Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #723, Fudge’s Therapy Session (HBP Chapter 1, The Other Minister)
Cold Open
Micah: And the fact that Fudge would be a little bit looser with the Muggle Prime Minister, one reason could just be because he knows that this person’s not going to share any of this information with anybody else, so even if he praises Dumbledore, it’s not like the Muggle Prime Minister is going to go run and tell him.
Andrew: [laughs] It’s like his therapist. “Dumbledore is so cool and smart.”
Micah: That’s exactly what I was going to say. It’s almost like a therapy session for Fudge.
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the world of Harry Potter. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: And I’m Micah
Andrew: And we are your trio this week! 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’ll never miss a week with your Harry Potter friends. And this week, a new chapter, if you will, of MuggleCast, because we are kicking off our Chapter by Chapter reread of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. But first, if you love this show and want to help us keep it running as smoothly as Scrimgeour’s lion-esque locks feel, we invite you to become a member of our community at Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and by supporting us there, you can get instant access to two bonus episodes every month, plus ad-free episodes of MuggleCast, access to our livestreams, a personal video “Thank you” message from one of the four MuggleCasters, a physical gift delivered by owl each year, and a lot more. We’ll actually have a new bonus out this week in which we’re analyzing the full cast audiobook covers, which were just released by Audible. They are beautiful and very unique, so we’ll talk about those in bonus MuggleCast this week.
News
Andrew: So that’s the business out of the way, but some congratulations are in order this week, too, right?
Eric: Let’s pop it over to Micah Tannenbaum in the MuggleCast News Center for this week’s news update.
Micah: That was so smooth, Eric. Yeah, you know what? I feel like the news is always blah, especially in these last couple of months. Maybe we can extend that out even further. But this was something that I really found to be enjoyable, and that is Gary Oldman is now Sir Gary Oldman. He was knighted by Prince William earlier this week, on Tuesday. And Eric, you actually had a really nice catch there, and I’m not going to steal your thunder, so the floor is yours.
Eric: All right, I think I have to pull up the text, make sure I get it right… he put the “Sir” in Sirius.
Andrew: Ohhh, I see.
Eric: Meaning Prince William, and now they’ve got the “Sir” in Sirius.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: Ahh.
Eric: There’s a thing. Yes! Gary Oldman, Sir Gary. But the photos of him that Micah continues to text me – even right now, he’s sent five since we started recording – of the ceremony… Mr. Oldman is very… or Sir Oldman. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, get it right.
Eric: He didn’t go all that way to being called “Mister.”
Micah: And that’s weird, too. “Sir old man.”
Eric: Sir Oldman. He just looks chuffed. He just looks happy to be there; he’s very, very excited. It’s obviously an honor.
Micah: All the articles that I’ve come across, too, have talked about how Prince William, which I think we knew is a huge Harry Potter fan, but then also a huge fan of Slow Horses as well, which I know in the last episode of MuggleCast we mentioned Season 5 just dropped. So that must have been a cool experience. I’m sure Prince William has many a cool experience, but to knight Gary Oldman, to knight Sirius Black, is pretty cool.
Eric: And especially because we’re feeling the loss in Sirius. He gets a name drop in this chapter we’re going to be discussing, but it’s just devastating to be reading in a Potter book world without him.
Andrew: Well, for you. I’m not a huge Sirius fan, so I don’t mind it so much.
Eric: [laughs] It’s just another chapter, really.
Andrew: Just another chapter, yeah.
Eric: Just another character in the books.
Andrew: It’s a great chapter.
The release of Half-Blood Prince
Andrew: So let’s jump into Chapter by Chapter. We’ll start with Half-Blood Prince Chapter 1, “The Other Minister.” I like to start each Chapter by Chapter series, if you will, with a quick look back at the release of each book that we’re discussing. So Half-Blood Prince was released July 16, 2005, meaning it just celebrated its 20th birthday a couple of months ago.
Eric: Yeah, I was going to say, how did we miss that? But that’s because we were also celebrating our 20th birthday last month.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: So that explains it.
Andrew: Eric, do you remember where you were for the midnight release of HBP?
Eric: I do. I was the only person from MuggleNet to be in Ohio. Several staffers were at Spellbound in a mall outside of Chicago in one of the suburbs; I think it was this big event, big book release, and the stores of this mall all converted to Diagon Alley. But the same thing was happening in a town called Hudson in Ohio, and it was this up-and-coming new little town. They had basically the equivalent of a Jamba Juice, and I was recruited to be the master of ceremonies for this little party that they had, and the whole town marching band came out and played “Hedwig’s Theme,” and it was this wonderful little thing for the Learned Owl Bookstore, which I believe is still around. And it was a fun event, although I had major FOMO because I was calling, I think, Ben or Kevin, and one of them said that the other had been spoiled on Book 6…
Micah: It was probably Kevin.
Eric: … which I think Kevin just kept getting spoiled every single book, which is very funny, given the experience around him and Deathly Hallows too.
Micah: “Spoiled” in quotation marks. I feel like Kevin…
Eric: Yeah, yeah. But no, it was a perfectly delightful party. And I’m curious where you guys were? Because we didn’t have… I know I mentioned a moment ago, but the start of MuggleCast, but that was only a couple weeks later, two or three weeks after the book release. But if you had found me on July 20 and said something about a podcast, or something about Andrew and Micah, I wouldn’t have known you guys, really, as well.
Micah: For me, this was my introduction to Harry Potter. This was my introduction to an official book release, a midnight release. I had a friend who worked at Barnes & Noble, so he was able to help me secure a copy of the book, and as I said at the time, I had just gone through the first five books earlier that summer, so I was very eager to get my hands on Half-Blood Prince. I really had not yet been introduced to the fandom; I probably had been on MuggleNet reading the editorials – that’s the extent of it – but little did I know, kind of what you were saying, Eric, that in just about a month after, things would change.
Eric: Our lives would all change forever!
Micah: And here we are 20 years later.
Eric: On a path that led us directly here to this recording studio.
Andrew: And like we were teasing Micah a few weeks ago, some of us had to wait years between Book 5 and 6, and we hated it. It was a very painful wait. You had it kind of easy in that regard; you only had to wait a few weeks, right? For me, I think I have the most boring story in terms of getting Half-Blood Prince; I’m pretty sure I just ordered it from Amazon, and they had it delivered to me on release day.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: That in itself was very cool for 20 years ago.
