the Internet at this point, and there’s actually a Reddit thread. “Do wizards dress up for Halloween in Harry Potter?” And I like this point brought up by Leramar89. They said, “Due to fantasy creatures like ghosts, vampires, ghouls, and werewolves being real in this world, it might be considered in bad taste to dress up as them.”
Laura: Ohh.
Andrew: I thought that was kind of an interesting point. But yeah, it seems like dressing up just isn’t a thing in the wizarding world for Halloween. But it made me wonder, what would the trio dress up as?
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I feel like Harry would dress up as Dudley Dursley. Maybe it’d be fun to kind of mock him while he’s far away from Dudley.
Micah: With the pig tail.
Eric: I thought it would be fun to taunt Malfoy further and dress up as the Golden Snitch, represent, “I’m playing Quidditch and you’re not.”
Andrew: That’s great. I think Hermione would dress up as Professor McGonagall, one of her heroes. [laughs]
Eric: Her hero, yeah.
Andrew: And then Ron, definitely his favorite Quidditch player. He would totally want to dress up like one of them.
Laura: Viktor Krum? [laughs]
Eric: The 16-year-old international star, yeah. Or 15.
Andrew: Getting back to Quidditch, I just wanted to mention McGonagall’s delivery of the Nimbus 2000. It is so not discreet.
Laura: I know.
Andrew: This comes down in the middle of a meal. It must look like a broom; it’s a long package, and yet McGonagall’s note is like, “Don’t open this up until later. I don’t want people seeing that you got this.” But you delivered it in the middle of all the students in a box that surely looks like there’s a broom inside.
Laura: Yeah, and Malfoy confronts him literally right outside the Great Hall as he’s carrying it out, being like, “Oh, you’re in trouble now. I’m going to tell on you.” And then Flitwick is like, “Oh, yeah, I’ve heard about the special circumstances.”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Way to keep it a secret. [laughs]
Micah: Spilling the tea, yeah.
Laura: I also wanted to call out, here is the chapter where Harry and Oliver Wood get to have their first training session together, and Harry meets the Snitch for the first time, which feels like a foreshadowing alert. I don’t know if we have a sound effect for that yet.
Andrew: Oh, yeah. You know we do.
[Foreshadowing sound effect plays]
Micah: Do we get ice cream with that?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Well, every scoop of foreshadowing that we catch onto is like ice cream.
Andrew: Eric designed that one. He’ll send you the ice cream.
Laura: So Wood describes the Snitch as being very hard to catch because it’s so fast and difficult to see, and I was wondering if, from a writing perspective, was the intention to make Harry a Seeker meant to relate to how difficult it was for Voldemort to catch him? Because only when Harry is ready to be caught does Voldemort “succeed” in Book 7.
Andrew: Wow.
Micah: I love that.
Andrew: That’s stunning. I don’t think so, but that’s still stunning.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: I don’t think that was the intention, but I like it a lot.
Laura: I’ll take it.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: And also, speaking of Quidditch, Harry does note that he only got the broomstick thanks to his riff with Draco, which made me wonder, when would he and McGonagall have discovered his talents if not here? Maybe just a later flying lesson? Maybe not till the following year? But it kind of stresses me out. When would this have been discovered?
Eric: Right. That’s exactly why I think it falls apart under pressure, is because there was only one flying lesson, which is when McGonagall discovered him and his talent. But there were no other opportunities where Harry, had he not been on the Quidditch team, would have ever flown on a broom in front of her or in front of his peers, who then would recommend him to her. It just wouldn’t have happened. So it’s a great question.
Laura: And I’ve got a little connecting the threads moment here between Sorcerer’s Stone and Deathly Hallows. In this chapter, Harry is on or near the Quidditch pitch, doing his first training lesson with Oliver Wood, and he notes “The castle felt more like home than Privet Drive ever had.” And then in Deathly Hallows, when he is walking across the grounds to sacrifice himself, he muses, “But he was home. Hogwarts was the first and best home he had known. […] The long game was ended, the Snitch had been caught, it was time to leave the air.” So I feel like this also supports my theory about the very intentional placement of Harry as a Seeker.
Andrew: [laughs] It is very good, Laura.
Laura: Thank you.
Andrew: Must Be a Weasley is in our Discord freaking out over it. She’s so shook by what you just dropped.
Laura: Oh, I love Must Be a Weasley.
Micah: But just quickly before we wrap up, can we just talk about how Harry and Ron only got five points each for taking down this troll? I mean, if you want, you could throw in Hermione only getting five points taken away, but that seems like such a small amount of points.
