Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #717, You’re A Fool, Harry Potter (OOTP Chapter 35, Beyond the Veil)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the world of Harry Potter for 20 years and counting. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: And we’re your Harry Potter friends, talking about the books and the movies and the upcoming TV show, so make sure you press that follow button in your favorite podcast app, and that way you will never miss an episode. This week, we’re discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 35, “Beyond the Veil,” and helping us with this week’s discussion is MuggleCast Slug Club patron, Shelby. Welcome, Shelby!
Shelby: Thanks. Hi.
Andrew: How are you?
Shelby: I’m doing well. Glad to be here. Thanks.
Andrew: Yeah, we’re excited to have you. And can we get your fandom ID, please?
Shelby: My favorite book is Prisoner of Azkaban. My favorite movie is Half-Blood Prince. My Hogwarts House is Ravenclaw. My Ilvermorny House, I remember, if anyone cares, is Thunderbird.
Eric: I care.
Andrew: Good memory.
Shelby: [laughs] My Patronus is a fox, and my favorite room in the Department of Mysteries has got to be the love room, the romantic in me says.
Andrew, Eric, and Laura: Aww.
Andrew: That’s sweet.
Micah: And we’re so excited to have a fellow Ravenclaw on, at least Laura and I are.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Yeah, we’re going to gang up on everyone else.
Eric: Shelby, the interesting thing is that you’re obviously a new listener to MuggleCast, but you happen to have this photo that you shared of yourself with Andrew taken, what, 18 years ago now? This is crazy.
Andrew: Well, not a new… why did you say new listener of MuggleCast?
Eric: I was joking. I was joking.
Andrew: Oh, I was like, “Wait a second. Did I miss something?”
[Andrew and Shelby laugh]
Eric: She’s obviously very, very old school. Sorry, the joke… they’re not all going to land.
Andrew: When Shelby and I met earlier this week, she shared this photo of us in London in 2007, that must have been, right?
Shelby: Yep, it was right after the Order of the Phoenix premiere in London.
Andrew: Ahh, okay. Well, thank you so much for your long-time listenership, and it’s good to see you again, but this time virtually.
Shelby: Yeah, good to see you too.
[Andrew laughs]
Shelby: We’ve grown up a bit.
Andrew: We have, yes, we have. Our styles have changed a little bit. We’ve aged well, I think.
Laura: I don’t know; I feel like y’all both still look like babies. Just a personal opinion.
Andrew: Laura said I look drunk in this photo, so I don’t know what to think now.
Laura: Okay, well, two things can be true.
Eric: No, she asked if you were drunk. There’s a difference.
Andrew: [laughs] “You were a drunk cutie.”
Laura: Yeah, come on now. We all went to the conventions. We know what happened.
Andrew: We did, yes, yes. Over there, the drinking age was lower. It was very exciting.
Eric: You know, if anything, Andrew, you were probably jet-lagged, because this was your first of two trips to London that month.
Andrew: Yes. It was a busy summer, yes, yes. Shelby, you’re on an exciting episode of MuggleCast, because every year we announce a new physical gift for patrons, and Eric has some exciting news about this year’s gift, right?
Eric: We are very excited to announce this year’s physical gift, which we’re giving to our patrons who are pledged at the Slug Club level to MuggleCast on Patreon. This is introducing… drum roll, please… we’ll add it in post…
[Andrew makes a drum roll noise with his mouth]
Eric: Yeah!
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: The MuggleCast 20th anniversary retrospective, a.k.a. the MuggleCast yearbook. This is a book featuring writing by each of the four hosts, telling the story of the podcast across these last 20 years, and featuring tons of colorful images, jam-packed with enough nostalgia to make your eyes water. It has personal reflections, anecdotes, never-before-seen photos because they were just living on my hard drive somewhere, and even a full compendium of British jokes that were ever told on MuggleCast. Fun stuff. We’re just having a lot of fun with this. And it’s called a yearbook, too, because we also styled this like an American high school yearbook in the way the photos are presented. You know how you guys get a yearbook at the end of the year, and you see the track and field team is posing, and there might be writing from the valedictorian, who I guess is Laura…
Andrew: And you write HAGS in it, which is “Have a great summer!”
Eric: Yes! Yeah! Have a great summer. Yes, so that’s the other thing; just like school yearbooks, there’s space in the back to get your book signed by your classmates, who in this case are fellow MuggleCast friends that you find in the wild. And happy to announce the first friends who’ve signed your yearbook are, in fact, us. Micah, Laura, Andrew, and myself have all taken the liberty of signing your yearbook, and we wish you a great rest of your summer, and hope that our lockers are closer together next year. We previewed this book, actually, to patrons earlier this morning, and some of their comments already include “Y’all have truly outdone yourselves this year; this is honestly so cool,” “This is so cute; I’m obsessed,” “I love this idea so much,” “This is an amazing physical gift,” “Well done, MuggleCasters; you’ve knocked this one out of the park,” “I can’t wait for this,” “This is the cutest,” “Wow, what a gift! This is so cool!,” and “Holy crap, this is AMAZING.” So don’t take our word for it; listen to our…
Micah: Were those all the Quizzitch winners for this week?
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: No, no, no…
Andrew: Those were everybody responding to the pictures of Eric in the yearbook, actually.
Eric: You’re not going to want to sleep on your chance to get the MuggleCast retrospective, a.k.a. yearbook. You must pledge to MuggleCast Patreon at the Slug Club level and sign up for the yearbook by September 15, using the sign-up form that will be in a post on Patreon by the time this episode airs. Grab this once-in-a-lifetime piece of MuggleCast history that helps us celebrate the amazing milestone of being on the airwaves for two decades.
Andrew: Yeah, and shout-out to Eric, who’s taken the lead on this project over the last few months, and it’s really come together nicely. We’ve put together, really, a pretty cool cover too. Just every part of this has been really well thought out, and it was really fun writing material for this book. And like you said, we wanted to do something really special for the 20th anniversary, and this is really just a beautiful encapsulation of the last two decades. It’s really a collector’s item. That’s how this feels, a true collector’s item.
Laura: And I will say, I just had so much fun putting together my parts of it, just because it really is a trip down memory lane when you sit down to write about an experience from these past 20 years. And also, looking at some of the preview photos that Eric shared, seeing some of the old photos that I had long since forgotten existed…
Micah: Or didn’t know existed.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Well, there’s one where you and Andrew are unconscious for it, so I don’t think either of you knew it was existing.
Andrew: Yes.
Laura: Well, I had seen that before…
Eric: Oh, okay.
Laura: … but I just forgot that it was a thing, and I saw that and I was like, “Oh. Yeah, that happened.” [laughs]
Eric: “Oh, that’s that!” Yeah.
Laura: Who was it who snapped a picture of us sleeping? Was it you?
Andrew: [imitating Kevin Steck] “It was me, Kevin!”
Micah: Probably.
Laura: [laughs] He wasn’t… oh no, wait. Yeah, he was there.
Andrew: Kevin was there. It was either Kevin or… Eric? Were you there? Yeah, you were there. Or Jamie.
Eric: It was past… I think that the photo came from my phone.
Andrew: Oh.