Eric: That was cool.
Andrew: It felt revolutionary at the time. But yeah, I went to midnight releases for Goblet and Order and Deathly Hallows.
Eric: Oh, wow.
Andrew: But for some reason, I didn’t do Half-Blood Prince, and I’m not sure why. But I do remember that Amazon shipped the Half-Blood Prince books in special boxes, special packaging, so that part was exciting. But yeah.
Eric: Do you still have your box?
Andrew: You know what? I ended up getting a box from a bookstore. I think I went to one the next day or something.
Eric: Oh, one of those embargo, “Do not open till July”? Yeah, those are classic.
Micah: You were in the dumpster.
Andrew: Yeah, I was dumpster diving.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: It’s okay. There’s no judgment.
Eric: No, but that’s exciting. I mean, I think we, over the years, have heard from people, too, who did the Amazon thing, or were going on a family trip and were worried that the Amazon thing wouldn’t arrive, so then they ended up going to a local Barnes & Noble instead anyway, and then they got home after the trip and they had two copies. So I mean, I just think it’s a wonderful look back on to how excited we all were for this book. And if it was your first book release party, that’s great, because it wasn’t the last.
Andrew: Yeah. I wish I went to one, but that’s okay. Half-Blood Prince did sell 6.9 million copies in the US alone in its first 24 hours…
Eric: Nice.
Andrew: … making it, at the time, the fastest-selling book in history. Its record would later be beaten by Deathly Hallows, of course, a couple of years later.
Eric: Not Cursed Child, the script book?
Andrew: No, believe it or not. Barnes & Noble reported sales averaging 105 copies per second in the first hour of sales, so midnight releases.
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: It was also the first book in the series to be shorter than the book that preceded it, which was nice for us kids. Ah, something lighter to hold in our hands.
Eric: Oh, man. That’s for sure.
Andrew: And then, of course, MuggleCast, like we’ve been saying, would begin about three weeks later. So that’s what was going on at the time.
Chapter by Chapter: Pensieve
Eric: Speaking of throwbacks, you may remember that on our most recent read-through of Order of the Phoenix, we had a segment called the MuggleCast Time-Turner, featuring Michael Gambon. We’re changing that segment; we like to change things up in between books for Chapter by Chapter segments, and we’re still going to be looking back to the most recent time that these chapters were discussed in this book, but this time, it’s going to be through the MuggleCast Pensieve, a new segment that we’ve whipped up. This episode, or this chapter, was last discussed on MuggleCast Episode 376, nearly 350 episodes ago, and it was recorded and released for July 16, 2018.
Dumbledore: What you are looking at are memories. This is perhaps the most important memory I’ve collected.
[Sound of memory uncorking]
[Sound of plunging into Pensieve]
Micah: For Scrimgeour, people thought that this was a description of the Half-Blood Prince. Clearly not.
Eric: Or Godric Gryffindor.
Micah: Yeah, that was another one. But that would be quite a feat for Godric to pull off.
Andrew: Does anyone else remember being a little disappointed when they found out that this description that we were debating about forever was just the new Minister for Magic? It just seemed a little disappointing to me, because there were so many more exciting ideas, like Godric Gryffindor or the Half-Blood Prince. [laughs]
Eric: Well, at this point, I don’t think it had ruled out that he could be the Half-Blood Prince, so that would be cool.
Andrew: Well, that’s true, that’s true.
[Sound of exiting Pensieve]
Dumbledore: This memory is everything.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Well done.
Eric: [laughs] He’s just there selling it for us, so thank you, Dumbledore.
Andrew: Yeah, every memory will “be everything.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Every memory will be better than the last.
Andrew: Yes, true.
Eric: So that was the MuggleCast Pensieve segment.
Micah: One of the things that I really like about this memory, though, is it is a good throwback to when things were teased by the author on her website in advance of a book release, and Scrimgeour’s description led to many theories, and very few, if any, people really got it right.
Andrew: Yeah, we weren’t expecting the wizarding world to expand like this and that we were going to be hearing from the Muggle Minister.
Eric: Yeah, this blows the lid off. Really just unexpected. The individual chapters that are away from Harry’s perspective are always really interesting, and this one just completely, again, changed the game. It was a deeper level of storytelling that was warranted by the world-building that had been done up to that point.
Micah: And I know that we’re doing a bit of nostalgia here, looking back to book releases, but J.K. Rowling revealing things on her website really got people excited. And it was everything from book titles to release dates to descriptions, in this case, of characters, so… chapter titles, I think, even for Half-Blood Prince were done, right?
Eric: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think this one might have been from the publisher, because it was a back of the book or insert description of the lion-maned individual. But I have a confession, you guys, because I would always cheat about how to open the door on J.K. Rowling’s website.
Micah: You looked on MuggleNet, didn’t you?
Eric: I looked on MuggleNet. I always had to figure out how to open the door, how to do the WOMBATs, how to do the… I was never good at figuring it out myself.
Andrew: I do think Micah is right that this quote about the other Minister, or about Scrimgeour, was teased on her website. I do vaguely remember that.
Eric: Okay.
Andrew: Because I’m also looking in the book and I don’t see a quote on it. Maybe it was on the UK edition? I don’t know.
Eric: Okay. Yeah, I thought it was Scholastic maybe did something. But yeah, either way, this era doesn’t exist anymore, and it was really a moment in time, to what you’re saying, Micah. The locked door on the website and everything about that website, actually, really showcases the very unique relationship between the author and us back then.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Eric: Diving into Chapter 1, “The Other Minister,” I did want to ask: Is this anybody’s favorite chapter in the whole series?
Andrew: Oooh.
Eric: Because I kind of think it’s mine, to be honest.
Micah: Okay.
Eric: Okay, I guess not yours. Okay.
Micah: No, I didn’t know if you were going to…
Andrew: [laughs] I think Micah is waiting for you to explain.
Eric: Yeah, I just think, what I was saying a moment ago, about it being the right amount of world-building at the right time. If this chapter were in any other book, it might have been too soon to explain how the wizarding world is hiding and yet also reporting to the Muggle governments of the world, and this just gives a perfect insight right at a time of crisis. So I like it. Even though most of the chapter itself is a flashback to a character that we never, ever see again, the British Prime Minister, I find it just is delightful and funny, and I really like it.
