Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #668, Grab the Truth Juice (GOF Chapter 35, Veritaserum)
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 this week, open the hatch and get ready to spill a heavy dose of truth, because we’re discussing Goblet of Fire Chapter 35, “Veritaserum.” And this is also a special episode of MuggleCast because y’all, we turned 19 years old on August 5, just the other day, so we have our own 19 years later moment. 19 years later, we’re still doing this. Woo-hoo!
Eric: Oh my God.
[Micah laughs]
Laura: It’s pretty incredible when you think about it, honestly.
Andrew: It really is. People can’t believe when I tell them we’ve been doing this since 2005. It’s wild.
Laura: Same.
Eric: It still feels like yesterday.
Andrew: It’s gone by quick. If you told any of us we’d be doing this 19 years later, I think we’d laugh at you back in 2005, or even 2007. [laughs]
Eric: No, I wasn’t even 19.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Micah: We didn’t need makeup, though, for our 19 years later, right?
Laura: That’s true.
Andrew: What do you mean? Oh, compared to the movie.
Eric: There wasn’t a re-film, reshoot about the whole thing; there wasn’t controversy surrounding our 19.
Andrew: Well, we are recording this in a different way today, and you guys were uncomfortable with that, so… [laughs]
Eric: If we lose the audio, there might be some controversy!
Andrew: We might have to reshoot it. [laughs]
Laura: Honestly, that would be such a full circle moment, because early on in our podcasting career, we had more than one occasion where we lost audio.
Eric: Laura… okay, I don’t care what you said, Andrew, I’m going to actually do a recording of it. You’ve spoken it into existence.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: So Eric is the only one who’s going to be recording.
Eric: I won’t have to come back for the reshoots. I’m just… here, it’s going.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: I thought, “19 years later, let’s do it different, finally. Let’s do it differently.”
Eric: I don’t trust it.
Micah: There’s too much info in this episode to have to redo it.
Andrew: Everybody can just read our planning doc if we lose this episode.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: We’ll be like, “That’s it.” We’ll feed it to an AI; they’ll create some voices for us.
Laura: No, it’s going to be great. We’re going to be fine. New decade, new us.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Well, thank you to all of our listeners. Whether you started back on August 5, 2005 or you started just last week, we really appreciate that you listen to MuggleCast, an independent podcast with four Harry Potter friends talking about the wizarding world that we all love so much, and we’re just so grateful to have you all on this journey with us. I was recording some thank you videos to our patrons earlier today, and I was saying I feel like we’re kind of in a new era for MuggleCast with What the Hype?!, which all four of us are a part of, and we’re all looking forward to the Harry Potter TV series. It’s just a really good time for the show right now.
Eric: It’s been nice to grow alongside the show, to have the show reflect us as people always; that’s been a real joy. And it’s still… the number one reason why we still do it is because we still love it.
Laura: And each other.
Andrew: Yes!
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Specifically each other, and doing this, yeah, with each other. That’s the whole… the experience.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Andrew, I love that nervous chuckle. You’re like… [imitates laughter]
Andrew: No, I was going to say that we’re actually all getting together for the first time in who knows how long in person later this month in DC for a podcast industry conference, so that’ll also be an exciting moment for all of us. So an exciting month ahead for MuggleCast.
Eric: Absolutely.
Andrew: And the Wizarding World continues to chug along, and a couple days ago, we got new details about the Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Ministry of Magic. This is the new land coming to the new theme park at Universal Orlando, and these new details were our best look yet at this new land, and we see the new attractions that will be opening next year, including a Ministry of Magic/Umbridge-themed ride. This is the big ride. And we learned a lot more details; we’re going to discuss all this in a new bonus MuggleCast this week that is available to patrons and Apple Podcasts paid subscribers, but we also have a bit of news of our own here: You can now make a one-time purchase of any future bonus MuggleCast that you want to hear, and this week’s bonus MuggleCast will cost $3. You can purchase it over at Patreon.com/MuggleCast, or you can find the link in the show notes to purchase it. While we hope you subscribe to the Patreon, we understand that not everyone can, so we’re beginning to offer some one-time purchases that will get you more Harry Potter and MuggleCast goodness, plus you’ll be helping support us. So again, head to Patreon.com/MuggleCast, buy that bonus MuggleCast installment, and you’ll hear our thoughts on this new Wizarding World land opening next year at Universal Orlando.
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Andrew: So without further ado, let’s jump into Chapter by Chapter. And this week, we’re discussing Goblet of Fire Chapter 35, “Veritaserum,” and we’ll start with our seven-word summary.
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Eric: Secrets…
Micah: … are…
Laura: … revealed…
Andrew: … by…
Micah: … truth…
Eric: … serum…
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Bing-Bong.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Hang on, I’m going to redo my word. I’m going to redo my word and help us all out. Telling…
Laura: … serum.
Andrew: Love it.
Laura: Thank you, thank you. I was about to say “Snapily.” [laughs]
Micah: Oh.
Andrew: I like when we always have an extra word available at the end. [laughs]
Eric: “Hooray!”
Andrew: How we just throw in something… right, “Hooray.”
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Screw seven words; we can do it in six.
Eric: Yeah, there you go.
Micah: That’s what we’re proving over and over.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Micah: All right, so Chapter 35, “Veritaserum,” begins with Harry returning to Hogwarts on the outskirts of the maze, and he is completely disoriented upon return from the graveyard. And actually, I wanted to start by asking – and I think we’ve addressed this in some episodes over the years – but it’s very convenient that the Triwizard cup is a Portkey that takes Harry back to Hogwarts. We’ve never seen that functionality before; we’ve really only seen one-way Portkeys. And I think it was you, Laura, who mentioned on a prior episode that your headcanon was always that it was to bring Harry’s body back to Hogwarts and allow Voldemort to rise to power in secrecy.
Laura: Yeah, that’s my thinking. I think probably the original intent was for it to bring only Harry back dead, so that he would be found somewhere in or around the maze, and the assumption would be made that he had just died doing the task. My only problem with this is that the other representations of Portkeys we see are all timed, so you had to be there at a certain time and touch it at a specific time to travel, and it seems like this Portkey is the on-demand Portkey. [laughs] I don’t know if there’s a differentiation.
Eric: Yeah, it’s when you set a Snapchat to infinite instead of… or an Instagram thing to infinite, so it just repeats instead of running out. No, I like that headcanon, Laura, because I don’t think there’s good… it’s not foolproof in the plotting. Dumbledore does say, I believe, either in this book or the next, that Harry coming back and being able to tell Dumbledore and everybody of Voldemort’s plan, essentially allowing Dumbledore to assemble the Order and everything, happened months, if not years, sooner than Voldemort would have wished. So it’s not really like even Voldemort would have a good plan to make the Portkey go back. If anything, I think that the Portkey going back to Hogwarts was either a fluke or something that was outside of Voldemort’s control. The headcanon I use is that it was going to take you from the center of the maze to the outside of the maze, because that’s where Harry lands; it’s a different place than where he took the cup from, and that all Barty Crouch, Jr. did was create a middle stop in the graveyard. And so because it didn’t go where it was originally programmed to go, the front of the maze, it was then still active to take him to the front of the maze, so it’s like if Barty Crouch wedged something in there to get it to do that instead. But that doesn’t account for the fact that they are timed, usually.
Micah: Well, Laura and Eric, you have both done more thinking than the author did in this particular part of the story.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: This book was rushed.
Andrew: Hey, she was working under a deadline.
Micah: Yes, we know that. So as mentioned, Harry returns back to Hogwarts on the outskirts of the maze, and multiple people try to pull him away from Cedric’s body. This is a really heart-wrenching scene to read through, and a couple of questions came to mind: Do we think that Harry is holding on to the only thing he knows to be safe at this moment? And does he also feel a level of responsibility for what’s happened to Cedric, and that is why he refuses to let go?