Eric: Yeah, I will say in Book 1, there’s a lot of times where points are awarded to a House, and it’s one or two or three points, but then by the end, Dumbledore raises the stakes by offering 50 and 60 to each of them. So I think Dumbledore is causing inflation of the points at Hogwarts…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: … and that from then on, teachers in the later books have to be like, “Well, damn, I’ve got to give at least ten.”
Laura: We’ll call it Dumble-flation.
Eric: Dumble-flation.
Laura: We need a sound effect.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: Did he lie at all?
Eric: Our Lie Count is still at three. This is nuts.
Laura: Well, we’re not seeing very much of him at this point.
Eric: He’s not really in the first book.
Micah: You know what? He lied to the school about first years not being able to play Quidditch.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Oh, okay. I’ll allow it.
Andrew: I’m a Dumbledore apologize. This segment hurts me, but okay.
[Dumbledore Lie Count sound effect plays]
Andrew: It’s locked in. I just updated the doc.
Micah: But in this case, it benefited Harry.
Andrew: Chloé says that was a stretch. I don’t know. We’re going to have to put this to a jury to determine…
Micah: That was actually… we need Draco screaming at him, “You liar!” in this one.
Andrew: [laughs] You make that one. Me and Eric made ten of these.
Eric: So many clips, yeah.
MVP of the Week
Andrew: It’s time for MVP of the Week.
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Andrew: I’m going to give it to Hermione for taking a lot of boogers, metaphorically, from the boys, and still doing them a solid by the end. It’s a huge chapter for her as she cements her skill levels and her kindness, and of course, a massive, massive moment for the trio when they all come together for good.
Eric: Well said.
Laura: I’m going to give a most valuable chapter to “The Midnight Duel.” So much important setup and character building in this chapter, only for it to end with a pretty massive plot point propelling the story forward.
Micah: Well, going off of that, Laura, I’m going to give it to Peeves, who actually comes up twice in that chapter, but the second time, it’s to alert Filch and others to students being out of bed. And if that did not happen, don’t know that Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville would have found… I was going to say Cerberus. [laughs] Found Fluffy. Kudos to Peeves.
Eric: And I’m just going to say – we’ve talked about this – but Quirrell somehow evading too much suspicion and tipping his hand by letting the troll in and then raising the alarm bells for it. Good for him, somehow.
Andrew: All right, next week on the show, Chapters 11 and 12 of Sorcerer’s Stone. Those chapters are “Quidditch” and “The Mirror of Erised,” and our social media manager Chloé will be joining us on that episode. This is going to be Chloé and Laura’s first time together on the show. It’s taken too long, so we’re looking forward to that very much. It’s going to be a lot of fun. If you have any feedback about today’s chapters or next week’s chapters, you can send an owl to MuggleCast@gmail.com, or use the contact form on MuggleCast.com to send a voice message. Record it using the voice memo app on your phone, and then email us that file, or just 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: Last week’s question: In one of their very first History of Magic lessons, which two famous wizards do the students in Harry’s class get mixed up? This was, of course, Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball. Don’t confuse the two. Can you tell the difference? Correct answers were submitted to us by many people, including Andrea, Artemis Fido the Second Junior, Ravenclaw from Nebraska, Slytherin from Nebraska, Magizoology 101, Funny Folk in the Hog’s Head, Diplomat Snail, and others, so thank you to everyone.
Andrew: I’m now imagining a Nebraskan couple listening to the show together, and it makes me happy.
Eric: Next week’s question: In Chapter 9 of Book 1, which secret passage out of Hogwarts do the Weasley twins suspect Lee Jordan has found and wants to share with them? Submit your answer to us over on the Quizzitch form, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or click on “Quizzitch” from the main nav bar.
Andrew: Hey, be sure to check out our Patreon this week. We recorded a great bonus MuggleCast gossiping about Alan Rickman’s newly published diaries, in which he shared his real feelings about filming the Harry Potter movies. Many of those feelings were honestly shocking. We spent a good 40 minutes talking about all the Harry Potter stuff in his diaries, so check that out. It was really fun digesting and interpreting what Alan Rickman had to say. That’s at Patreon.com/MuggleCast; we release a new bonus MuggleCast installment every month, and there’s a host of other benefits there as well, so don’t miss it, and we really appreciate your support over there. By the way, any patron receiving the MuggleCast Collector’s Club in the next couple weeks, or their MuggleCast wand, do take a picture and post it on social media and tag us, and we will share that. Also, make sure you’re following MuggleCast for free in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode, and leave us a review if they allow you to. And finally, don’t miss 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.
Andrew: Bye, everyone.
Laura: Bye y’all.
Eric and Micah: Bye.