Micah: Yeah. For me, I wouldn’t say it’s one of my favorite, but I will say it’s definitely unique, because it’s one of only a handful of chapters that isn’t from Harry’s perspective. In fact, Half-Blood Prince is the only book where we get back-to-back chapters…
Eric: Dos.
Micah: … “The Other Minister,” and then next week, when we discuss “Spinner’s End” – without Harry to start, and that’s certainly different for a series that we always have him right at the start, for the most part. I really like the chapter because it tells the reader right off the bat that the return of Voldemort is a problem that extends beyond Hogwarts, beyond Harry, and that Voldemort is one bad dude, and bleep is real now. This is real. It’s a real world problem.
Eric: It sets the stage. Yeah, exactly, exactly. We spend every book being like, “Ah, Voldemort is probably going to come back at the end and things are going to be terrifying, but it’s going to be okay.” And following the last book, things are very much not going to reset to okay.
Andrew: Yeah. Because Harry is not in this opening chapter, I hesitate to call it my favorite opening chapter. I just feel like, for me, I need Harry in an opening chapter to call it one of the top chapters. But I do love – like you were saying, Eric – the significant world-building that is happening here. We’re seeing how the Minister of Magic has to work with the Muggle Prime Minister and how these worlds have to coexist, and that was very interesting lore to experience.
Eric: Yeah, the political reality and the struggles that the British Prime Minister is facing, even outside of the… before Fudge shows up and gets involved, is just really interesting. And it’s funny, because being a British person, too, J.K. Rowling… you always have a unique insight, I think, when you’re writing about the leader of your own country and what that might be like. So yeah, years before The Casual Vacancy, here’s a political story being told to us, and I love it. I just think it’s deeply funny, where Casual Vacancy is not. But I love it.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: So yeah, here’s a question for you guys… or here’s an idea. I have our first “Max that” of the book.
Andrew: Oooh.
Eric: So we meet the Muggle Prime Minister in this chapter and he’s doing his thing when Fudge arrives, and as soon as Fudge begins to speak, we then get kind of a recap of the previous times Fudge has been in the office. When Sirius Black broke out, obviously, they needed to coordinate. This is something we’ve seen before in the Harry Potter books, because we saw Black on the Dursleys’ television, so of course, there must have been a conversation there. Very exciting. Also, when the Quidditch World Cup Death Eaters rampage and all of that. My thing is, rather than waiting until Season 6 of the Max TV show, what if we started to get these little tidbits with the British Prime Minister and Fudge starting as early as they begin? So Season 3, and we could build up the relationship between these two men in a more dynamic, kind of expanded way. Wouldn’t that be neat?
Andrew: That would be cool. Yeah, and then I guess that adds a lot more weight to this scene in the opening episode of Half-Blood Prince, when Fudge has to share the news with the Prime Minister that he’s not the Minister of Magic anymore. I can see that, yeah.
Eric: Okay. Yeah, I think it would be cool for pacing if we already knew these guys. The big deal for me…
Andrew: [imitating David Yates] “Think of the pacing.”
Eric: [laughs] [imitating David Yates] “Always think of the pacing. And never park it.”
Andrew: [imitating David Yates] “It’s darker than ever.”
Micah: I’m here for a cameo.
Eric: Yeah. But no, I think that that would be something that’s really neat. And really, the only failing is we don’t really see the Muggle PM again. He should have shown up in the 19 Years Later, and his kid should have been a wizard. That’s what I think.
Andrew: Yeah, or even to expand on your “Max that” idea, just getting a better look at the Muggle world and how it plays with… how it dances with the wizarding world.
Eric: I like that, that word “dance,” that characterization.
Andrew: How they coexist.
Eric: Also, but here’s what reminded me, or how I thought of this segment for “Max that” to begin with, is those shots that we got of Dedalus Diggle and Vernon Dursley that we talked about. So Dursley’s day at work, going to Grunnings and seeing all these people in cloaks because Voldemort has been gone for the first day. That will give us that insight as to what these groups of wizards in public look like, feel like, think like, act like, and that’s a perspective that’s in the books, but has never been adapted to film. So I’m a big fan of let’s try and Max this, this Prime Minister chapter as well.
Andrew: Well, it better be included, for sure.
Micah: You were inspired by the Diggle Wiggle?
Eric: The Diggle Wiggle, yes. And I’m also inspired when we play the sound of static.
[“Max that” sound effect plays]
Andrew: Oh. [laughs] I thought you were moving to an ad break or something. I was confused.
Eric: They’re here! Got the clip! Yeah. And we are treated in this chapter to the recollections and life of the British Prime Minister, the proud owner of a new gerbil that he has to figure out what to do with. [laughs] You know, I couldn’t help throughout this chapter but feel sorry for the British Prime Minister.
Andrew: Aww.
Eric: He has had a week! And it’s not his fault. It has nothing to do with his government, his administration, much as they have come under fire in the news media, as he laments in this chapter. But he has had a heck of a stressful week due to all these circumstances out of his control that are all due to Voldemort coming back, and a particular area where I felt saddest for him was when he talked about… he thinks about seeing the face of the opposition party guy who is kind of mirthfully saying, “Oh, it’s a dark time for this country,” and blaming all of these things on this administration. So I just felt that that was a great characterization. You really feel for the situation that he’s in.
Andrew: Yeah, because he has no idea why any of these things are happening, and that would be an incredibly frustrating situation to be in. At least now he is getting some answers, but it’s like – to your point, Eric – there’s nothing they can do about what’s going on, and this is going to be really bad for this Prime Minister politically, because when things do get bad in the country that they are overseeing, people want change and want to vote out the incumbent and vote out the leading political party, the dominant political party. So this is one reason why this is hitting the Muggle Prime Minister so hard. And he has no good answers as to why these things are happening, and his political opponent is like, “We’ve got to get him out, he sucks, he’s screwing everything up…”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, you really do feel for the guy.
Eric: Yeah, and I wonder if things had gotten worse, because Voldemort is not defeated till the following year, at the end of the following year, Harry’s… May of, what, two years from now, probably, or… yeah. So what exactly…? We never see the Prime Minister again. I just wonder how things got so much worse for him, because the disappearances probably didn’t stop. And in fact, when the Ministry is actually fallen, one can only guess at what the situation for the Muggles would be with Voldemort pretty much in charge completely in the following year.