Andrew: I think it’s partly – to answer your first question – he’s still in denial about what happened, so by letting go, he would almost be accepting that Cedric is dead. He can’t just continue to hold him and he’ll suddenly come back to life, and I’m sure he does feel a level of responsibility to some degree. He will come to accept what happened in time, and it wasn’t his fault, and Dumbledore is cognizant of the fact in this chapter that Harry has gone through something horrific, and he’s going to need to hear details immediately to be able to begin accepting what occurred and starting to move on. But I’m sure in this moment, he’s wondering if he could have done anything differently to have brought Cedric back with him alive.
Eric: I mean, Harry is in rough shape, too; he was dodging spells that were hitting the headstones near him. I mean to say, “He barely escaped” is actually an understatement, and those people really wanted him dead. His scar is still hurting him. Even if Voldemort isn’t right in front of him, Harry’s scar is going off because Voldemort is back for the first time in 13 years. So it’s definitely not a place where he can think about what he’s doing, and it takes literally the firm hand of Dumbledore – who’s stronger than he looks – to lift Harry up, to let him let go of Cedric, to convince Harry to let go and then to stay put, which those plans get scalped.
Micah: How do we imagine the rest of the student body is reacting at this moment? There’s some mention of screams and other noise being made, but it brings me back to the band playing.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: The movie cleans up this moment quite a bit, actually, because from the point where Harry first arrives in the book, there’s some screams, but there’s also screams when Harry is in Crouch Junior’s office. And so it’s like, well, are people just casually finding out that this happened? Was there not a big announcement to everybody to go back to your dormitories or anything? Because the screaming is taking place over 15 minutes in the book.
Andrew: It is a very hard scene to watch in the movie, but it’s also a hard scene to read in the book, knowing what all of these students and faculty are about to realize. So it was painful for even me to read this today and just brace for what they were about to find out, because also, another factor to consider here is just like Harry, for many of these students and most people there, this is going to be their first time seeing a dead body. Totally unexpectedly during what should have been a celebratory moment.
Eric: It’s their peer, right? Is gone too soon.
Andrew: A young one, yeah.
Eric: A child should never die. I mean, that’s the other thing, is this wasn’t some general at war that you expect to maybe not return. This was a kid, and he was only 17.
Laura: Yeah, and he wasn’t doing anything wrong, right? He was participating in something that should have been completely innocent. I know this is dark, but it definitely reminds me in a way of… I’m sure we all had the experience when we were in high school of having somebody we went to school with unfortunately pass away for one reason or another. And obviously, none of that involved a Portkey or anything, but even that, and thinking about the weight that that leaves across the student body, a bunch of kids realizing that a peer that they maybe just saw the day before isn’t there anymore. It’s really tough to reconcile for the first time when you’re encountering that with someone your age. So the Hogwarts kids – and I mean, really, everyone who’s at Hogwarts for this event – is going through that together, so the response actually makes a lot of sense to me.
Micah: Yeah. And somebody in Cedric who is very well-liked, very well-respected, so that has to hit on a deeper level as well. But it was mentioned that Dumbledore is able to pry Harry away from Cedric, and he rightly doesn’t want to let Harry out of his sight; he knows that something is up. But Moody is able to lure him back to the castle while Dumbledore is distracted by the Diggories.
Andrew: What I like about this moment is I think it’s reflective of how we all react in the Muggle world when we are in such shock about something life-altering that has occurred. When you read this passage, Harry and the narrator don’t even acknowledge who is pulling Harry away. You don’t know it’s Moody until several minutes later; Harry does not realize that. And I love that it’s written this way, because like I said, I think there are times in our lives when something so shocking happens, your brain just starts vibrating and you can’t think straight; you might not even be able to see straight. You just don’t know what’s going on, so I like that that was conveyed here.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I mean, Harry knows enough to say, “Voldemort is back.” He tells Dumbledore, “Voldemort is back,” but what he fails to tell Dumbledore is what he brings up later: There’s a Death Eater at Hogwarts. And that is information that had he told Dumbledore, none of this would have happened, but that just shows how exhausted Harry is, how just completely disconnected. And you assume that he’s landed in safety; just let people pick him up and set him down wherever he needs to be. This is not a time to do further damage to the Chosen One, ladies and gents. This is nuts that he is in further danger here, but that’s kind of what makes it brilliant, and Barty Crouch, Jr. can’t really help himself; this is the last opportunity to really do what he’s been wanting to do all year.
Laura: And I feel like under normal circumstances, Dumbledore would have put together the fact that a Death Eater was at Hogwarts automatically, but the only reason he doesn’t here is because he has to tend to Cedric’s parents, right? So to me, it makes sense; that is a plausible reason why he would overlook something like this. Normally, I would be calling this out as a Dumbledore fail, but I think it’s understandable.
Micah: He does, though. He does start to put things together, though, because he conveniently asks for – and we’ll get to this – but for Snape to go get Winky, and this is before Moody transforms back into Barty Crouch, Jr., so he clearly was able to put the pieces together. But Moody is able, as we said, to take Harry back up to the castle. And Dumbledore comments later on that he knew the real Mad-Eye wouldn’t have disobeyed his orders in a moment like this, and he actually mentions trailing them, which made me laugh a little bit…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: … because Dumbledore clearly takes his time in trailing Moody and Harry. And the reason why I said this is because we’re talking about trailing two people who are on bum legs.
Eric: Wow. You said it. You went there.
Micah: Moody and Harry. Yeah, and no disrespect. [laughs] I’m just saying that…
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Oh, really? No disrespect? A little too late to start saying that about Dumbledore.
Micah: But how slow is Dumbledore moving?
Andrew: Yeah, I take your point. He’s an old man, that’s all I can say.
Micah: He can Apparate.
Laura: Yeah, but he’s strong enough to pull Harry off of Cedric. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, that’s true.
Eric: The only thing that stands out to me is that Dumbledore said he realized that Moody was the one that took Harry away and knew instantly that that was not something the authentic Moody would do. If you know it, say it right then and there. “No, wait, Alastor, hold off.” But the only explanation I have is that he was just… Dumbledore had to be the statesman. He had to be the headmaster of the… Dumbledore had to do the one thing that he never wanted to do ever, is take responsibility for some oversight of his own, right? And he has to tell the parents of Cedric that Cedric is dead, and that’s just…
Micah: Well, he probably doesn’t trust Fudge to do it either.
Andrew: And I think in the craziness of this moment as he is trailing Fakey and Harry, he might get interrupted by a person or two. Somebody might come up to him in a hallway and ask about what’s going on or something like that. This is a very chaotic moment, so a couple of unexpected detours may have needed to occur.
Eric: I agree with you, Andrew. And when Dumbledore does show up, it’s with two other Heads of House in Snape and McGonagall, and so they would have also had to be doing a lot of either herding the children to get them back to their dormitory… it’s whatever they always do when there’s a crisis at the school, right? You’ve got to tell the prefects to get the kids out of here. The fact that Dumbledore shows… he waits for Minerva and Severus to be ready. They would have had a lot of wrangling to do prior to that moment, so yeah, Dumbledore does not hustle in this particular moment.
Micah: No. So we end up getting the big reveal back in Moody’s office, and surprise, surprise, it was the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor all along. Are we shocked at all here? This is year four; we should know by now something’s up with the DADA professor.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Shouldn’t Dumbledore know that?
Eric: You know, I for one am shook.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Well, I think the unique twist is he was a teacher at the school all along and ended up being a completely different person, and the real one was hidden in the castle the whole time. So yeah, we know this position is cursed, we know that something was going to happen to him by the end of this book, but we didn’t know the extent to which he orchestrated everything. So I can’t remember what I was thinking when I read this the first time, how surprised or not I was, to be honest.
Eric: I think my jaw was probably on the floor. Honestly, giving the book credit – and the film adaptation ruins this – I kept waiting to see the entire time we were reading this book where specifically Barty Crouch, Jr.’s name is first said, because in the movie it’s at the trials in the Pensieve, which would have been, like, eight chapters ago at this point. But in the book, it is not revealed until this chapter, the confession, that Barty Crouch’s kid is also named Barty after his dad, and that is the puzzle piece that explains the Marauder’s Map, that really allows us to put the puzzle pieces together. So I cannot claim that we really should have been smarter, especially as children when we were first reading this, to who really done it, because that piece of information is actually critically held off until the reveal, essentially.