Eric: Maybe some digital sleuthing could figure it out. But yeah, I mean, it is the most quintessential, I think, photograph of the night that we stayed up reading Deathly Hallows for as long as our bodies could possibly stand, because you guys are passed out on the bed and Deathly Hallows is right next to you, and I don’t think it was posed. I don’t think it was posed.
Andrew: Oh, no, no.
Laura: Yeah, I have no recollection of that whatsoever, so… it’s very cute.
Micah: Well, hats off to our Eric-tor in Chief.
Andrew: Oh, good one. I think that’s the dad joke of the day. Let’s check it off the to-do list.
[Shelby laughs]
Eric: Ah, yeah. You’ve got to give it its flowers. Shelby, what are you excited about about the yearbook?
Shelby: Well, I just can’t wait to see it, and I think the way that you all have been talking about both using historical materials, photos and stuff, but also writing and reflecting now is really cool, and I can’t wait to see how it all comes together.
Micah: I had a blast going through not just all of the great guests we’ve had on the show over the years, but all of the segments that we had done. I forgot about many of them, including Andrew’s Listener Challenge…
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: … should he want to bring that back at some point in the future.
Eric: Oooh.
Andrew: Seems like a good one to bring back.
Micah: Dumbledore Norris facts. Do you remember those?
Andrew and Eric: Ohh.
Laura: Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.
Eric: So good. Yeah, really sky’s the limit on this.
Andrew: So like Eric said, you must be a Slug Club patron at Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and fill out the order form by September 15. We will post a couple of reminders between now and then as well. And also, as we’ve been telling everybody, for the whole month of August to celebrate our 20th anniversary, you can get 20% off an annual subscription to our Patreon! This really is the best time to become a member. We’ve never offered this large a discount before, so please take advantage of it. Visit Patreon.com/MuggleCast and pledge today; just use code “20YEARS” at checkout. Our Patreon is why we have made it this far, so thank you, everybody, so much, and thanks to people like Shelby, and Shelby! [laughs]
Micah: And just one other quick bit of news: I wanted to mention for the coffee drinkers out there that do use creamer in their coffee that Coffee Mate has released two new Harry Potter coffee creamers, Toffee Cauldron Cake and Zero Sugar White Chocolate Peppermint Toad, and they were nice enough to send us some for tasting. By us, I mean me. And I have already tried the Toffee Cauldron Cake. It is really good; I highly recommend it. I’m saving the White Chocolate Peppermint Toad for when it gets a little bit colder out.
Eric: Oooh.
Micah: I feel like that’s a little more of a wintry creamer to put in your coffee. But yeah, our friends at Coffee Mate were nice enough to give us a little taste, so I wanted to give them a shout-out on the show and recommend to our listeners, if you drink coffee and you like creamer in your coffee, to give it a go.
Chapter by Chapter: Time-Turner
Andrew: All right, now it’s time for Chapter by Chapter, and this week, we’re discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 35, “Beyond the Veil.”
Eric: And we last discussed this chapter on MuggleCast Episode 472, titled “DUBBLEDORE!” for no reason.
[Laura laughs]
[Ticking sound]
Dumbledore: Three turns should do it, I think. Good luck.
Ron: What the…?
[Bell dings]
[Whooshing sound]
Robotic voice: Episode 472.
Micah: And I love the physical aspect of Neville during the actual battle that takes place in the veil room. He knows he doesn’t have a wand, but he’s able to pick one up and jam it into a Death Eater’s eye. That’s resourcefulness.
Eric: Yeah, it sure is! [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, that was badass.
Andrew: So painful, eugh.
Eric: He tackles people. He’s tackling everybody he can, and even after having the curse performed on him, too.
Andrew: This is going to happen at a Wizarding World theme park one day. There’s going to be a bad guy there and somebody’s going to stab somebody with a physical wand, and then those wands are going to be banned from the theme parks.
Eric: Oh, those wands will never be banned from the theme parks. They make them too much money.
Andrew: Oh, true. “We don’t care if they’re dangerous.”
Laura: Maybe they’ll create a new ride: Neville’s Eye-Stabbing Department of Mysteries Romp.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: That’d be fun. It’d be like one of those shooter games, shooting carnival games.
Eric: It really brings whole new meaning to the term “interactive wand.”
[Everyone laughs]
[Ticking sound]
Dumbledore: Mysterious thing, time.
[Bell dings]
Micah: Well, I think that the Order of the Phoenix movie may need to be downgraded just based on the fact that we didn’t get Neville saying, “DUBBLEDORE!” in that fight scene.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: You know what? Honestly, thanks to David Yates for not doing that. You mentioned earlier, Micah, you were saying how we look back on previous episodes before recording, and I was giving Neville the business about being really annoying the last time we talked about this chapter. [laughs]
Micah: Oh no!
Eric: Talking with a busted nose.
Micah: I mean, Neville has a great chapter.
Laura: Yeah, I think it’s actually kind of disappointing that we don’t get to see some of that in the movie.
Eric: Well, I’d agree his actions are heroic, not that they save the person that needs it the most.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Micah: All right, well, the first part of this discussion is going to be all about how “you’re a fool, Harry Potter.” And Harry has been duped, okay? We were alluding to this in our last Chapter by Chapter discussion, but everything starts to come to light here. He is incessantly asking Lucius Malfoy, “Where is Sirius? Where is Sirius? Where is Sirius?,” only to come to the realization that Sirius ain’t here. He is nowhere to be found, and Harry has led all of his friends to their imminent demise.
Andrew: [laughs] Well…
Eric: Oops! Curb Your Enthusiasm theme?
Andrew: Possibly. [hums the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme]
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Well, that’s going through his head.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I mean, he’s going to carry a lot of regret after this, I think.
Micah: Assuming he gets out alive.
Andrew: Yes.
Micah: One of the other things that I thought was so revealing in this chapter was Harry really starts to feel even worse about himself, because not only does he get duped by Voldemort in being brought to the Ministry, there’s this thing that he doesn’t know anything about, and that is the prophecy.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: It is so weird reading this today, realizing Harry does not know about the prophecy yet. We’re just getting here now.
Eric: He doesn’t know that there is one, he doesn’t know that that would be what this is about…
Andrew: What it is, yeah.
Eric: And who failed to prepare him for this moment, Andrew?
Laura: Oh, here we go.
Andrew: [laughs] Um…
Micah: Ginny.
Eric: Everybody.
Andrew: Ginny, Sirius… I blame Sirius.
Shelby: Dubbledore.
Eric: Oh!
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: Dubbledore.
Eric: Dubbledore, yeah. That was it. But no, one thing that does align for me in the first part of this chapter is absolutely Harry’s ‘tude, as in his attitude, because we get this angry kind of talk-backy, sassy Harry. But for the first time in this book’s massive 800 pages, the ‘tude is not directed towards someone innocent, like Hermione or Ron, and is instead directed where it belongs, to the Death Eaters. He flat out tells them, “Did you know Voldemort is half-blood too?” All these little tidbits here and there, and Harry is just vamping. His inclination, his survival instinct, has always been based on vibes; “What should I do next?” But the way in which Harry is able to keep them occupied – when it should be very straightforward and simple, the Death Eaters just need to come grab that thing from him now that he’s got it down from the shelf – he keeps them at bay just by his wit and being who he is, and that’s exciting to actually read.