Micah: Would assume it would have been a rocky stretch for this Muggle Prime Minister, a period of time that unless the wizarding world intervened on his behalf at some later point to erase the memory of what happened, likely is a stain on his term in office. And what’s terrible is that it’s all beyond his control; there’s really nothing that he can do.
Eric: Yeah, and I just feel bad because the only person to tell him what’s going on is incompetent, is Cornelius Fudge, who’s not even the other Minister at this point!
Andrew: He’s the other other Minister.
Eric: The other other former…
Micah: We don’t know that early on.
Eric: No, we don’t, we don’t. But this is why, as a reader, I feel bad, is because Scrimgeour has essentially delegated the task of dutifully informing the Muggle Prime Minister to Fudge indefinitely. He says, “You’ll never see me again, probably, but Fudge is going to be doing it.”
Micah: I’m glad, though, that you referenced the title of this chapter, because it has a double meaning.
Eric: Ah.
Andrew: Yeah, and that’s why we were all fooled as readers, I think, because Micah, I think you’re right that this title was teased on J.K. Rowling’s website.
Micah: There was, I think, three chapter titles that we got. “Draco’s Detour” comes to mind as being one.
Eric: “Felix Felicis.”
Micah: “Felix Felicis” was another. There was three of them, if I recall.
Eric: I think “Spinner’s End” was the other.
Andrew: Yeah, so I’m just finding an article on MuggleNet right now, actually. October 31, 2004, the mysterious door on the author’s site was opened, and it did reveal within three chapter titles.
Eric: Yeah, it’s “Spinner’s End,” “Draco’s Detour,” and “Felix Felicis.”
Andrew: Pretty interesting.
Eric: But in classic fashion, I’m sure we were speculating “Who’s Felix?”
Andrew: Yeah. [laughs]
Eric: “Is Felix the Half-Blood Prince?”
Andrew: “Have we seen that Felicis surname before?” Everybody’s flipping through the books trying to find a clue.
Eric: “Yeah, is it anywhere else?” Yeah. We didn’t necessarily have MuggleCast, but I think those were valid questions to be asking. So yeah, the big thing for me… and we can enumerate some of these awful things, but they’re really awful. They’re particularly bad. I mean, the bridge collapse… we’re going to get there. That bridge was new; it’s ridiculous to assume they’re not spending enough on bridges. But I want to talk about giants escaping. The West Country. This is a through line to the Death Eaters courting the giants in the previous book, that Hagrid subplot that everyone forgets or doesn’t care about, including me. But the giants are on the loose in the West Country, and near as they can figure it, the Muggles think a hurricane went through, because everything is crushed! How terrifying would it be for you as a Muggle if your little quaint seaside town or mountainside town was just demolished one day? It didn’t even rain!
Micah: I really do like, though, Eric, how you laid this all out, because this is all due to Fudge’s incompetency.
Eric: Yes.
Micah: Every single one of these items that come up that have impacted the Muggle world as well as the wizarding world is all due to Fudge’s unwillingness to believe that Voldemort was back when Dumbledore told him not that long ago. Or what, beginning of Book 5? Maybe we give Fudge a little bit of grace, but…
Eric: No, that’s exactly right. And the fact that last year, somebody from the Order – Hagrid, and Maxime if she’s Order adjacent – had to go and court the giants, and the Death Eaters were doing it, but nobody from the Ministry was there to do it as a third party to keep things under wraps. I mean, you can imagine it’d be too many cooks; maybe the giants would get confused and stomp some of them just to make it easier to understand. But they didn’t even try. So this is… to your point, Micah, it goes straight back to Fudge, where the reason that the giants are running rampant is because they’ve aligned themselves with the Death Eaters, just like the Dementors, and who can blame them? Because Fudge and other wizards have been neglectful of what each race really wants or needs.
Micah: Yeah. And now that Voldemort has been exposed, was exposed at the end of Order of the Phoenix in the Ministry, he has no reason to operate in secrecy, and that’s why all these things are happening.
Eric: Right, yeah. Before, I guess, there was plausible deniability. But so moving on from that hurricane that wasn’t a hurricane, Herbert Chorley, one of the Junior Ministers, is now quacking like a duck.
Andrew: [laughs] We’ve all been there.
Eric: This is delightful. Yeah, yeah, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s Herbert Chorley.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: But turns out, we find out throughout the course of the dialogue in this chapter, it’s maybe an Imperius Curse gone wrong. But if you read between the lines and actually listen to what’s being said, the Imperius Curse being gone wrong comes from it probably being placed on him by an unskilled wizard, which means that Voldemort has declared open season, not just for his most loyal, competent followers, but pretty much anybody that wants to go and attack a Muggle is welcome to. And it’s really unclear what he was supposed to be doing under the Imperius Curse, but either his resistance or the poorly performed curse means that he’s quacking like a duck, and drawing a lot of uncomfortable attention to himself and to the government.
Andrew: Yeah, and the Prime Minister is like, “Oh, that’ll be resolved soon,” but it’s like, “You really want him around you right now, when he’s unexplainably quacking like a duck?” Something’s got to be really wrong with somebody.
Eric: Well, something’s very wrong; they have no idea. And it’s really only Fudge that says, “We need to take him to our hospital, because this is serious.” If the others had just kind of still tried to, “Okay, come in to work, or work remotely two days and then come in,” there’s no telling who he would have injured or harmed, because he’s attempting to strangle the Healers, according to what Fudge says. So something went dreadfully wrong, and it kind of facilitates or necessitates the need for wizards to be protecting the Muggles right now.
Micah: And this was all due to attempted infiltration, right? On the part of Voldemort and his followers.
Eric: Yeah, it seems so. It seems so. Yeah, and either infiltration to spy, or straight up…
Micah: Control.
Eric: He would have plunged… he could have killed the Minister, somebody in his inner circle, one of the Junior Ministers. We don’t know what Voldemort’s whole game plan is, but I found it to be really interesting, as we’ll get to in a minute. I don’t know about you guys…
Micah: He’d just quack him to death.
Eric: He would quack him to death. You know, early on in MuggleCast history, we did the “101 ways Voldemort should have died,” I think, or should be killed.
Micah: That’s right.
Eric: Yeah, I don’t think quacking was on there, but it should have been.