Micah: Yeah, it’s really well written. And I love the… well, where did it go? There was just…
Laura: I know, I was about to reply to it. [laughs]
Micah: … a picture of Olenna Tyrell in the Discord here with her famous line, “Tell Cersei. I want her to know it was me.”
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Won’t get into too many spoilers there, but it’s very appropriate for this chapter and Barty Crouch, Jr.’s explanation, which we’re going to get to in a minute. He runs through, for Harry, how he did it all, kind of throwing it in his face a little bit. But one of the other things that I really wanted to call attention to was he wants to know that his plan was successful, and most importantly, he wants to know from Harry, from firsthand experience, how those who evaded Azkaban were treated. And for me, for as much as we debated a little bit who Barty Crouch, Jr. really is throughout this entire Chapter by Chapter discussion – does he have any nice qualities to him, like maybe his moments with Neville – this throws all of that out the window, because he really shines through in this moment. And there are two quotes that I pulled from this chapter; who would like to read the first one?
Eric: I’ll take it. I’m a staunch Barty Crouch, Jr. lover. I think one of the earliest episodes of MuggleCast, I was like, “But he’s a cool guy, right?” and just totally got lambasted for it.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: I still think so. But here’s a quote:
“I asked you whether he forgave the scum who never even went to look for him. Those treacherous cowards who wouldn’t even brave Azkaban for him. The faithless, worthless bits of filth who were brave enough to cavort in masks at the Quidditch World Cup, but fled at the sight of the Dark Mark when I fired it into the sky… I told you, Harry… I told you. If there’s one thing I hate more than any other, it’s a Death Eater who walked free. They turned their backs on my master when he needed them most. I expected him to punish them. I expected him to torture them. Tell me he hurt them, Harry.”
[Barty Crouch, Jr. appreciation sound effect plays: “You know what this means, don’t you? I’ll be welcomed back like a hero.”]
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Oh, I guess I forgot to do the David Tennant and British accent. Sorry, for everybody.
Andrew: That’s okay.
Eric: But yeah, he’s so bent on this level of suffering, and it’s interesting; it catches Harry off guard for a number of reasons, right? His head is swimming, everything. But to a pretty large extent – not insignificant amount – Barty Crouch, it turns out, has helped Harry all throughout this year. He gives Harry his only real career advice trajectory, and I think had a lot of fun. There were examples, looking back and doing this Chapter by Chapter, where he’s really enjoying himself this whole year, and so it’s interesting because he’s revealed as the big bad, but these implications and the resonance from this whole school year will continue to follow Harry the rest of the series, the rest of his life, really. He really wasn’t a bad teacher; he was just a bad guy.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Tomato, to-mah-to.
Laura: It’s ironic, too, because I think as we get a little further into this, we’re going to get to see what Barty Crouch, Jr. actually thinks of Harry, and I would imagine that if Harry wasn’t feeling like he was on death’s doorstep, that it would actually feel pretty hurtful to him to have someone he looked up to all year actually reveal their true feelings about him. But Harry’s got way bigger fish to fry in this moment, so it’s just interesting to me that Harry doesn’t reflect on any of that.
Micah: No, he doesn’t really have the time to be able to do that, but I’m glad that you brought that up, Laura, because right after this break, we’re going to find out exactly how Mad-Eye Fakey was able to help Harry throughout the entire year, and then throw it in his face.
[Ad break]
Micah: So a valuable lesson for Harry is that help is not always well-intentioned. I think that probably sums up this entire year for him.
Laura: It’s so funny, too, because someone else who was consistently offering Harry help throughout the year is Ludo Bagman…
[Eric laughs]
Laura: … and Harry doesn’t trust him – for obvious reasons – and I would argue that Harry was right to not trust him, but I think that he had a little bit of blindness when it came to trusting Moody. I think he had the rose-colored Dumbledore glasses and thought, “Oh, well, this guy’s cool.”
Eric: The rose-colored half moon spectacles? Yeah, I like that.
Laura: Yeah, like, “This guy’s cool with Dumbledore, so he’s probably fine.”
Eric: That’s the thing; you rely on your friends to vet these types of people, the people you let in. Not everyone can… you form your own opinion eventually, but it was heavily based…. Harry feeling safe is a damn lie, and it’s all because Dumbledore is allowing unqualified and/or not fully vetted people to teach. Now, this is a good deception – I’m not saying that – I’m not throwing everything at Dumbledore, but Harry felt safe because Dumbledore trusted Moody. And Dumbledore did not explicitly trust Bagman, but I laughed earlier, Laura, as you were saying it, because in retrospect, if Harry had relied on Bagman for the answers, it would have been completely fine. I mean, I think Bagman would be a little richer for it, and it would have been cheating, but you wouldn’t have had the same kind of problems as with Moody.
Laura: Right. He would have been able to pay Fred and George.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I don’t know; I’m seeing a lot of upsides here.
Micah: So in terms of running through all of the things that Fakey says to Harry, we start with the first task, and it’s just basically an endless list of questions in his face. “Who put your name in the Goblet of Fire under the name of a different school?… Who frightened off every person I thought might try to hurt you or prevent you from winning the tournament?… Who nudged Hagrid into showing you the dragons?… Who helped you see the only way you could beat the dragon?… Who told Cedric to open the egg underwater?” And it just a waterfall. “Me, me, me, me.”
Andrew: Me, me, me. Yeah, he wants credit for all of it. “Yeah, I did it all. I pulled it all off.” And we were talking about how he’s been helping Harry throughout the course of this book; another big example here was that he admits he was able to curse many of the obstacles out of Harry’s way in the final task, and one reason I wanted to highlight that is because I believe a few episodes ago, we were debating whether or not Fakey made it easier for him to get through, and here we know now that that definitely was the case.
Laura: Yeah, it really adds insult to injury for Harry here.
Andrew: Yes, I was just thinking that too.
Laura: And I think to us as the reader, too, because we’re predisposed to see Harry as having this very natural, advanced talent in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and obviously not everything in the maze was a Dark Art, but some of it certainly was. And we were all even feeling when we read the chapter, like, “Wow, there’s a lot of time where Harry is just running around this maze and nothing’s happening.” [laughs] And it kind of sucks, I think, as a reader, to feel like, “Oh man, the wool was pulled over my eyes, too, not just Harry’s.”
Eric: Right.
Andrew: Do you think Harry would…? He’s very prideful, he’s very courageous, he’s proud of his skillset. Do you think Harry, in a way, would want to do all this again without the help of Fakey? At least the third task.
Laura: Nah.
Andrew: It’s too triggering? Too soon?
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: I think the important thing there is just to know that he wouldn’t even be in this situation if it weren’t for Fakey. It’s not like Harry initially thought it would be a cool idea, but Harry would have actually had a really peaceful, relaxing fourth year. He would have been able to cheer on Cedric; it would have done so much for inner House unity. If the whole plot with Voldemort didn’t happen, there would just be the one Hogwarts champion.
Andrew: Yeah, and he would have loved not having all the attention on himself for once.
Micah: But we know that never happens; the attention always falls on Harry some way, somehow, and that’s why I think it’s easy for him, if he is to reflect back on this, to feel like he was manipulated. But he was also manipulated by somebody who was, in his own right, well-intentioned to the point of trying… I mean, if Harry feels bad, Dumbledore should feel even worse. [laughs] That’s what I’m trying to get at here.
Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “Oopsie.”
Eric: [laughs] He had an oopsie-poopsie.
Micah: Because he fooled everybody. He fooled everybody, not just Harry. And I think Harry should get some credit for completing these tasks, for surviving these tasks. Even though Moody opened the door, it was on Harry to actually complete these tasks, right? Especially the first and the second ones. We can debate the third; Moody was removing obstacles. But the first and the second task, Harry was… go ahead.
Andrew: Well, but he still survived the battle with Voldemort. I mean, that alone gives him all the credit.