Micah: Yeah, because he realizes what he holds in his hand is something that they very much desire. So it’s almost like despite the fact that he doesn’t know what it is that he’s holding, he recognizes the value of it, and through that, he is able to really have the upper hand in a lot of these back and forths that he has predominantly with Lucius Malfoy. But Malfoy also is trying to bait him; he says, “Dumbledore never told you that the reason you bear that scar was hidden in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries?” And this is getting to what you were talking about earlier, Eric and Shelby, rightly calling out Dumbledore…
Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “Huh?”
Micah: … Harry is, once again, informationless in a very compromising situation.
Andrew: Yeah, and that is disappointing. But I will also say that the Death Eaters aren’t exactly prepared either. They’re showing their hand by letting Harry see that they cannot let the prophecy be destroyed, and I consider this a pretty big oversight that they should have planned for. What if one of them was just hiding in the shadows as Harry got closer to them, got to where the prophecy was, then as soon as he picked it up, that’s when you do “Accio prophecy”?
Eric: Right.
Andrew: Before he even knows you all are there and knows he’s been duped.
Shelby: The kids knew nothing about what was about to happen, and still, Lucius and the other Death Eaters are standing aside and doing the classic villain thing of like, “Let me announce what’s about to happen to you, hero.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: “He-he-he.”
Andrew: Spend some time to go, “Ha-ha-ha!”
Shelby: And that gives them time, yeah.
Eric: Too busy monologuing.
Laura: Right.
Shelby: Little bit.
Laura: Well, and I think that’s a great point, Shelby, because what that illustrates to me is that we’re again in a situation where the bad guys are underestimating children, just like Umbridge did a couple of chapters ago.
Eric: Oooh, when will they learn?
Laura: Yeah, they won’t.
Eric: It’s just… what I appreciate, too – and this is a moment less, I think, called upon by me in rereads – is that without speaking at all, just by putting, I think, the heel of his shoe on Hermione’s feet, Harry, while completely keeping Lucius at bay, is able to signal to Hermione that there’s going to be a moment at some point where they’re just going to run, and there’s not anything more than that. Harry steps on her toe, she goes, “What?”, and he can kind of hear their breathing, but in the interim, when Harry is conversing with Lucius, Hermione is somehow, undetected by the nine other Death Eaters in the room, also communicating to the kids, [whispers] “You guys, there’s going to be a moment,” and the fluidity with which everyone scatters at the exact right moment is a credit to this group of kids.
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: This group of kids…
Micah: Well, it’s a credit to Hermione… I mean, Hermione doesn’t do much the rest of the chapter, so it’s nice that she has her moment here.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Laura: Right.
Micah: Sorry.
Andrew: That struck me, too, though. I was impressed that they could work together like that.
Micah: Nonverbal communication.
Andrew: Yeah!
Eric: It’s good! For a chapter that’s so visceral and physical – there’s a lot of punching and people getting hit, people getting thrown against desks and stuff, stuff that would terrify me – everyone does pretty darn well for the interim period, for when until the Order can show up, and by the time the Order shows up, the Death Eaters are exhausted because they’re chasing these kids all around the Department of Mysteries. So you really get a sense, more than the chapter a few weeks ago where we entered the Department of Mysteries and we started talking about some of the rooms, I also got an appreciation reading this chapter for how it’s a bit like a maze, and how this is actually a pretty cool battlefield to be lost in, or it’s a different environment that is unfamiliar enough to the kids and the adults that it puts these uneven wizards on equal playing field, and it works to their advantage.
Micah: One thing I did want to go back to for a second is there’s a mention during the back and forth between Lucius and Harry about how the Dark Lord wondered why Harry didn’t come sooner, but what if he did? It’s not like the Death Eaters were prepared for Harry to show up any day that he got some random vision from Voldemort, right? It seems highly unlikely.
Eric: It’s a bit of a weird line.
Andrew: Yeah, since Harry doesn’t know this place, why would he be getting there any sooner than he did?
Micah: Well, I think the point from Lucius was that if Dumbledore had told him more about the prophecy, that Harry would have had more of an inclination to show up sooner. But my point is it’s not like they could have been monitoring this room 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and Harry decides he’s going to show up on a random Tuesday.
Andrew: Right, right. And having the Ministry otherwise empty.
Micah: Right.
Eric: That’s it! They got everybody out of here. They couldn’t have done that with a few hours’ notice.
Shelby: And also, if Harry already knew about the prophecy from Dumbledore earlier, would the new information from Voldemort be where the prophecy was? Because otherwise, Harry could have gone looking for the prophecy that was about himself anytime in the last five years, if Dumbledore had mentioned it to him and he was interested, right?
Micah: Well, and the other thing is Dumbledore knows the prophecy.
Eric: Right.
Micah: He doesn’t need to tell Harry, “Hey, you should go check it out in the Hall of Prophecy.” He can repeat it for him.
Andrew: But he doesn’t want to tell Harry the prophecy.
Micah: Of course not. Make his life harder.
Laura: Well, see how that works out.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, because the damage that it does is so much worse. But this would be the year, especially if you get to, like, February of this year, right? And it’s looking very much like Voldemort is trying to make a go for the department. It would seem prudent to tell Harry at that point, “Okay, so this weapon is actually a prophecy; here’s a little bit about it,” and he could show him the whole thing, or just tell him about it, but it would solidify that there’s actually no reason ever for Harry to go there, because it should be pretty obvious, I think, at least to Dumbledore, that the reason Voldemort is trying to entrance Harry to go there is because then “You need to be the one to grab the prophecy off the shelf.”
Micah: Voldemort needs him to do it.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. It’s still unclear. And Harry asks the question why Voldemort himself couldn’t do it, and the other Death Eaters kind of giggle, but that’s, I think, a valid question, because there’s ways to do that stealthily. I mean, he was in Hogwarts stealthily for an entire year. You don’t think he could find a way, fully able-bodied, to get down there and take the prophecy himself? When no one’s guard is up?
Laura: Right. I have a question for the group: Do we remember earlier on in the book…? I think it’s the chapter where Harry and Malfoy get into a fight in Potions; Harry ends up getting detention for it, and Malfoy says to Harry, “Don’t you know? If it were me, I would want to know.” Do we think that Lucius put Draco up to trying to goad Harry, because there hadn’t been much movement, and the Dark Lord was like, “Let’s see if we can rattle his cage a little bit”?
Andrew: That’s a good catch. I would say that’s exactly what’s going on.
Micah: I like that a lot. Maybe not goad him, but I wouldn’t put it past Draco to overhear his father talking about something either, so that could just be Draco being Draco as well.
Eric: And it’s interesting, because what Lucius knows about the prophecy is somehow that it explains why Harry has his scar. So up to a certain point… we know exactly from Book 6, I think, when Snape stopped overhearing the prophecy being made, which he then reported to Voldemort. So we know how much of that prophecy Voldemort knows, but Lucius essentially, in goading Harry here, tells Harry exactly what the prophecy is about. “It’s why he came after you as a baby, and it has to do with why you have the scar.” And so Lucius knows quite a bit, actually, about the prophecy without actually knowing the contents.