Andrew: 101: Quacked to death.
Eric: Quacked to death, yeah. But anyway, I don’t know about you guys; I’m pretty seasonally affected. You give me a cloudy day and I’ll just be kind of in my thoughts and not super happy. Well, if you’ve ever been to London, ever been to England in the summertime, it’s even in the summertime, not often sunny, I guess. It’s kind of gloomy all year round.
Andrew: But it’s better. It’s better than the rest of the year.
Eric: It’s better in July, yeah. But this July, it’s straight up cold and misting, just a constant mist in the air, and so everything, every problem that’s going on in the country with people and danger and safety, is compounded by the fact that it’s just been rotten. People looking forward to their little beach trip to the Isle of Wight, and they can’t go, or it’s just too dreadful everywhere.
Andrew: But what’s the truth? What is the truth?
Eric: The Dementors are breeding.
Andrew: Ew! You know, this also reminds me in Southern California, they have something called June Gloom. And you would think, “Oh, California, June, it must be perfect.” Every morning, pretty much, it’s misty/foggy because of the ocean, and as the sun rises, the sun pushes all that mist back out to the ocean. But now I’m wondering if maybe that’s actually Dementors breeding. But this is a gross thought.
Eric: Well, aside from the questions about how it happens or whatever, shouldn’t the Ministry be able somehow to stop this?
Andrew: Nothing stops love, Eric. Nothing stops love.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: Not the love of two hooded, cloaked Dementors with their long, bony hands.
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: Yeah, that’s a good answer. I just think they can’t contain them. There probably aren’t enough adult wizards that can cast good enough Patronuses in order to even keep the Dementors at bay if they ever decide to attack. So this is a mess, because pretty soon there’s going to be many more of them, and again, it wouldn’t have happened if Fudge had just listened to Dumbledore.
Micah: I almost imagine some kind of spontaneous replication due to certain conditions, not that there’s actually full on Dementor…
Andrew: Love.
Micah: … [censored] going on.
Andrew: [laughs] Love. He said love. I agree that they’re not maybe physical with each other. But are they breeding because they’re happy? Are they breeding because… at Voldemort’s direction? Why is this happening?
Eric: I think it’s because they’re being given hosts in the unsuspecting Muggle public. I think that every living organism needs certain life conditions met, and when it goes into the breeding, it’s because it’s knocked off the higher needs, right, first. So they simply are being, I think, fed. As sad as that is, as horrible as that is to think about, to ponder, I think that the Dementors are finally getting the right diet, and so they’re breeding because it’s the next stage of whatever their crazy wizard-made, as it turns out, life cycle is.
Micah: Kind of like a caterpillar turns into a butterfly…
Andrew: Aww.
Micah: … but on the very far other end of the spectrum.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: No, I think it’s just like that.
Micah: Yeah, I think this, again, just helps to set the scene for what is to come in this book, that things are so bad that Dementors are breeding and spreading even more gloom and unhappiness across the UK.
Eric: Let’s talk about the bridge collapse now. It was a new bridge, less than ten years old, and it snapped cleanly in two. Now, anybody’s watch that this happens on is going to look bad politically, for such a new bridge. It really calls into question who the engineers were, whether inspections are happening enough. Nobody likes to see this happen, especially because I think a dozen cars were plunged into the water; it doesn’t say what the death count was. But what really happened actually stunned me, and I forgot that this was a part of this book. It’s kind of a throwaway line by Fudge. Fudge says to the Muggle Prime Minister that Lord Voldemort threatened Fudge that he was going to collapse a bridge and kill some Muggles if Fudge didn’t stand aside for him to rule the wizarding world.
Andrew: Wow.
Eric: Now, how incompetent do you have to be to have Voldemort calling you straight up and being like, “Move aside”? Just in general, how did it get to that point where Voldemort is relaying a message to Fudge? And then when Fudge didn’t do it, now there’s this crisis. My question is, because Voldemort made a play for the Minister – the Ministry of Magic – right at the beginning of Book 6, which sounds like… I totally forgot this thing existed. What’s his next move? What makes him go underground? Because at this point, he could be Minister in a day and a half from all this chaos.
Micah: I want to see that Max’d, honestly. I want to see how Voldemort approaches Fudge. Presumably, it’s not in person. If it’s a message, how is that delivered? Is it delivered by anybody in particular? Is it just a very ominous letter that’s sitting on his desk at the Ministry one night?
Eric: “Hello, Cornelius.”
Andrew: By breeding Dementors?
Micah: Yeah, somebody in a cloak shows up to hand him a very… maybe it’s a Dementor, yeah. So I don’t know.
Andrew: I feel like it wouldn’t be face to face, because I think that would come up in this conversation, or come up somewhere else. That seems pretty significant.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, he would still do it by proxy, but it would be…
Andrew: Howler. [laughs]
Micah: Yeah. Sorry, what was your question, Eric? I feel like…
Eric: What stops Voldemort from trying the same thing again? There’s more bridges in the world.
Andrew: I think it’s more threatening if you don’t know what Voldemort is going to do next, so maybe it’s a little too predictable if he’s just knocking down bridges left and right.
Micah: Maybe Fudge said, “I call your bluff.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, maybe he was never going to do it. But he did it. But he’s not going to do it again. The big thing for me is maybe this is where Scrimgeour comes in. Maybe this was the final straw earlier in the week, and that’s what caused the wizarding public to scream for Fudge’s resignation.
Micah: He’s much more of a formidable adversary than Fudge, right?
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Micah: Former Auror, not going to take the same level of garbage that Fudge did, certainly not as weak, as far as we know, in the same areas that Fudge was weak in. So yeah, maybe that… I won’t call it a transfer of power, but that change in power caused Voldemort to rethink his tactics a little bit.
Eric: I can see him recalibrating. I really love what you said, Micah, about Scrimgeour not being weak in the same areas that Fudge is. We see Scrimgeour has a deficit here and there, especially about how it relates to using Harry, but yeah, not weak in the same area. So Voldemort recalibrating sounds right to me.