Micah: Right.
Eric: That was the fourth task!
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Andrew: That was the hardest task of all!
Laura: To me, that’s the real task, yeah. And honestly, it speaks to Harry’s ability, again, to rely on his instinct and improvise when the stakes are actually high. When it’s something like school task that presumably you’re not going to die in, the stakes are just different. The motivation is going to be different.
Micah: Totally. And I think another moment where Barty Crouch, Jr. shines through in this part of the conversation is when he says that “Decent people are so easy to manipulate,” and he’s not just talking about Harry; he’s talking about Neville. He’s talking about Cedric. He’s talking about Dobby. He really uses people to his own advantage to ensure that Harry makes his way through all these tasks.
Eric: Yeah. It’s fun, though, to see there’s still some level of defiance where as a reader, you’re cheering on Harry, because there were times when it almost didn’t work out. Barty Crouch is telling Harry, “I thought you would have drowned. You were under the lake so long I thought you drowned, and it turns out you were just being extra noble, and luckily, Dumbledore rewarded you for it, but I was prepared to…” He would have had a much harder job if Harry had, in fact… if everyone did what Karkaroff wanted and gave Harry zero points for the second task, it would have been much harder to set Harry up in a good starting place for the third task. So there were times in which it almost didn’t work out, and that’s the satisfying thing, I think, about this plot. It’s a really devastating moment for Harry, for the school, for everything that it means about what’s about to come in the wizarding world, but at the end of the day, it’s nice to see that Harry was able to rely on his wits, like Laura was saying, and also that there were times in which it still was only a hair’s thread that meant that Voldemort could come back. That makes it feel satisfying, because if we have to deal with the most evil wizard ever coming back, you’d like to believe that it almost didn’t happen and it’s not like everyone rolled out the red carpet for him.
Micah: Well, to wrap up the first part of this chapter, let’s keep in mind this is still Fakey. Barty Crouch, Jr. has not been revealed yet, even though we now see him kind of coming through in how he’s speaking to Harry. But basically, what’s about to happen is that he’s going to do what Voldemort couldn’t and he’s going to kill Harry, but before he does it, he says something that I want to talk a little bit about. He says, “I will be his dearest, his closest supporter… closer than a son.”
Eric: Ahh, there it is!
Micah: So does Barty have daddy issues? And do we think that he views Voldemort as a surrogate father?
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Laura: 100%. And do y’all remember my headcanon from a few episodes ago about the potential that Barty Crouch, Jr. – not justifying anything that he did – but him being young, having a very troubled relationship with his extremely militant father, who would be ready to throw him under the bus if it meant preserving his political aspirations, how easy it could be for someone in those circumstances to be radicalized? And this, I feel, supports that headcanon, showing that he’s just desperate for some kind of fatherly acceptance from someone, and he thinks that the closest thing he’s going to get to it is Voldemort. It’s really sad.
Andrew: 100%.
Eric: There’s an interesting bond here between Barty Crouch, Jr. and Voldemort, that he compares the love… well, he compares being rewarded by his father surrogate. He also, at some point, was told by Voldemort about Voldemort’s own dad, about being named after him, and about the fact that Voldemort killed him, which speaks to a little bit more trust and confidence than you would normally expect from Voldemort, who Dumbledore even says doesn’t really have friends; he has followers. So the idea that Barty Crouch, Jr. got the inside line here shows that Voldemort was spending more time than I think he normally would with Barty Crouch, Jr., maybe because of how desperate he is to have this plan in year four totally succeed.
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Laura: Well, also, Barty’s close personal connection to the Ministry, I think, also plays in his favor in terms of Voldemort being very interested in what Barty Crouch, Jr. can provide.
Eric: That’s a good point too.
Laura: So he’s using him too.
Eric: Yeah, we don’t… Voldemort would definitely be using that connection with Barty Senior to see how many loyal followers he still might have within the Ministry; not just former Death Eaters, but people who would be potentially useful to him, like… God, what’s his face? Maybe Rookwood or… Yaxley? Yeah, people like that.
Laura: Right.
Micah: [laughs] I just like how you said that. “Yaxley.” [draws out the “Y”]
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Eric: “Yaxley.” One thing I’ll also like to say – while we’re on this topic – I don’t necessarily think that Barty Crouch, Jr. was radicalized prior to Azkaban. I still like to believe that he was this teenager wrapped up in things that were bigger than him when he went with Bellatrix and Rodolphus to torture the Longbottoms. I like to believe that what we saw in the Pensieve with Barty Crouch, Jr. begging for mercy from his dad… I like to think it was Senior’s own actions that really made… once Junior could see how far his dad was willing to go, and then getting the reprieve of being broken out of Azkaban, then and only then, I think, would be this real thirst to really become the monster that your dad said you were, or treated you like.
Andrew: I could get behind that. That’s such a pivotal moment in his life, to be betrayed like that by his own father.
Eric: And that was Senior’s choice.
Andrew: Right, right.
Eric: Which again, it has to come down to choices here.
Andrew: And doesn’t Senior say something about, “I don’t have a son anymore” or something like that?
Eric: Yeah, “You’re no son of mine.”
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Laura: And I mean, we have to remember that we don’t really know if Junior did it. There was never really any legal conclusion reached to prove that he had done it, apart from the fact that I guess he got caught with some Death Eaters, so they made the assumption. Even Dumbledore says, “I don’t actually know if he did it.”
Micah: Ministry passing sentences without evidence; when has that ever happened before?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: Could probably rattle off several, right? Sirius; Harry facing this full trial, which he will in Order of the Phoenix; Hagrid going to Azkaban without any evidence… we can go on and on. Well, we are going to find out the truth about what’s going on with Mad-Eye Fakey, but first, a quick word from our sponsors.
Andrew: Open the hatch!
[Ad break]
Micah: Andrew, I need you to bust out the truth juice.
Andrew: The truth juice? I only have water on me right now.
Laura: Truth juice sounds like something you would get on Alex Jones’s show or something.
[Micah laughs]
Laura: One of his advertised supplements.
Andrew: I’m going to a Mexican restaurant after this recording, and I think a margarita might be my own truth juice. I’ll let you all know.
Laura: Ooh, I can’t wait.
Micah: I was going to say, you could ask for a truth juice margarita.
Andrew: [laughs] They’ll be like, “What?”
Micah: Well, somebody who likes margaritas: Dumbledore comes bursting into the office.
Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “Yes, it’s true.”
Eric: That’s a rumor! Oh, wait, he just confirmed it. Okay.
Andrew: “On the rocks, no salt, please.”
Micah: Harry notes that upon his face was a look “more terrible than Harry could have ever imagined,” and what do we think this looks like? Like a 150-year-old constipated man, or…?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I think it looks like Burt Reynolds. I think it looks like Clint Eastwood. I think it looks like the most badass action star so-and-so…
Andrew: Yeah! He’s pissed!
Eric: Just a little bit of a squint, honestly. But it’s amazing that the man can still bring it. I still think that, although many… I’ve grown a little warm to Gambon in this role.
Andrew: Oh, I thought you were going to say Dumbledore. Damn.
Eric: I still think that he tended to body people a little bit more to exert his force, and I tend to think of Dumbledore’s force as actually being more implied than brutish. And in this moment, it’s the look, it’s the disdain, it’s the glare that Dumbledore has in his eyes that make Harry bristle and go, “What the hell? Wow,” and that’s something we’ve yet to see in an adaptation of Dumbledore, I think.
Andrew: So yeah, this is evidence as to why – in my opinion, once again – Dumbledore is the best, capital B. So when Dumbledore does break into Moody’s office, the quote goes, “At that moment, Harry fully understood for the first time why people said Dumbledore was the only wizard Voldemort had ever feared. The look upon Dumbledore’s face as he stared down at the unconscious form of Mad-Eye Moody was more terrible than Harry could have ever imagined.” We just heard a couple chapters ago, too, that Dumbledore is the one that Voldemort has ever feared. Voldemort says so; he doesn’t want to go to Hogwarts. He doesn’t want to deal with Dumbledore. This is a powerful, good man who’s in control, and right now he’s pissed, and this is why he’s my boy.