Micah: Yeah, there’s a really just great exchange between the two of them, and they’re playing on each other’s insecurities quite well. And Eric, you alluded to this a little bit earlier, but the moment where Harry calls out the fact that Voldemort is, in fact, a half-blood, it’s actually a really great tactic on his part because it’s throwing all of the focus off of him and his friends and back on to the fact that, number one, he said Voldemort’s name, but he’s calling into question his authenticity, right?
Andrew: Yeah, it throws them off-kilter a little bit, the Death Eaters, and it’s probably something they don’t think about too often, or at least not as a group, because my feeling on this is they don’t care that he’s a half-blood so long as he is giving them what they want, and that’s the ability to rule over the wizarding world and to continue to be so hateful and to take down Harry Potter. It doesn’t matter to them; they’re sticking their head in the sand. They’re hypocritical. Shocker.
Shelby: I agree with Andrew, and also think that we see the same thing happen in the real world throughout history and today, right? We see leaders who are hateful, whose followers are hateful, even against the leader’s own family members or own background. I don’t think I need to say more about it than that, but just that we see that happen, and people are willing to turn a blind eye or put their head in the sand if their ultimate goal is, they think, being progressed or advanced.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: That kind of cognitive dissonance is, I think, definitely something we can all relate to real world examples. My thinking here is that Voldemort being a half-blood is probably the worst-kept secret amongst Death Eaters, and probably something that gets whispered about when they think he’s not around and they can’t hear him. But ultimately, I feel like this group of people would just be like, “He’s one of the good ones.”
Eric: Ohh.
Shelby: Yeah, totally.
Laura: Which is also a real life thing that happens.
Micah: Speaking of Patreon earlier, we did a bonus MuggleCast talking about this very topic following Episode 472, so folks can check out more of the discussion there. But I do think that maybe there is no real distinction for the… or maybe there’s almost a… they don’t look at Voldemort and Tom Riddle as being the same person. And Laura, I know you kind of called out the fact that how many of them actually know anything about Tom Riddle? Presumably, maybe from his days at Hogwarts, they’ve heard whispers about him, but they don’t know the story the way that Dumbledore knows the story, the way that Harry ultimately learns the story. And I do think there’s this aspect that Voldemort may have just proven himself so much to be this pure-blood maniac that whatever he did in his prior life, the Death Eaters don’t care about at the end of the day.
Eric: Well, and yet, it’s always powerful to tell the truth in a space like this, surrounded by his fanatics, for Harry to just have the power of knowledge of being… he says a true thing; there’s nothing more great or less great than that. He’s telling them the truth, and they are way too blind to hear it. But it does, I think, make them stop. We’re actually in the presence of Voldemort’s biggest fanatic, Bellatrix Lestrange, and even she takes half a beat to think of any…
Micah: Well, it happens because she calls Harry a filthy half-blood, and he’s like, “Oh, by the way…”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: “By the way!” There’s always value in that. There’s always value in telling the truth.
Laura: Wait, canonically, isn’t Bellatrix pregnant at this point?
Eric: Well, depends on if Cursed Child in your eye is canon.
Laura: Okay, well, let’s assume that it is.
Eric: Ugh.
Laura: Was the author’s intention that Bellatrix was pregnant during all of this? Because she’s probably thinking, “Oh my God, my child is not going to be a pure-blood now.”
Micah: Oopsie.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: It would be around this time, sometime between the Battle of the Department of Mysteries and the skirmish in Malfoy Manor.
Micah: Oh, she’s got time. [laughs]
Andrew: She’s got time. But she’s just getting turned on now, that’s for sure. Things are heating up.
Eric: Oh, and Bellatrix is such a forgiving person. Even though Voldemort is half-blood, she still gets with him.
Micah: But kudos to Harry, because this is a great diversionary tactic on his part to take the attention off of himself and the rest of the DA that are present, and get them ready to start running, like you said, Eric. And we’re going to take a run with them; we’ll be right back to fight some Death Eaters.
Eric: Yeah!
[Ad break]
Micah: All right, we are back, and I think it’s fair to say we want to see this entire chapter, at least what’s left of this chapter, Max’d.
[“Max that” sound effect plays]
Micah: That’s actually what it sounds like when you break a prophecy in the Hall of Prophecies.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: “Aaahhh, you broke a prophecyyy…” Yeah, I mean, I think something that was really exciting reading this is Dumbledore’s Army lessons are paying off here. This is what it was for. This is what they trained for.
Micah: I did want to ask about that, though. Before we really get into the details of the battle itself, what are our thoughts on the sequence of it? Because presumably, a bunch of teenagers would not normally be able to use their juvenile spells to fend off Death Eaters, and the fact that Harry and company can work their way through the Department of Mysteries battle with spells like Stupefy is a little hard to imagine.
Andrew: Do you think maybe the Death Eaters weren’t expecting much from the kids? It was going to be a lot easier?
Micah: I think there was some of that.
Andrew: Yeah, they’d be scared. They’d be ill-equipped. They know that Umbridge has been ruling at Hogwarts for the last term or two, for the last year.
Laura: Right, so they were probably…
Andrew: They thought it’d be easy.
Eric: Oh, it’s a perfect example of how she, while not directly wishing to do their bidding, 100% made it easier for the Death Eaters to take over and kick ass.
Laura: Yeah. I also think that… and I mean, realistically, I agree with you, Micah; would five teenagers using Stupefy and Impedimenta and things like that, would that work super well against some of the most heinous Death Eaters? Probably not, but I take it back to the read that I have, which is that these Death Eaters are just really underestimating these kids. And the Death Eaters are thinking like Death Eaters, so they are assuming the types of attacks that they would need to withstand would be things that these kids would not be capable of, like Killing Curses and Crucio and all of these other things. So I think it catches them off-guard that the kids are mainly doing things to inconvenience them, and there’s definitely some entertainment in that, even though this is a dark chapter.
Micah: For sure. What do you think, Shelby?
Shelby: I think it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, with the nonverbal planning between Harry and Hermione and the rest of them. And the fact that they knocked over all the prophecies as pretty much their first defensive move in the scene I thought was interesting because, like you were saying, Death Eaters think differently and are thinking about magical attacks, and also very violent or Unforgivable attacks, and they started with something that was physical, and they started the kind of slapstick element. Even though it was serious; it wasn’t written humorous, but it was so physical, as we discussed earlier, and the kids kind of started that. They were like, “We’re not going to fancy magic or evil magic; we’re going to throw a bunch of glass balls at you and see what happens.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Right, and it completely puts them on edge to now have to fend off against the battleground, this unusual… we see time and again how the location itself stumps the Death Eaters, whether it’s the doors they can’t get through, or cabinets they’ve accidentally been knocked into. There’s a lot of, I don’t know, booby traps. It makes the Department of Mysteries so dynamic, and there’s no way the kids could have possibly known that. But it’s fun to see how it shakes out. I think I’m less bothered as I read on, because there are these moments where somebody gets a bloody nose or thrown across the room, that make me feel like everyone just survived, really, by the scruffs of their neck. And so I feel like it’s a close call, and I’m not ultimately sad that somebody doesn’t die during this chapter, but it’s close.
Micah: Well, somebody does die in this chapter.