Micah: Right. And let’s not forget where this is leading, ultimately, is Scrimgeour is murdered, and Voldemort does put somebody in place, in Pius Thicknesse, to lead the Ministry. So he does ultimately achieve what he’s looking to do; it just takes another book for us to get there.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Micah: One thing I just did want to mention before we move on, because it is important, is the two murders that are mentioned in Amelia Bones and Emmeline Vance, because Emmeline Vance was a member of the Order of the Phoenix, was a member of the Advance Guard that escorts Harry to Grimmauld Place from Privet Drive, and then Amelia Bones was the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, right? She sat and proceeded over Harry’s trial last year, she has a niece that’s in Hogwarts, and it’s said that Voldemort himself likely took her out; that’s how badass she was. So I think in slow drips we’re starting to hear about either these disappearances or these murders of characters that, for right now, maybe they’re not the main characters that we’ve read a lot about, but they’ve certainly been there in the background.
Andrew: Yeah, and I think it says something that he’s murdering the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He’s going for kind of the top cop. I think that’s a very scary threat, and I think that sends a message like, “Not even your law enforcement is going to be a match for me. I will take down anybody.”
Eric: That’s a great point. That’s a tremendous point. Yeah, and definitely… I always want to see, for “Max that” again, these moments of adult wizards other than Dumbledore just completely… again, like James and Lily Potter; they thrice defied Voldemort? I want to see it. I want to see Voldemort get defied by these people that won’t take no for an answer that just…
Andrew: The rebellion!
Eric: Yeah! Let’s see all this action that we’ve been denied. Let’s talk about the fact that the Muggle Prime Minister doesn’t really have a choice to see Fudge tonight, on a night when he’s expecting another call. The little man in the portrait…
Micah: You know why, Eric.
Eric: Why is that?
Micah: Because every time Fudge arrives, it is preceded by this.
[Screaming goat sound]
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Micah, what is that? That’s a screaming goat that’s decorated for Halloween?
Andrew: Wow!
Micah: Yes. A very nice gift from Eric.
Andrew: Ohh.
Eric: Yeah, I’m glad it arrived. Yeah, that’s… you know, I actually, for “Max that,” hope that that sound effect plays…
[Micah laughs]
Eric: … because it would be more interesting than a frog-like man coughing. But yeah, there’s pretty much a minute between the portrait coughing and the Muggle Prime Minister having to see Fudge, and he doesn’t really have a say in the matter. There’s sort of an air of wizarding superiority going on here.
Micah: You know what it reminded me of, though, honestly? It’s like when that coworker knocks on your door, or the neighbor knocks on your door that you really don’t want to see, and you’re just like, “Oh my God, what do you want now?”
Andrew: It’s almost like the Umbridge situation in the previous book. “Hem-hem!” And it’s probably a gross cough too. Or it’s a polite cough.
Micah: Maybe it’s a distant relative. You did say frog-like, right?
Eric: Oh, yeah. Huh.
Micah: Anyway.
Eric: No, that’s interesting. But you had a point here, Micah, about the other, other, other, other Minister.
Micah: Yeah, so the Muggle Prime Minister is noted to be wondering when that “wretched man would telephone,” and this is in reference to the president of another foreign country. And I think at least as Americans, it’s interesting, because the natural inclination is for us to assume that it must be the President of the United States, because there’s no other foreign leaders out there that are wretched…
Andrew: Because the world centers around America.
Micah: Of course. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, yeah, pretty much.
Micah: I mean, we were hoping for at least one cameo from an American in the Harry Potter books.
Eric: Well, presumably…
Micah: We did get the Salem Witches, right, at the Quidditch World Cup?
Eric: Yeah, the Academy of… something.
Micah: So what I found interesting, though, about this was that at the time of the writing and publishing of Half-Blood Prince, George Bush is President of the United States, and things were not great, let’s say, around this time. There was obviously a war ongoing and a lot of controversy around that war. However, if we’re to assume the actual timeline of Half-Blood Prince, this would have been, what, mid to late ’90s? Bill Clinton would have been President of the United States. So I’m curious…
Andrew: [imitating Bill Clinton] “Oh, yeah, Micah, yeah, that would be me!” That’s my Bill Clinton.
Micah: [laughs] We need Barry. I’m sorry.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I’m sure he can do Clinton, if he can do Trump. But yeah, maybe in the author’s mind, she was thinking more present day when she was writing, but it’s hard to say. Maybe it’s just the…
Andrew: I’m inclined to think it was Clinton, because she’s writing about a certain period of time. I think it would be very shallow to be thinking, “Oh, I’m just… this is supposed to be a reflection of the current president, even though it’s set ten years earlier or whatever.”
Eric: Well, you know what’s interesting, is all film and mainstream media depictions of presidents can’t help but reflect on current politics. I’m thinking about Love, Actually, where Hugh Grant is this affable British PM, and then they get Billy Bob Thornton as the US president, who’s sexist and misogynist and uncouth around the edges, and it’s just like, huh, that’s how those British writers saw Bush for some reason at the time. It’s just a reflection… I tend to think that it is more Bush, because why would you call Bill Clinton, who plays the saxophone, a wretched man? I don’t understand.
Andrew: [imitating Bill Clinton] “Ouhhh, Hillary.” I do want to circle back to the idea that wizards have a superiority complex when it comes to Muggles. I thought it was a really good point, and we do see examples of this throughout this chapter. For example, the Prime Minister “did not appreciate being made out to be an ignorant school boy,” when Fudge starts saying, “Didn’t you know these problems were caused by wizards? Duh!”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: How would the Prime Minister know that, or have even reason to assume that? There’s clear separation between these two worlds, and the wizarding world is not front of mind for him. It might not even be 50th place in mind for him. And then another example of the superiority complex is when the Minister of Magic is making all these big decisions that impact the Muggle world.
Eric: Augh.
Andrew: Case in point, bringing dragons and a sphinx into the country without consulting the Prime Minister? He’s like, “By the way, yeah, we did that.” What?
Eric: Yeah, and it’s always last minute. It’s always a “By the way.”
Andrew: Yeah. Right, exactly.
Eric: Which is great characterization of Fudge, but it’s always at the end of the conversation. “Oh, and I’m obligated to tell you that we’re doing this, this, this, this…”
Andrew: Yeah, and then also the portrait hanging in the Prime Minister’s office, and you can’t remove this portrait. You’re forced to be dealing with that and having to answer a call every time the Minister of Magic wants. And that’s, of course, also a privacy nightmare. If I was the Prime Minister, I wouldn’t stand for this secret telephone, this hidden microphone, not-so-hidden microphone just sitting in my office.