Micah: I love it.
Eric: I mean, he has every right to be pissed; he’s been undermined. I think, honestly, he’s just inconvenienced and annoyed.
Andrew: Well, speaking of Fakey taking advantage of decent people, here’s another example of that.
Micah: And one of his students is dead; that’s also a reason to be super pissed.
Andrew: Yeah! On his watch.
Micah: Right.
Andrew: The buck stops with him. Buckbeak stops with him.
Micah: Well, one important note here is that Harry is looking into the Foe Glass that is in Fakey’s office – we were introduced to this earlier on in the book – and the Foe Glass is said to clearly show a person’s enemies, and all three individuals that show up here… we mentioned earlier that Dumbledore is accompanied by both Snape and McGonagall. Should this have been proof earlier on in the series that Snape being an enemy of Barty Crouch, Jr. in fact proves that he is…? I don’t want to say good, because he’s not good all the time, but that he’s on the side of Dumbledore. He’s on the side of the Order. He’s on Harry’s side.
Laura: I’m trying to remember what the thinking was at the time; that was definitely a theory. But I think on the other hand, some argued that in that moment, Snape was Crouch Junior’s foe despite his overall allegiances.
Andrew: That. That exactly, yep.
Eric: Yeah, it’s the same reason he didn’t get along with Quirrell that year, which we hear more about in Spinner’s End. The one thing that I want to bring up is that in the previous chapter, when Voldemort is looking at all the gaps in the Death Eater circle, he kind of alludes to Snape and says that he’s been abandoned forever by him and will pay. Or one of those is Karkaroff, but he has a few choice words for the Death Eaters that aren’t there; one of them is Snape, and basically Voldemort is convinced at that moment that Snape will pay for abandoning him. And we only find out in Spinner’s End that Snape was able to weave the tail – hence Spinner’s End – to be able to really believe the web of lies that Snape is running with. But yeah, I think that this is a good… it’s one of those value neutral indicators. But I like it being used as evidence for or against.
Micah: Yeah, certainly with the hindsight of having read through Deathly Hallows and knowing Snape’s true allegiance, this could be an easy moment to identify early on in the series that shows that his allegiance is to Dumbledore, the Order, and to Harry. But I do like the explanation that was given, though, as well. But speaking of loyalty, both Snape and McGonagall just march to Dumbledore’s orders with no hesitation. McGonagall gets the weirdest instructions, probably.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, definitely.
Eric: “Go to Hagrid’s pumpkin patch.” Not even the hut! Just “Go around back to the pumpkin patch, and you will see a dog – not Fang, a different black dog – and bring him up to my office, please.”
Andrew: He needs a therapy animal in this moment. He needs a dog to cuddle with.
Micah: Not only “Bring him up to my office;” “Tell him I’ll be there to speak with him shortly.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: To bark at him shortly. Yeah, I think one reason McGonagall and Snape are so inclined to help no questions asked is like we were talking about with Harry and Dumbledore. They’ve all been through this traumatic, shocking event, so no questions asked. Whatever Dumbledore says goes right now, and we’ll process the rest of it later. So I think that’s what’s going on.
Eric: Dumbledore is the only one who’s giving the instructions; this is what happens when you’re in shock. You need to be guided to do something.
Andrew: You need a guiding light. You know, I was going to make Dumbledore my MVP of the week, but I didn’t want to be too obvious…
Eric: Yeah, don’t be too obvious.
Andrew: … so I still won’t, but he’s very effective in this chapter. He’s very good. He’s very good at handling the sitch.
Eric: You need some take-charge people, yes.
Micah: While McGonagall is off getting a black dog from the pumpkin patch, Snape goes to get some Veritaserum, as well as pick up Winky and bring her back to the scene as it plays itself out. And we end up learning that the big reveal is that Mad-Eye Fakey is, in fact, Barty Crouch, Jr., and upon being given the Veritaserum, the info dump begins, and there’s a lot here to take in. Let’s start with Azkaban and talk about how Barty Crouch, Sr. pulled the old switcheroo, and he honors his wife’s dying wish to save his son. And again, here’s another line talking about the daddy issues, where Barty Crouch, Jr. says that Barty Crouch, Sr. “loved her as he had never loved me.”
Andrew: Aww.
Micah: And this is a running theme throughout the course of this chapter; we hear a lot of these types of statements from Barty Crouch, Jr., and I was just kind of curious how his mother kept up the disguise in Azkaban. She definitely wasn’t brewing the potion there herself, but I was more so thinking along the lines that enough was given to her for her remaining days.
Eric: She would have had to carry in a… you’d have to take it every hour on the hour, so probably doesn’t matter how much you take, but she would have had to have a canteen. All that’s said is that she didn’t last long in Azkaban.
Andrew: But it had to have been more than an hour, right? Otherwise, the timing is very convenient.
Eric: Oh, yeah. I mean, she needs at least 48 doses.
Andrew: And then to bury her? I mean, that’s going to take more time, presumably. So this seems like a bit of a plot hole to me, too; I would like to know how this all played out exactly.
Eric: Presumably, however you die, you’re stuck that way when you’re transfigured.
Andrew: I guess.
Eric: Well, yeah, because you would have to be alive for your cells and stuff to switch back. Maybe. I don’t know. When you bring science into it, it kind of falters.
Laura: Yeah, because I mean, when you die, the cells of your body don’t immediately die, so…
Eric: Yeah, isn’t that odd?
Laura: Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, I guess my initial thinking was maybe she did change back, but it didn’t really matter because Dementors can’t see. They can only sense one sick person came in and one sick person went out, and it wouldn’t matter who was left in the cell.
Eric: And I love that theory, and I think that would have been perfectly fine, right? The Dementors are blind; of course they sense one weak person going out, one weak person leaving. That’s all said. Except earlier in the cave, Sirius remarks that he watched the Dementors bury Barty Junior, and so it’s Sirius’s eyewitness account that adds to the puzzle pieces here and there of trying to implicate Barty Senior. It wasn’t for the Dementors that she would have had to be transfigured still, but for any other real human eyewitnesses that would happen to be watching out their cell room bars. So it’s interesting.
Laura: I guess I just wonder how good of a look Sirius could have gotten. Did they bury Barty Crouch, Jr.’s body right under Sirius’s window so he could clearly see who was being buried? Was the body in a shroud of some sort?
Eric: Right, was it wrapped.
Laura: I’m wondering if Sirius made the assumption that it was Barty Crouch, Jr. but didn’t actually see a body.
Eric: It makes sense.
Laura: Is that confirmed? Do we learn that one way or the other?
Eric: I doubt it. I think it’s just that Sirius says he watched them bury… otherwise there would be no point for… the mother would not still need to keep taking the potion at all while in jail, unless other prisoners were to see her or something, but yeah.
Micah: Yeah. And I did want to bring up something that LegalizeGillyweed mentioned in the Discord a while back, which was that this is another example of a mother’s sacrifice, and we see mother’s sacrifice coming into play quite a bit in this series.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Micah: And now we have two straight books where prisoners have eluded the Dementors and escaped Azkaban. I’ve got to imagine it’s happened before.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: I do not see a good track record here for the Dementors.
Andrew: Yeah, pretty scary beings, creatures, but maybe not so effective at keeping Azkaban locked down. And maybe this should be a reminder to the Ministry that security needs to be beefed up. Needs to be a reminder at Hogwarts that you’re a bit of a security nightmare, and you need to beef up security as well. I mean, there’s no reason that Barty Crouch, Jr. should have been able to get away with this for as long as he did.
Eric: Right. You see a lot of good people doing the bad thing; even Barty Crouch, Jr.’s dad putting the Memory Charm on Bertha Jorkins should never have happened. There were a number of things that should have stopped this from happening that just didn’t. But to the point of the Dementors and having a weakness like this, I think to this point, Dumbledore intimates to Fudge in the next chapter that it’s a severe security issue to have the Dementors be the only ones guarding Azkaban, and Fudge just shrugs it off.