Eric: [quietly] Yeah.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Unfortunately.
Eric: It’s none of the kids, though.
Micah: Oh, yeah, spoiler. Sorry.
Andrew: All things considered, one ain’t too bad.
Eric: I think he’s still alive. I think SiriusBlackIsNotDead.com…
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Web archive. Look it up.
Micah: It is such a great point, because the Department of Mysteries in and of itself is like an enemy for both. I mean, it presents its own challenges to both the Death Eaters and Dumbledore’s Army, but I would say probably works in favor of Dumbledore’s Army, because the Death Eaters are just so focused on the mission at hand and not necessarily thinking of using what’s in all of these different rooms to their advantage, whereas Dumbledore’s Army actually does do that. Do we think it’s fair to say that the Death Eaters hold back to some extent? I mean, we see the Killing Curse attempted once on page, but it’s actually interrupted because Harry ends up tackling the Death Eater that was presumably going to kill Hermione.
Andrew: I think Voldemort doesn’t want dead kids at the Ministry. And in the case of this Death Eater getting close to killing Hermione, it wouldn’t surprise me if some of these Death Eaters have a hard time restraining themselves and not fully wanting to listen to an order like that from Voldemort to not kill any kids. Because the Ministry still isn’t convinced, for a little while longer, that Voldemort is back. They’re sticking their head in the sand, and Voldemort doesn’t want to give them a good reason to come out and proclaim that he’s back.
Laura: Yeah. Or at the very least, he doesn’t want the questions to come up. I agree with you.
Andrew: See, Voldemort is a good guy. He doesn’t want to kill children.
Micah: He cares for the kids.
Andrew: Yeah!
Eric: Well, and can you imagine the coverup, though? Because even if they lied about how the kids died, what were the kids not doing at Hogwarts? Even just having these kids be there in that moment, in order to cover that up, they would have to take them to Hogwarts and make up a… like, “There was a rabid giant in the forest that killed them all!” Which, to be fair, actually is totally a thing that they could blame on killing the kids. But no, it’s just so inconvenient, to your point, Micah. It’s a tough situation, but I think the Death Eaters are all willing to kill Harry’s friends, especially if they need to, especially if they get in their way. But at the end of the day, they’re just there to retrieve a little sphere, a little glass sphere. I think all of the Death Eaters collectively are like, “How hard could this be?” And I just… you’ve got to love… obviously, we see Lucius get punished in a number of ways, including at the beginning of the next book with Voldemort’s plan for Draco. But ultimately, Voldemort having to learn that not only did Lucius fumble this whole task that he was given, but that it went on for so long, and ended… they chased through every room of the Department of Mysteries and then still lost it is just extra icing on the cake of… Lucius is just bad at his job at this point, right?
Micah: Yes, and going on for so long, not just in this particular moment, but for months with Podmore, with… why am I blanking on…?
Eric: Bode?
Micah: Bode, yeah. So there’s been multiple attempts to do this. And yeah, look, I mean, Lucius does say at one point; he’s like, “Kill the rest of them, but make sure that Potter survives.” So they do enter this “Enough of this garbage” mode already, right? I think it’s Dolohov attacks Hermione, right? In a way where we’re not sure whether or not she’s going to survive. When I was reading that for the first time, I didn’t know whether or not she was just offed in Order of the Phoenix. So it does start to get a lot more real. We do see a lot more… I know you said broken noses, but the DA really does start to get roughed up here, to the point where pretty much everybody with the exception of… Harry and Neville are left standing, and I did want to talk a little bit about that, because I do think there is symbolism in the fact that it’s Harry and Neville that are left standing in the veil room against all of the Death Eaters. But we do see the DA members in battle for the first time, and I’m curious, how do we think their performances maybe reflect some of the strengths or weaknesses that we’ve seen throughout this year? Any thoughts on any of the members of the DA?
Andrew: Well, first and foremost, I just have to give them credit for the courage to fight. I don’t think that would be easy to do. I’m not sure I would be willing to participate, go into this unknown location and fight these unknown people. To the point about Harry and Neville being the last ones standing of the army, I think definitely that the choice of those two standing last was very intentional. Maybe you could argue somewhere deep down within them the prophecy kind of really motivated them. I mean, Neville was fired up, ready to go, and he had other reasons, but I like to think that there was some special connection there with the prophecy.
Laura: I think so, because the prophecy could have been about either one of them.
Andrew: Right.
Shelby: Yeah, I agree with Andrew and Laura that having Neville there, it was like, who was the prophecy really about? One thing that came to mind for me – sort of about this whole book, but in this scene in particular – is I teach middle school, so kids who are just a little bit younger than this crew is in this moment, and I feel like I see this… luckily, not these big battle scenes against a Dark wizard, but I see Nevilles in middle school…
Andrew: Aww.
Shelby: … who are kids whose school and skills are not coming as easily to them, but at around this time, 13/14/15, some kids are like, “Well, I’m just not good at whatever chosen field; I’m going to do something different than some kids.” The ones who are like Neville are like, “I’ve got to do this, and I’ve got to work hard at it.”
Eric: Oh!
Laura: I love that.
Shelby: I think that we really see that, I think, starting in Goblet of Fire, but especially starting in Dumbledore’s Army, him being like, “I see myself as having weaknesses compared to my peers, and I’m going to have to work extra hard, because I’m not going to let that prevent me from doing what needs to get done, and being a part of this war and being successful myself.” So I just feel like that felt very powerful to me, and that then it really paid off in the scene, that he was able to perform so well under high pressure. And of course, there’s so many other things going on with Bellatrix being there and everything, but that’s kind of what I was thinking about when I was reading Neville in this go-round.
Eric: I love that so much.
Andrew: That’s really cool. Thanks for sharing that.
Micah: Yeah, I mean, Neville is really… to me, he really takes the most hits in this chapter, and the fact that he’s still…
Eric: Loses his wand.
Micah: Yeah, I mean, not only that, he’s the only one that’s left standing besides Harry, which we talked about, but he refuses to leave when Harry gives him the direction to leave, and that’s really where you see the Gryffindor in him shine through. As you mentioned, he does end up losing his wand, so he has nothing… this goes back to the clip you were playing earlier, right? But he’s got a broken nose. He’s had an Unforgivable Curse performed on him. Let’s not forget earlier in this chapter, Bellatrix is like, “Oh, another Longbottom for me to torture into insanity.”
Eric: Oh, God.
Micah: And she says, “Yeah, that’s only a taste.” So he really… it reminds me of when I used to watch WWE back in the day, like going through a full-blown steel cage match, and at the very end, Neville is still standing despite everything that he’s been through.
Eric: Well, he’s certainly also had an annoyingness jinx put on him, because I can’t stand reading all of his exclamations as he’s running around. He’s missing spells, but his heart is in it. His heart is in it.
Micah: Well, I mean, I don’t blame him.
Laura: He’s a ride or die.
Micah: He can’t even walk at this point because of the curse being put on him.