Micah: I agree. It’s very much with Fudge, as he kind of dips in and out, “Nothing to see here, nothing to see here…” that kind of mentality.
Eric: Definitely. And it’s disrespectful, ultimately. I mean, Fudge is this way with many people, because he’s not a serious character, but it’s insufficient, at the very least, especially his fellow heads of state. And I would have a few follow-up questions about dragons if I were just told that more dragons were being imported.
Andrew: Yeah. If I were the Muggle Prime Minister, I would say, “You get that portrait out of my office, or else I’m not talking to you anymore. I’ll move offices. I’ll move buildings, if I have to.”
Eric: Oooh.
Andrew: “You can keep putting up portraits; I’ll keep moving.” It’s just ridiculous that the Muggle Prime Minister has to just roll with this. They don’t have any right. The wizarding world doesn’t have any right to place this microphone inside the Prime Minister’s office.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, it is a microphone, even before we find out that Kingsley… that the wizards are placing people with the Prime Minister to spy on him.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: I mean, Kingsley is doing a really good job of everything, but it’s an invasion of privacy. There’s not good decorum, and they’re just going to do it because they’re going to do it.
Andrew: Yeah, the superiority complex. And one reason I call it a microphone is because we see leading up to this book that portraits will pass information back and forth through the portrait network.
Eric: And they’re nosy! Yeah.
Micah: I was going to ask, how is this any different…? So we were talking earlier about how Herbert Chorley is being put under the Imperius Curse by the Death Eaters. Couldn’t you say that it’s no different that the Ministry or the Aurors are snooping on the Prime Minister of the UK, presumably at all hours of every day? I mean, it’s like two sides of the same coin, almost.
Andrew: Yeah. This is a little more hands off, but I see your point, and I agree with you. And you also have to think, if the British Minister of Magic doesn’t have a portrait in every President or Prime Minister’s office, other wizarding communities have to have a similar thing in the White House, for example.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. I think it’s an essential department; whatever the Ministry of Magic is doing, they have to have one Muggle liaison, and it’s probably always the head of state for that group. I think, Andrew, you just said it’s not malicious, or there’s a hands off approach, because I think the big deal here is that even though they could spy on the Muggle Prime Minister, their efforts seem to be entirely about preventing Voldemort from getting to more Muggles. So the motives seem a little altruistic here for them, like putting Kingsley with him and stuff. But this is all coming out of Fudge. It all goes back to Fudge, his inability to really assess and handle the threat that was coming and building to the point where it became this disaster. But something that interested me is why the Muggle Prime Minister doesn’t ask that follow-up question, both about dragons and in general. There’s some characterization where Fudge is like, “Did you think you’ll tell anybody? Because they’ll never believe you,” which is just insulting, and no, the Muggle Prime Minister is like, “No, I don’t think I will.” And here’s my thing: If I were head of a country, I would actually probably feel like it was in my best interest to do my job as the Muggle leader to find out as much as possible about the wizards and the wizarding leaders. And this is a situation where me and the British Prime Minister differ, because the British Prime Minister is like, “I’ve got enough on my plate,” and so I don’t want to blame him for not getting all the info from Fudge, because Fudge is not divulging all the info. But this guy seems pretty content to just worry about his thing, like Fudge told him he could, and it’s just an interesting policy thing. Because you could see a British Prime Minister that keeps calling up the Minister for Magic going, “Do you have a solution for this? A quick, easy solution?”
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. It would be good to have better relations with the Minister of Magic, and also just have a better understanding of the wizarding world. He seems entitled to get that understanding, but he’s not asking for it.
Eric: Yeah, that’s exactly it.
Andrew: Yeah, especially because the wizarding world is so underground. You don’t know anything. You can’t easily get there.
Micah: I’d want to check it out too. Come on, Cornelius.
Andrew: Yeah, give him a tour!
Micah: Give me an invite.
Eric: [laughs] Show me Hogwarts. It worked for Jacob.
Micah: Why can’t I come to the Quidditch World Cup? Or the Triwizard Tournament? You’re bringing in three dragons and a sphinx at my expense? I at least want to be there.
Eric: Yeah, give me a ticket! Oh my God.
Andrew: I need to make sure everything goes okay, so that’s why I must be there. Air quotes.
Eric: Yeah, they would put him in the top box. He’d be there right next to a convicted Death Eater, Barty Crouch, Jr. It’d be great. But yeah, I just think going forward here that maybe the wizards are overcompensating by the fact that they are fewer in number. This oppressive kind of, “We’re putting a portrait here that’s always going to be listening to you, and we’re putting our people in your people and stuff,” is really… oh, the power move of turning the teacup into the gerbil the first time they met. All of that is kind of to intimidate. The purpose is, I think, they’re attempting to be… and even if they’re not attempting to be, they are intimidating a little to the Muggle Prime Minister, and I think that that is exactly how it needs to be, because really, Muggles outnumber wizards by a lot. It’s not close. So they have to show, “Oh, we’ve got this crazy power, and we’re always present, and we’re involved in your affairs,” because it’s a house of cards. If it all came down and people realized how scared they are and how much is at stake, they would run.
Micah: I would like to think there was a time, though, when there was regular communication between the Muggle Prime Minister and the Minister for Magic, and they used that portrait as a go-between, and maybe they met more regularly and worked together. Probably not, just based on the Statute of Secrecy and other things, but that’s my headcanon, at least, and things over time just devolved.
Eric: Yeah, I like that a lot, and because it’s another opportunity to kind of blame Fudge, who’s been in the job for two decades, maybe?
Andrew: Looking at that portrait again, I was wondering if there’s any sort of symbolism in the portrait that’s actually in the office. So it’s a frog-like man in a long silver wig. Is that supposed to be a particularly famous wizard or what? Eric, I think you have a good theory here.
Eric: Yeah, I did a little bit of Googling and found out long silver wigs could be anybody. I think of the American Revolution. I think of the founding fathers. Everybody wore a wig.
Andrew: Me. I wear a silver wig from time to time, a long one.
Eric: Oh, Andrew, you’re always in that. In fact, where is your silver wig? Did you lose it?
Andrew: I forgot it. I forgot it this week, yeah. We’re going to add one to the merch store, though.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: I thought you just wear that in your Tinder profile.