Micah: Especially when they can’t see what’s going on.
Eric: Right, right. But I mean, two books in a row, to your point, two escapes… we have to assume it’s been happening, because now that we know they’re fallible, we’re seeing just how broken, or how many… I do love that the author was able to invent two separate ways for a prisoner to escape Azkaban.
Andrew: Yeah, at least it’s not a blatant repeat.
Laura: We also just got done listening to Voldemort prattle on about how they’ll get the Dementors because “they’re our natural allies.” The clues are all here; you have an eyewitness to Voldemort’s resurrection literally saying, “Yep, the Dementors, they’re ours. They’re on our side.” And Fudge is just like, “No, no, I like them where they are.”
Eric: Well, that’s what P’s me O so much about this and the next chapter, is that you have a chapter in which truth serum is used, but it’s not being administered to Harry when Fudge disagrees with him or doesn’t believe it happened. You’ve seen the Pensieve in this book, but it’s not being used to prove to Fudge that Harry is telling the truth. There’s no real effort. Fudge is very closed-minded about it, but Dumbledore lets him choose… this is the next chapter’s discussion, but lets him choose to walk away basically without proving it to him. Harry is telling the truth, and if everyone could get on that page, this would be a lot easier. But here’s the problem that might be Dumbledore’s oversight: not bringing Fudge with him the first time when he’s feeding Barty Crouch, Jr. the truth serum.
Micah: I’ve thought a lot about that too. The fact that he’s not there is a big miss; I agree with you.
Andrew: It is. Again, chaotic moment. Maybe he wants to handle what’s going on at the scene of the crime.
Micah: Well, it’s not good for Dumbledore. I mean, Fudge could turn to him and say, “Look, buddy, this is four years going.”
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Micah: And presumably even before that.
Andrew: “Time to take matters into my own hands.”
Micah: Yeah. Well, speaking of criminals, let’s talk about Winky a little bit because…
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Great transition, but the people are begging for this, so I need to give it to them.
[“It’s starting to sound like a security nightmare!” sound effect plays with sirens]
Andrew: The people listening live are asking.
Eric: You’ve got to give the people what they want.
Andrew: Yes, especially on our 19th anniversary.
Laura: Ask and you shall receive. [laughs]
Micah: Barty Crouch, Jr. is brought back home, and he is nursed back to health by Winky. I want to talk a little bit about Winky’s culpability in all of this, because she does a couple of things that are questionable at best, and she does have some responsibility for how events play themselves out. And I wanted to start with Bertha Jorkins, because… [laughs] I don’t know why I just said her last name like that. Did it sound…?
Andrew: “Jorgens.”
Eric: “Yaxley”!
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Just saying names weird.
Micah: [laughs] Yeah, they’re related. Why doesn’t Winky better tend to Bertha? She could have easily said that Barty Crouch, Sr. wasn’t home and then sent Bertha on her way. The fact that she’s either invited in or allowed in to the point where she overhears the conversation with Barty Crouch, Jr., it seems like a little bit of an oversight on her part.
Andrew: I guess.
Eric: I sympathize with Winky. I sympathize with her, because at the same time, if you’re attending your master’s home, your master is away but will be back soon, why not invite the guest into the drawing room? Why not get them tea and biscuits, make them comfortable? Because ultimately, you don’t want to miss the person you’re calling for. Barty Crouch, Sr. would have wanted, if somebody stopped by to see him, to see that person. She did the right thing there. What I don’t like is the way she talks about Bertha to them in this scene, in this chapter, about her being nosy, and “Why didn’t she mind her own business?” And this, that, the other thing. That’s ugly, actually, and it’s a real shame because you do see Winky have this edge where she’s even telling Barty Crouch, Jr. to “Shh, quiet, you’re saying bad things, you’re getting us in trouble,” to try and get… she doesn’t realize he’s been true serumed. But there’s this conspiratorial aspect to her in this scene, and it’s gross, it’s ugly. Part of it, you have to believe, is because of the bondage that she has to the Crouches, but it just is not a good side to Winky here.
Laura: I feel like she’s trauma bonded to the Crouches.
Eric: At this point.
Laura: She doesn’t have a choice; this is all she’s ever known. And it’s really clear that Winky had somewhat of an elevated status as a house-elf with the Crouch family, because she was trusted with a lot more than household duties, right? I mean, she’s literally nursing his son – who’s on the lam and nobody knows that he’s out of prison – back to health and helping to keep him in check. And at the same time, she is allowed the autonomy to advocate for things that she thinks would be good for Crouch Junior, like, “Hey, you should let the kid go get some fresh air.”
Micah: “At the Quidditch World Cup.”
Laura: Yeah, “He hasn’t been outside in eight years, so…” [laughs]
Micah: Well, not only that, but basically using the death of his wife as the substance of her argument as to why Barty Crouch, Jr. should go to the Quidditch World Cup. I mean, talk about having personality. We talk about Dobby’s personality so much as a house-elf, but Winky really… she turns the screws here on Barty Crouch, Sr.
Andrew: It is interesting how all these points are related, how her relationship with the family has influenced a lot of this. And to the point about Bertha overhearing, I think that’s a very human moment. I think that’s a very relatable moment. You open the door for somebody and they hear the chaos that’s going on deeper into the house. I kind of like that it played out this way because it is such a common thing that occurs. [laughs]
Micah: Just to me, it played off as a little bit too convenient, because it was noted that she heard enough where she was able to piece things together. And it’s like, well, how much could you have really heard in the short time that you were there? Maybe, other than realizing that Barty Crouch, Jr. was alive, which in and of itself is problematic…
Eric: No, yeah, she overheard enough to know where his loyalties lie, basically, and that was enough to tip off Voldemort when he broke through the curse. Yeah, there are elements of this story that really seem like Barty Crouch, Sr. just left it to Winky to be Barty Junior’s entire caregiver, basically. Basically like a surrogate mom; like, “I’m not going to deal with matters of my son, who is revolting to me,” and then Winky has to be the person to be like, “He always liked Quidditch; you should let him go to Quidditch, to see Quidditch. It’ll make him happy.” Winky had to advocate for him. But it’s just a shame, because in the six or so months that Winky has been at Hogwarts, she has not told Dumbledore any of this, and that’s where the conspiratory element… again, Winky is not 100% pure here. There is sort of this dark side that comes out before she realizes the extent of Barty Crouch, Jr.’s crimes, and then after he’s confessed a fair bit of them, she is horrified and probably guilt-ridden.
Laura: Yeah. And again, I just feel like… I don’t even know that any of it’s nefarious from Winky, because again, it’s all she’s ever known. I mean, we see how desperate she was to have that life back, even after Crouch humiliated her and accused her of doing something she didn’t do, and I mean, banished her. I mean, he completely ripped the rug out from under her, and she still wanted to go back.
Micah: Yeah. And she does make an attempt at the Quidditch World Cup to keep Barty in check; it’s noted that “she used her own brand of magic,” whatever that means.
Andrew: Elf magic.
Micah: Elf magic, yeah. But only after, I think, realizing the error of her ways in advocating for Barty to be here, that it probably wasn’t the best idea at the end of the day, we do get some more information about the Quidditch World Cup itself. Obviously, Barty was there. He was under an Invisibility Cloak. He did steal Harry’s wand and use it to cast the Dark Mark following the Death Eater march, and Eric, if you can read this again, Barty is all about getting back at his fellow Death Eaters.
Eric: I forgot the voice I did earlier, but he says, “I wanted to show those Death Eaters what loyalty to the Dark Lord meant.”
Micah: Yeah. He’s full on fanatic.
Andrew: He is.
Eric: Yeah, this was being framed as the opportunity to be the faithful servant to his master that he never got to be, fully, properly, and presumably that thought alone, along with watching his father, knowing that his father was off in the distance suffering somewhere, kept him going all year.
Andrew: He’s just pissed at these traitors, and really wanted to be Voldemort’s guy.
Laura: He’s just so salty.
Andrew: [laughs] He is.