Eric: No, I’m not trying to suggest I would do any better in this situation. Actually, what impresses me is exactly what you said, Micah, that he sticks around, and also that he’s not precious about his wand at all. It’s his father’s wand, so in a way… we’ll have to go back and see what Frank Longbottom… what spells Neville cast at who, what Death Eaters got hit by Frank Longbottom’s wand tonight before it was destroyed. That would be kind of a neat little sleuth read to do. But ultimately, there’s so much stake put in this chapter of the people here killed these kids’ family members, not just the torture to the point of insanity Frank and Alice Longbottom, but the guy who killed the Prewetts is here. That is Ron’s uncles. And that was said… I think that’s Dolohov, and it’s said that he’s here. So they’re actually face to face with not just henchmen; they’re face to face with people that tangibly have altered the course of these kids’ lives. And it’s a bit… I think it’s understated, because there’s so much chaos, but yeah, it’s pretty impressive.
Micah: For sure. And the rest of the crew have kind of been taken out. As we’ve mentioned, Hermione is out for most of this battle sequence, and it’s also worth mentioning, it’s her, Harry, and Neville who are together, and then it’s Ginny, Ron, and Luna. And Luna gets knocked out at one point; Ginny gets knocked out at one point. Ron, kind of in Ron fashion, takes himself out of the equation. [laughs]
Eric: I hope he’s okay, by the way. Neville is like, “I think he’s all right. He was still fumbling with the brain thing in the other room when I last saw him.” And I’m like, he’s probably dead, if you see how aggressively that thing was… Ron was in no place to defend himself against that, and Neville did not see him escape from it.
Micah: Well, as luck would have it, the Order do show up to save the day.
Eric: But not…
Micah: Well, no, Sirius shows up, just nobody saved the day for him.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Dumbledore was a step too late, as always. Do we think it’s fair to say that the level of battle elevates once the Order shows up? This goes from “Maybe you have a nasty curse thrown here or there,” to “Shit’s on right now.” [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, because it’s adults fighting adults, and the adults on the good side are pissed that the Death Eaters have been fighting these children, and they want to get this done, and they’re mad about the fast one that Voldemort pulled on Harry. They’re mad about a lot of things, so there’s just a ton of tension in the air.
Eric: And I’m sure they’ve all in their own way – maybe not as much as Sirius – but I’m sure they’ve all been pent up, all been waiting for a confrontation like this, and here, all of a sudden, it is. They don’t have the upper hand in that Voldemort dictated the day that it would occur, the place where it would occur, and they’re already behind timing-wise, but they also have the upper hand because they still have their energy. Like I said earlier, the Death Eaters are all worn out at this point, and the way it’s described when they burst through the door, Tonks just starts raining spells down. The Death Eaters are essentially sitting ducks. They’re in the open area around the veil with all these steps; it’s really easy for people above to be looking down casting spells than it is for the people down below to get out of the way. So it’s really nice, cool staging, honestly.
Micah: Definitely. Yeah, it gets real. I mean, I couldn’t tell, when Mad-Eye’s eye was just kind of rolling around, was that…? Is that like a tactic he uses?
Eric: Oh my God!
Micah: Or was he just knocked out somewhere?
Eric: Could you imagine him just taking it out of his eye socket, giving it a little kiss, and going, “Show me everything,” and rolls it? And then it…
Andrew: It seems silly for Mad-Eye to lose control of his eye like that. He’s a tough guy. He’s a fighter. For him to lose control of his eye is surprising.
Laura: Well, doesn’t it…? Wasn’t he unconscious, and didn’t it say his head was bleeding? I don’t…
Micah: Oh, maybe that. I missed that. One of the great moments that we’re really not given in the Order of the Phoenix movie is this entrance by Dumbledore. Of course, we see him arrive at the atrium to face Voldemort, but the fact that he was a part of this particular battle… it’s very cool to see all of these Death Eaters trying to scramble away like little rats, because they want absolutely nothing to do with Dumbledore.
Eric: Yeah, and he’s plucking them up.
Andrew: And it leads up to the next chapter, titled “The Only One He Ever Feared.” It’s a nice little appetizer. But I do like how the movie did it, because it is cool to just see Voldemort and Dumbledore basically one-on-one. It kind of builds up the anticipation more. That said, I would like to see what happens in the book Max’d, to see Dumbledore fighting alongside everybody else.
Laura: Yeah. I don’t need a Pokémon battle.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I will say, I’m really hoping that we get a different interpretation of the veil scene. I know that’s at the very end of the chapter, but I just found the movie version to be too smooth, too sanitized. It was just like, “Oh, he’s just floating away,” and it’s like, that’s not really what happens. He literally slips the mortal coil in front of everyone, and it’s supposed to feel very jarring, and you don’t get that in the movie, I don’t think.
Shelby: I just remember when the series was first coming out and reading this book, and there was lots of talk after each book came out of who had died, and were they really dead, and stuff like this. And I was someone who was very convinced that Sirius was still alive because there hadn’t been a Killing Curse, and because we didn’t know about the veil in the same way that we knew about the way other people had died, other characters. And I felt like seeing the Killing Curse in the scene in the movie, I was like… that totally changed for a movie-only viewer, like, “Okay, he just got shot by a evil villain; that’s all that really happened,” as opposed to this very question mark moment, which Lupin and others talk with Harry about and try to help him understand that Sirius isn’t coming back. But that felt like a very open question to me, just because it was the Department of Mysteries. It was a mystery what would happen. Who knows if he was dead?
Eric: That’s a great point.
Shelby: So I don’t know.
Andrew: And that is one of the nice things about the entire series, is there are… she did leave room to speculate. She did leave doors open. So that would have been a nice thing to include in the movie. But unfortunately, I think sometimes with filmmaking – not that I’m a filmmaker – but they’ve got to dumb stuff down for the audience, because people are stupid and they really need it spelled out for them. It’s like when a character in a movie says, “What do you mean?” to the other character so then the other character can spell it out for the audience.
Shelby: “He’s really dead!” they said.
Andrew: [laughs] Right.
Micah: I would just add, too, if you want to dismiss the recklessness of physically where Sirius is in the room and not having the awareness, I think more of the recklessness you could argue came from the fact that he was goading Bellatrix. He says to her, “That’s all you got?” And this woman is deranged. Do you really want to be challenging her? And I mean, honestly, Sirius is kind of out of practice.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s true. But he’s got a chip on his shoulder. He wants to fight like it’s the good old days. And I will give the movie a plus one for when Sirius says, “Nice one, James!” That’s not in the book.
Micah: No. No, it’s not.
Andrew: In the book, it’s just “Nice one.” I thought that was a really clever little addition.
Eric: I think Sirius can tell the difference between Harry and James.
Andrew: Oh, I know he can tell the difference between the two, but I think in the moment when they’re fighting and Sirius is just… it’s bringing him back to his glory days, and I think he just instinctively says, “Nice one, James.” Not that he confused the two.
Eric: Well, that’s, I think, what people would tend to point to… if you’re in the business of oversimplification, which the movies are, the line makes sense as “Nice one, James.” But I liked reading this chapter, reading him go “Nice one” to Harry, because it’s the first thing they say to each other in person in months, and it feels satisfying. It feels like a part one to an eventual part two, where they’re going to be at Grimmauld place, around a fireplace, able to recount their victories in just a few short hours, but it doesn’t happen.
Micah: Yeah, if he’s a portrait.
Eric: Aww.
Micah: But I did want to call out what Becky said in the Discord: “Maybe Bellatrix’s spell made Sirius move slower.” Perhaps she used something like Impedimenta.
Laura: Maybe.
Andrew: She wants to witness a slow death.
Eric: I also think there’s got to be some level of flowers to give to Sirius, not just because of his funeral, but because of holding his own against a deranged killer for probably five or ten minutes? Like, come on. That ain’t easy, right? So he does eventually… she gets the better of him, but the reason he’s goading her is because he’s had enough success to have the freedom to go to her. So he’s doing all right at first, until he’s not.
Andrew: Can I move into this odd and end?
Micah: Yeah, the last thing I just wanted to say about this scene is that it establishes Bellatrix as one of the big bads in the series moving forward.
Eric: Yeah, that it does.
Odds & Ends
Andrew: So a couple of odds and ends. When an unnamed Death Eater’s head turns into a baby, Harry is about to cast a spell on the Death Eater, but Hermione stops him and says, “You can’t hurt a baby!”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: This is giving baby Hitler argument to me. “You can’t hurt a baby.” No, that’s an adult Death Eater that brought themselves there. They can be hit or killed. I have no sympathy for baby-headed Death Eater.
Laura: I don’t either, but I actually think it’s smart to keep him on the board, because you just avoid him, right? He’s not really dangerous to anyone at this point; he’s just Frankensteining his way around. So if anything, he’s making things harder on the other Death Eaters.
Andrew: But it’s good target practice for the kids, because if they hit the head – and it’s a small head – that’s pretty impressive. If it was a full-size head, that’d be too easy.
Eric: I think it’s the kind of question… it’s not a question of whether the Death Eater made all the wrong choices, but I think the question is, if you hold up your wand and actually go to attempt a spell that would severely harm this thing, could you? Could you physically? Because looking at a baby face, could you cast the spell? And probably not.
[Andrew gasps]
Eric: You can’t hurt a baby. Doesn’t mean you’re not capable, but when it really came down to it, would you?
Micah: I’m with Andrew on this one.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: It’s fun to think about.
Micah: But Laura makes an excellent point, though, in terms of it causes more chaos, which I think only works towards Dumbledore’s Army advantage in this particular case. Well, one thing we didn’t mention is that the prophecy gets destroyed…
Andrew: Oh!
Micah: … so Lucius is going to be a whole lot of hot water when he gets home to mommy Voldy. But we do hear at least one prophecy.
Andrew: [Trelawney voice] “At the solstice will come a new…” [back to normal voice] And then there’s a second one… [Trelawney voice] “… and none will come after.” [back to normal voice] So we don’t… it’d be cool if this was just one prophecy, but it is two separate ones, it seems, so we can’t really analyze this too much.
Micah: It is.
Andrew: Does anybody have any fun guesses what one or the other…?
Micah: I think there were a lot of theories about this back in the day.
Laura: Yeah, there were.
Andrew: No, but… okay. I mean, “At the solstice will come a new…” summer solstice, winter solstice…
Micah: Summer solstice, new book.
[Andrew and Shelby laugh]
Eric: Yeah, it sounds very run of the mill. How do you measure time? And it’s the rotations of the Earth. It feels very archaic, like, “Oh, at the solstice… when the sun meets this and that point in the sky and…”
Micah: I think people thought that’s when the final book was going to come out, because “none will come after”?
Eric: Oh, that’s fun.
Andrew and Laura: Ohh.
Andrew: Well, and it did come out on the summer solstice.
Micah: Did it really?
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: It was June 21.
Micah: There you go.
Andrew: Is that right?
Laura: No, July.
Andrew: July 21.
Micah: Oh, July.
Laura: It was Harry’s birthday month.
Eric: I mean, we still had to get through Book 6 first after this, but yeah, eventually.
Andrew: Wait, wait, wait. July 21, but the solstice is in June. It’s June 21.
Laura: Oh. Well, never mind.
Andrew: Damn it.
Micah: We tried.
Andrew: I blame her publishers. Maybe she wanted to…
Eric: This reminds me of when we did the predictions of Tycho Dodonus or whatever for… I think it was either a bonus or on an old MuggleCast, where we were just like, “Let’s get crazy with prophecy.”
Andrew: Yeah. But the Order of the Phoenix book came out June 21, which was the summer solstice, so there you go.
Eric: That was the solstice.
Andrew: There, we found the connection.
Micah: But these prophecies are unrelated, so we shouldn’t be trying to pair them together.
Shelby: But more books came after.
Andrew: But it was two separate prophecies.
Micah: Anyway. [laughs] That wraps up our discussion of Chapter 35.
Superlative of the Week
Micah: Now for some MVP action. I wanted to know, if you were able to give Dumbledore some entrance music to the Department of Mysteries – that cold, hard stare he had on his face – what would it be?
Andrew: “Abracadabra” by Lady Gaga. It’s magical. There’s a line “death or love tonight.” [singing] “Abracadabra, Abracadabra… feel the beat under your feet…” Dumbledore is dancing in. And Gaga is pretty dark in it, so that’s my choice.
Micah: Have you seen the Wednesday version of that? The performance?
Andrew: I have not, no.
Micah: I’m going to send it to you. I feel like you’ll really like it. Do you watch Wednesday?
Andrew: I do not.
Micah: You should.
Andrew: All right.
Micah: But anyway, that’s a story for another time. Eric, what about you?
Eric: I’m going to give it classic entrance music. “California Love,” Tupac featuring Dr. Dre.
Micah: [laughs] Okay.
Eric: For some reason, just the [beatboxes] as he’s coming down…
Micah: It’s so sad we can’t play music anymore.
Andrew: Dumbledore’s car bouncing up and down.
Eric: Yes! Dumbledore’s car is out back. Yes, Andrew, just that. You get it.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I love it.
Laura: I went with “Toxic” by Britney Spears. Little bit of a throwback. It’s just… I don’t know; I feel like I could see John Lithgow Dumbledore waltzing into the Department of Mysteries, ready to kick some butt to this. And he is a little toxic, so it fits.
Micah: Shelby?
Shelby: I definitely pictured… because Harry is whispering to himself, “We’re saved,” so I was definitely imagining Harry singing “Holding Out for a Hero,” à la the Fairy Godmother in Shrek 2.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Eric: I was going to say, this is very much Shrek 2 right now. [laughs] “Where have all the good men gone?”
Micah: And I know I made a wrestling reference earlier, but I just think of… if anybody here on the panel has heard Stone Cold Steve Austin’s entrance music in WWE, it’s just a bunch of shattered glass, but it’s just the way he comes out when that music hits. He’s just trash talking, smashing beers together, ready to kick some ass, and that’s what I see Dumbledore doing in this moment.
Andrew: Love it.
Micah: Are you watching it, Andrew?
Andrew: No, I’m not watching it.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: The song… I think his intro theme is “Hell Frozen Over”?
Micah: Yeah, I don’t know what the real name of it is. People in the Discord will know.
Eric: Apparently it’s inspired by the classic song “Bulls on Parade” by Rage Against the Machine.
Micah: Is it now?
Eric: Yeah, good stuff.