Micah: That’s a good word for him. Salty Barty.
Laura: Yeah, honestly, just kind of an edgelord. Like, “Oh, well, I suffered so much for the Dark Lord; what did you do for him?” That’s literally the energy. He’s 12 years old.
Andrew: And at this point he’s screwed. Why not lay all your cards on the table? Why not let your freak flag fly?
Micah: Well, we learn a little bit more about Barty Crouch, Sr. and the role he played in all of this before his untimely demise. I guess we can take these two things together, because I want to know how we feel, number one, about him using the Imperius Curse on his own son, but also the Memory Charm that he puts on his own colleague in Bertha Jorkins. And thinking back on it, had he not done this, things may have played out much differently.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Micah: I don’t think she ends up coming across Voldemort, probably, at the end of the day, so it’s almost in some ways like the Crouches have their own self-fulfilling prophecy.
Eric: That’s a good point.
Andrew: Well, yeah, and we were talking earlier about how the relationship between Senior and Junior is just broken. Senior, in Junior’s mind at least, betrayed his son, and I think putting Junior under the Imperius Curse really emphasizes the broken relationship that they have. It puts a point on it, and in a way, it’s like he was getting back at his wife for asking that they swap appearances as her dying wish. And not to mention that BCS had to think of a way to stop BCJ from looking for Voldy, so I get it. I get why he did it.
Eric: Yeah, but I mean, there’s something to be said for how complicated families are. But then there’s innocent Bertha Jorkins, the colleague who gets severely harmed and basically attacked by Barty Crouch, Sr. That’s the point into my mind where his ambition and personal self-gratification came over what was right, technically. It’s interesting, because Barty Senior didn’t win both times. The first time is it is said that his putting his own son in Azkaban was actually viewed negatively by the press, because they would have given him permission to be a little lenient, but now knowing that he’s chosen to do this to Bertha and it led to her death, no, he’s very clearly… he’s a bad person.
Micah: Totally. Yeah, and it makes it even worse that somebody like Percy looks up to him.
Eric: Well, yeah, because Percy just wants the power and wants to continue to… when it’s time to step down, at that point, that was a real watershed moment when Barty Crouch, Sr. was outed by Bertha. He could have agreed to come quietly, because again, knowing that the public didn’t like that he sent his son to Azkaban, how could they not be lenient on Barty Crouch, Sr. for rescuing his son from Azkaban then? They’d be sympathetic. He wouldn’t be allowed to still be Barty Crouch, Sr., Ministry Official, but you can imagine a world in which he himself doesn’t go to Azkaban for it, and then all would have come to light. Instead, he hides it. He buried it.
Micah: Yeah, there’s just something very wrong with a parent that would use an Unforgivable Curse on their own child. I mean, the sheer energy that that alone must take, the willpower, the psychological impact… regardless of how tough a guy he might come across as, I think it started to probably break him down, and maybe that is what led to him ultimately deciding to do what he does with Bertha.
Laura: Yeah. It is interesting how these cycles kind of perpetuate, too. A lot of our cues on life we learn from our parents, most of us, and this is a “Like father, like son” moment, because we know Barty Junior keeps the real Mad-Eye under the Imperius Curse all year so that he can easily pluck hairs from him to use in his Polyjuice Potion.
Micah: Yeah. And Barty Crouch, Sr. gets a taste of his own medicine when Voldemort and Wormtail show up at Casa de Crouch and put him under the Imperius. There’s a lot of Imperius Curse going on. We didn’t even realize it, but it’s probably the curse of Goblet of Fire.
Andrew: It’s this book’s Expelliarmus.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Well, it’s very relevant, because we hear this earlier in the book, and I think we might have heard it in a way from both Sirius and from Fakey, saying, “You have to imagine what it was like at the time. A lot of people were under the Imperius Curse, and you didn’t know who was actually operating with free will and who wasn’t.” And this book kind of perfectly illustrates what that looks like, because we have multiple characters subject to the Imperius Curse throughout this book, and we don’t find out until the end.
Micah: There’s something to be said for that level of control over somebody else and the fact that you don’t really have control over much of anything in life, and the fact that they’re trying to exert control over… whether it’s family members or colleagues, and the fact that it can be fought. It’s not just Harry who fights the Imperius Curse; both Crouches are able to fight it off, so who knows how effective it really is at the end of the day?
Andrew: I don’t know that it’s the term for this, but in the short term it’s super effective, and it seems like over time, you can work your way out of it.
Eric: That’s it. I want to point out that there’s a great big time difference between how long Barties are subjected to it versus Harry. Harry has a natural resistance we attribute to maybe the Horcrux being involved, but for both the Barties, it took a serious amount of time and prolonged exposure to be able to fight it.
Micah: Yeah, I also wonder, too – and this goes to the point just from earlier – how much energy, how much does that take from you to be able to perform an Unforgivable Curse on somebody for, let’s say, weeks, months?
Andrew: That’s a… yeah.
Micah: It has to be amazingly draining, and so for somebody like Barty Crouch, Sr., who has other responsibilities in his life… and this is also, regardless of their relationship, this is a family member. For Wormtail, as it relates to Barty Crouch, Sr., I don’t know. Wormtail is not the most effective wizard in the world.
Andrew: But it puts a point on how badly they want to put these people under these curses as well, that they want to commit to this. The physical energy that you’re talking about putting somebody under a curse like this for a long period, that’s got to be a lot of effort, so you’ve got to really despise this person. [laughs]
Micah: Right.
Eric: I wonder how it works when you’re asleep, like, when you’re asleep, how your will can continue to be exerted over…? That’s kind of a… not a plot hole, just an unexplained aspect of it, I think.
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Laura: I could almost see the person doing the Imperius-ing being able to control when you sleep, so saying, “Hey, time for you to sleep,” so that you don’t get into anything without them knowing about it. It’s total control.
Micah: We do get a brief mention of how things went down at Mad-Eye Moody’s house; it was Wormtail and Barty Crouch, Jr. who ultimately overpowered Moody. I think maybe Wormtail doesn’t get enough credit for the role he plays sometimes, and just the things that he ends up being involved in. We mentioned he was a big part of the Imperius Curse on Barty Crouch, Sr. But just to wrap up with Barty Crouch, Sr., we learn about how ultimately he met his fate at Hogwarts and Crouch Junior learned about Crouch Senior escaping from their home, finally overcoming the Imperius Curse, wanting to make his way to Hogwarts to come clean, finally, with Dumbledore. But it’s that dang Marauder’s Map that comes into play for Crouch Junior, and he’s able to see his father arrive on the grounds. He murders him, turns him into a bone, and buries him in Hagrid’s garden. Now, if Sirius needed a bone in dog form that night, God forbid, and he digs up Barty Crouch, Sr…
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about it.
Andrew: Oh, so Dumbledore wasn’t looking for a therapy dog. Got it.
Micah: Imagine if Padfoot is in Dumbledore’s office with Barty Crouch, Sr. in his mouth.
Andrew: [laughs] “Good boy.”
Eric: Well, and he said it was freshly upturned Earth.
Laura: I feel like it’s… I don’t know, I think it’s pretty likely that Fang would find that and just be vibin’ around Hagrid’s cabin. [laughs]
Micah: I feel like somebody on this show previously said this is a very Shakespearean death/burial. I’m not as well-versed in it, but I’d be interested to look it up.
Eric: Yeah, concealment and just the ways in which… it’s a heck of a death. It’s death and torture; it’s desecration of a body. It breaks additional laws. [laughs] Murder breaks a law, and then there… it’s preventing the last rights and the way in which we traditionally handle the dead. It really denies Barty Crouch, Sr. of the right to be buried properly. It’s an extra “F you.”
Laura: Yeah, it’s the classic son killing the father arc.
Micah: Well, that is really how the chapter wraps up, though, in everybody learning about what happened to Barty Crouch, Sr. Winky is in tears. Everybody else is just in shock in the room, and we finally know how everything played itself out throughout the course of the year without us knowing.