Lynx Line
Micah: And then over on our Lynx Line, we asked our patrons the question of the week, which is which Death Eater would they most like to team up with for this battle? Switch things up a little bit. And reminder for those Death Eaters, at least that we get by name: Obviously we have Malfoy, but Nott, Jugson, Bellatrix, Rodolphus, Rabaston, Crabbe, Dolohov, Macnair, Avery, Rookwood, and Mulciber. So there’s quite a few to choose from, and our patrons, as always, did not disappoint.
Andrew: Yeah, they put on their Death Eater masks and answered this one. “Nott, Theodore Nott, because fanfic has led me to believe he doesn’t agree with his father.”
Laura: Fair enough.
Eric: Ning Xi says,
“Tagging along with Bellatrix because she is way too eager to prove herself, so I’m just going to let her do her thing, and I can appear to also have helped. Yes, I am lazy like that.”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Classic.
Micah: Michelle (TheOtherMinister) said,
“Lucius Malfoy. It would be my great pleasure to wipe the smirk off of his cowardly, simpering face, and then knock him right on his back. He would never even see it coming.”
Andrew: Whoa!
Micah: So we have a lot of patrons here who are acting as double agents.
Andrew: Wanting to screw with them. Yeah, wow. How Snape of them.
Laura: Love it. Laura says,
“The one who falls into that little glass time machine thingy and ends up with a baby head. I would just bring him along and have him smash the place up and confuse my enemies, so I can secretly strike them all while hiding behind babyhead.”
Andrew: [laughs] Babyhead.
Shelby: Tony says, “Bellatrix, because she needs a friend, and she is a take-no-prisoners kind of person.”
Andrew: That’s thoughtful. Anne-Marie said,
“I like the idea of tagging along with Bellatrix, because she would be so productive that it would make it look like I did something too. But I think I would actually tag along with Lucius Malfoy because Moldy Voldy would be so focused on his failure that he would overlook my lack of action.”
[Eric and Shelby laugh]
Andrew: Wow, some of our listeners are lazy too. That’s what I’m getting from these.
Laura: Hey, work smarter, not harder.
Eric: That’s the Slytherin motto.
Laura: That’s the lesson.
Andrew: Not even sure they’re working to begin with, but okay.
Eric: Rachel says,
“Rookwood. He used to work there, and can maybe answer all my questions. I’d be so annoying with how many I ask that he’d storm off, giving the Order one less opponent.”
I love that creative solution to problem-solving there, Rachel.
Micah: Parth says,
“Dolohov is my go-to. The man took down Lupin and Tonks in quick succession, and he nearly finished off Hermione with a nonverbal curse while wandless earlier in the book. That’s talent. He’s ruthless, dangerous, and doesn’t waste time with theatrics. In the chaos of battle, Dolohov is the guy who gets things done – fast and vicious. I’d stick close to him and let the bodies hit the floor. (Stepping into the dark side.)”
Andrew: [laughs] Wow.
Micah: That’s another good song we could have played for Dumbledore.
Eric: There’s a song, yeah.
Laura: Eleanor says,
“I’m teaming up with Bellatrix because I want to be alongside her (preferably slightly behind her), rather than in any danger of her wild spells going awry and hitting me!”
Shelby: And Robbie says,
“Macnair, because even if I was a baddie, I wouldn’t tolerate animal cruelty and would take pleasure in helping him ‘get lost’ in the Department of Mysteries.”
Andrew: Nice. Well reasoned, y’all.
Eric: Yeah, love that.
Andrew: The Lynx Line is a great way to have your voice heard on the show, whether or not you’re listening live; that’s why we have this benefit. We ask a new question every week, and we invite you to participate by becoming a member of our community at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. If you have feedback about today’s episode, you can email or send a voice memo to MuggleCast@gmail.com. And next week on the pod, we’ll be discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 36, “The Only One He Ever Feared,” because Dumbledore is the best. Don’t forget that now through the end of August, you can get 20% off an annual membership to our Patreon by using code “20YEARS” at checkout, and by becoming a member, you’ll also get the MuggleCast 20th anniversary yearbook if you pledge at the Slug Club level. You’ll have to fill out the form by September 15, and you can check out a preview on our Patreon as well. This is truly the best time of year to help us out. If you’re looking for other ways to support us, you can visit MuggleCastMerch.com to buy official show gear. You can also leave us a review in your favorite podcast app, and please tell a friend about the show. You can visit MuggleCast.com for quick access to all of this information, including our contact form and lots more. And if you’re looking for more podcasting from the four of us, listen to our other shows, Millennial and What the Hype?!, for more pop culture and real world talk.
Quizzitch
Andrew: Now it’s time for Quizzitch!
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: This week’s question was: When entering the Department of Mysteries, Harry and friends first encounter a room with many unmarked doors. Similarly, the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, USA has over 2,000 doors in its mansion, which contains 160 rooms. How many windows are present in the Winchester Mystery House? was our question that we asked. Was it A) 2,001 window panes, B) 10,000 window panes, C) 665, or D) 4,000? The correct answer was B) 10,000. So 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows in the Winchester Mystery House. 40% of people with the correct answer say they didn’t look it up, and this week’s winners were 142 staircases; A Healthy Breeze; Bort Voldemort; Elizabeth K.; HallowWolf; IDon’tGiveaCorneliusOswaldFudge; It’s a mystery where, but it’s just a little old place where we can get together to admire the love cats; I wanna know what love is, I want you to show me, Micah; Justice and Good Luck wishes to the snifflers that attacked Umbridge’s office; Laura Have You Watched The Umbrella Academy Yet?; Listener who is shy of three times the age of MuggleCast; Lord Voldemort Banana Hammock; Lynn the Allomancer; Pygmy Puff Power; and Stacking Galleons Like Winchester Stacks Windows. I love now that listeners, via the Quizzitch form, are heckling Laura on her binge-watching. That’s kind of new.
Laura: I didn’t take this as a heckle.
Eric: Oh.
Laura: It just seems like they’re curious.
Eric: Well, have you?
Laura: No, I haven’t. I know this is a show that seems like it would be very up my alley, but no, I haven’t. I will.
Eric: Here is next week’s Quizzitch question: In this chapter, Ron gets up close and personal with a human brain when he catches one in his hands. How much does the human brain weigh, on average, in pounds? Is Ron going to get swole for this? What’s going on? Here’s another multiple choice question: Is the human brain’s average weight in pounds A) seven pounds, B) five pounds, C) three pounds, or D) one pound? And submit your correct answers to us on the MuggleCast website on the Quizzitch form that’s there, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or click on “Quizzitch” if you’re on our website via the main nav.
Andrew: Shelby, it was great having you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us.
Shelby: Yeah, thanks for having me. It was fun.
Andrew: Yeah, appreciate your support. You’re in the Discord, too, right?
Shelby: Mhm.
Andrew: Yeah, okay. It’s always fascinating when a member of the Discord comes into our studio. It’s like, “Oh my gosh, we’re getting live Discord action right now.” It’s beautiful.
[Shelby laughs]
Andrew: Well, thank you for your support and for all your contributions today; we really appreciate it. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: I’m Laura.
Shelby: And I’m Shelby.
Andrew: Bye, everyone.
Eric, Laura, and Micah: Bye.