Eric: How would we say we rank this mystery now that it’s fresh? Do we think that this is a better mystery than, say, the fact that Peter Pettigrew is still alive, which was the last book’s mystery?
Andrew: There’s a lot of moving pieces in this one. You can read back the beginning of this book and see the early hints and building of this mystery. I think it’s a really good one.
Micah: I think what levels up the Peter Pettigrew mystery was the fact that he’d been with Harry and Ron through the first two years.
Andrew: Yeah, that was cool.
Eric: I can see that.
Micah: But I really do, for all the joking that we do about how this was rushed, I really do love the whole mystery of Barty Crouch, Jr. and basically how he did it. And it was very hard, I think, as a first time reader, to pick up on it.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: And he’s so damn proud of himself, too.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: This entire sequence is him just trying to think…
Eric: Gloating?
Laura: Yeah, I was trying to think of an age-appropriate way to say that. Yes, gloating.
Eric: Oh, what’s the non age-appropriate…? I’ll ask you later.
Laura: Yeah, we’ll talk about that.
Eric: He’s gloating, but it’s under truth. It’s crazy the way it’s written, because Veritaserum makes you go blank, right? It’s monotone, but he still is able to grin wildly at the best parts, which shows how gleeful regular Barty Crouch, Jr. would be if he weren’t on Veritaserum. Is that what you were saying?
Laura: Yes.
Odds & Ends
Micah: Well, a couple of odds and ends in this chapter: Of course, it is the seventh key that opens the compartment to where Moody is being held.
Eric: I love that we get treated to all six of the ones before it. Like, “Oh, this one is quills. Okay, great. What’s number two?” [laughs]
Micah: And it’s also worth mentioning that Karkaroff flees at the burning of the Dark Mark on his arm, so he is presumably out there somewhere. And then we touched on this a little, but I thought it was important to mention that using the Marauder’s Map can have serious consequences. And this was brought up particularly in Prisoner of Azkaban, and may have been more so a movie-ism than in the book – I can’t remember offhand – but when Lupin says directly to Harry, “Did you ever consider that in the wrong hands, this could be essentially a map for Sirius Black to get to you?” But it ends up being how Barty Crouch, Jr. is able to really monitor Hogwarts for weeks on end and ultimately kill his own father.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: No, and the craziest thing is that this is the chapter where Dumbledore finds out about the map.
Andrew: It’s crazy.
Eric: He’s like, “Map?” [laughs]
Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “The whosawhatsit?”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Yeah, “Huh? What?” And then Barty, in his subdued state, is just like, “Oh, yeah, Potter had a map, a map of Hogwarts.” Where did he…? What…? This should be news to Dumbledore because Dumbledore…
Andrew: And it’s been around a while.
Eric: Yeah, it’s been around a while. So that’ll go into my MVP, but just finding out… it is the right thing to tell Dumbledore. This is why it’s funny that Lupin is angry with Harry about it, but at the end of the book, to give Harry, presumably, an edge over Harry’s own rivals, he lets him keep the map and doesn’t mention its existence to Dumbledore. But Harry should have done the right thing and told Dumbledore that it existed, because again, there’s some obvious security holes here; there’s that which Dumbledore doesn’t choose to do, but Dumbledore can only go off the information he has, so sorry, Harry, this is a bit on you.
Micah: That does it for Chapter 35. Only a few things happening.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Big one. A big one for a big 19th anniversary party.
MVP of the Week
Andrew: And now it’s time for Most Valuable Person/Player/Wizard of the week!
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Andrew: I’m going to give it to the real Mad-Eye Moody for enduring months of torture at the hand of BCJ. He went through it this book; I feel terrible for him, so this is kind of a sympathy MVP award.
Eric: I love that. I love that so much. I love that we get a chance to meet the real Moody, and it turns out he’s cool in the next book. I’m going to give my MVP to all the Marauders, all four of them, because they successfully kept the secret of the map’s existence for decades. Even with both Remus and Sirius as allies in the present day, they did not tell Dumbledore, and it’s probably hard to keep a secret from Dumbledore.
Micah: Well, speaking of Dumbledore, I’m going to give it to Dumbledore’s ignorance…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: … because without it, we wouldn’t have this great story.
Andrew: Aw, so true!
Laura: Man, that just dovetails perfectly into my MVP. I’m going to give it to Barty Crouch, Jr. He did it; he did the thing. He’s not getting to rest on his laurels and be celebrated the way that he is hoping he will, but he brought the Dark Lord back. Real turning point.
Eric: That’s a good point.
Laura: So thanks, BCJ. Is he a member of Congress now? Because I feel like it’s become super common to refer to members of Congress by their three initials.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Besides AOC, who is it that we do that for?
Laura: MTG. [laughs]
Eric: Oh, MTG, right. And I was thinking RBG, Supreme Court.
Andrew: Listeners, if you have any feedback about today’s discussion, or you have any other senators who we refer to using their initials…
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: … you can contact us by emailing or sending a voice memo recorded on your phone to MuggleCast@gmail.com, or you can use our phone number, which is 1-920-3-MUGGLE; that’s 1-920-368-4453. And next week, we’ll discuss Chapter 36 of Goblet of Fire, “The Parting of the Ways.” Approaching the end here.
Quizzitch
Andrew: And now it’s time for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: Last week’s Quizzitch question: Which three individuals appear in Mad-Eye Fakey’s Foe Glass when he takes Harry up there to kill him? And the correct answer is Snape, Dumbledore, and McGonagall. And correct answers were submitted by Buff Daddy; Dobby Salami; Dutch Hufflepuff; Edgar Albus Foe; Elizabeth K.; Helga Hufflepuff had a purring pink Pygmy Puff that huffed and puffed and blew her house down; Justice for Winky; Kennah Dawn Dish Soap that the House-Elves Use to Clean All Ron’s Dishes; LC; Niffleroni and extra cheese; Priori InCan’tBelieveIt’sNotButter; That’s my son, you bleep; The eye that Moody gets back; and WaterWizard. Next week’s Quizzitch Question: What six Death Eater names does Harry give directly to Fudge? And we look forward to you submitting the answer to this question using the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or if you go to the website and click on “Quizzitch” from the main nav.
Andrew: There you’ll also find our transcripts, our social media links, our full episode archive, our favorite episodes, our contact form, and more. And don’t forget, we have a new bonus MuggleCast this week; we’re going to be discussing this new land coming to Universal Orlando, a Ministry of Magic-themed land across Paris and England? We’ll be talking about that. If you’re not an Apple Podcasts paid subscriber or patron, you can listen to it – this is new – visit Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and you’ll find the new bonus MuggleCast available for a one-time purchase of $3, and your support goes to running the show. And we’re excited to offer this new way to support us in exchange for more MuggleCast. This show is brought to you by Muggles like you; this is why we’ve run for 19 years and counting. We are an independent podcast, but running a business is expensive and boring and not fun. It takes a lot of time and effort. I just had to fill out a census form earlier today; it’s like, “Oh, this is so boring.” So what are some ways you can help us out to make it less boring? Well, if you’re an Apple Podcasts user, you can subscribe to MuggleCast Gold, which gets you ad-free, early access to MuggleCast plus two bonus MuggleCast installments every month. And then there’s also Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and you’ll get all the benefits of MuggleCast Gold, plus livestreams, planning docs, the chance to co-host the show one day, a new physical gift every year, the MuggleCast Collectors Club, video message from one of the four of us, and more. And throughout the year, we throw in other surprise benefits. For example, patrons were the first to access the overstock store and grab T-shirts that we’ve had from the last two decades. So thanks, everybody. And if you enjoy the show and think other Muggles would too, tell a friend about the show, and to also help us spread the word by leaving a five star review in your favorite podcast app. So that does it for this week’s episode. Happy 19th anniversary; cheers to the next 19. I’m Andrew, and a proud Dumbledore fan.
Eric: I’m Eric, and it’s been a deep pleasure bringing this to your earholes every year.
Micah: I’m Micah, choo-choo.
Laura: [laughs] And I’m Laura. Happy anniversary, y’all.
Andrew: Bye, everyone.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]