Andrew: [laughs] I gave up with that because too many people were ghosting me.
Eric: Man, there’s been a lot of mileage on the whole “Andrew Sims has a Tinder” thing lately.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: But yeah, so after some Googling, I actually found out where the trend started of people in Britain and the UK wearing long silver wigs. Turns out it comes from France, and the practice, according to Google, of wearing elaborate, often powdered wigs, which were called “periwigs,” was introduced to England by King Charles II after his exile in France in 1660 AD. French King Louis XIV had popularized the fashion to hide his balding head, and it was quickly adopted by the European upper and middle classes. So king does something, everybody else wants to do it so they’re cool, because he’s cool – this is like the origin of the Hallelujah chorus – but it’s a sign of status. Wigs became a symbol of wealth and status in fashionable society. The practice also had its practical side; there was a lot of head lice going around in those days, and wearing a wig when you’re otherwise shaved helped you manage hygiene.
Andrew: What stood out to me here is that wigs became a symbol of wealth and status in fashionable society. This you could kind of tie to “The wizarding community has a superiority complex.” Like, [in a stuffy voice] “Oh, look at us. It’s the wizard hanging in your office. Aren’t we superior? Aren’t we wealthy and have status and fashionable? Hohoho.”
Eric: I like that a lot. Yeah, I just assume that I assumed that this portrait guy was an old barrister or something. He’s like a judge or something in Britain.
Micah: Yeah, so as not to draw attention, too, right? To have a portrait up that would blend in with…
Andrew: That’s true.
Eric: You couldn’t get a bright pink or bright purple Dedalus Diggle guy in your portrait, otherwise the Muggles would suspect something.
Andrew: [laughs] True, true.
Eric: So it’s kind of a nice little straddling the line between the two worlds.
Micah: But to the last point you have here, I know watching a lot of British crime dramas, when you’re in the courtroom, you do see the attorneys or the judges wearing these wigs. It’s common practice.
Eric: Even in modern day. Yeah, so it’s a neat little tradition. But yeah, between the… for our answer, this portrait was probably of a guy who lived from 1660 to the 1680s, when the trend was fully established, and it was a shoulder length wig, and yeah, they’re typically made from horse hair and powdered with white or gray starch. So a bit interesting. I don’t think we ever asked that question, “Who is this guy?” before. [laughs]
Micah: He needs a name.
Andrew: Yeah, because portraits tend to carry some significance. When we see a portrait, we hear the name of the person, typically, and we can figure out why they would be getting their own portrait. So what’s the deal with this guy? We need a name for him, Micah? Is that what you said?
Micah: We do.
Andrew: How about we call him Micah? Goat daddy.
Eric: How about Froggingsworth?
Andrew: Froggingsworth.
Micah: Micah Froggingsworth?
Andrew: Micah Froggingsworth.
Eric: Sir. Esquire?
Micah: So does that mean we have to declare canon?
Andrew: Yeah, and it needs to be added to the wiki. Sir Micah Froggingsworth.
[“I declare canon!” sound effect plays with thunder]
Eric: But Andrew, you also had a point here about a Dumbledore name drop that we get.
Andrew: Yeah, I also wanted to bring up that Fudge told the Prime Minister a couple years ago, we learned in this chapter, that Dumbledore says Voldemort is back, which seems like a pretty big revelation to me, that Fudge was acknowledging the fact that Dumbledore was saying this. He wasn’t totally sticking his head in the sand and not repeating it to anybody else. He had told the Prime Minister a couple years ago that Dumbledore says Voldemort is back! That seems to be pretty big news to me, and it makes me wonder if maybe Fudge respected Dumbledore and his theorizing more than he has let on.
Eric: Well, Fudge has a love/hate relationship with Dumbledore. We know this; he relies on Dumbledore for a lot of that info. And I think, if I’m remembering correctly, what it is is that Dumbledore says Voldemort is not gone. So from the time he first disappears to the time where he eventually comes back… because the Muggle Prime Minister asks, “Is he really gone?” And Fudge says, “You know, Dumbledore says he’s not, but he’ll never explain it properly, and it’s all kind of wonky,” right? So there you see a failure of communication, not from Fudge to the Muggle PM, but from Fudge to Dumbledore, where either Dumbledore has ruled that Fudge is not worth his time, or Dumbledore legitimately is keeping the cards too close to really be able to explain or even speculate in front of Fudge as to something like Horcruxes existing, or why it is he feels that Voldemort is coming back. Because Dumbledore suspected long before Philosopher’s Stone, before Harry’s year one, that Voldemort would come back, that he was out there somewhere, even if he couldn’t prove it. So Fudge acknowledging this – you’re right, Andrew – is huge.
Micah: I do think as readers, though, it’s very important for us to pick up on what you just said, Eric, which is that Dumbledore won’t explain properly to Fudge what’s up with Voldemort. So clearly he has an idea of Horcruxes or something to that effect. But what I’m wondering, though, this relationship between these two Prime Ministers, and the fact that Fudge would be a little bit looser with the Muggle Prime Minister, one reason could just be because he knows that this person’s not going to share any of this information with anybody else, so even if he praises Dumbledore, it’s not like the Muggle Prime Minister is going to go run and tell him.
Andrew: [laughs] It’s like his therapist. “Dumbledore is so cool and smart.”
Micah: That’s exactly what I was going to say. It’s almost like a therapy session for Fudge.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: It is. He’s really letting it air all out, yeah, because who’s the Muggle going to tell?
Micah: That could be a title for…
Andrew: I was just typing it out at the top.
Micah: “Fudge’s Therapy Session.”
Eric: I love that.
Micah: That’s really what this whole chapter is. He’s just dumping on this poor guy.
Eric: No, he is. He is. You feel bad for Fudge; he’s so pathetic, and this guy has got enough going on. Yeah, I like that. You know what we named the episode the last time we discussed this chapter? “Half-Blood Prince Chapter 1.” I’m so embarrassed by how formal and boring that is that I didn’t even announce it in the Pensieve segment.
Andrew: Yeah, that was the right call.
Eric: Yeah, thank you. But this is this much better.
Andrew: We have primarily spoken about Fudge today – and it is his therapy session, after all, so I guess that’s why – but we do get to meet Scrimgeour.
Eric: Yeah, the lion man!
Andrew: Yeah! And you can quickly see the differences between Fudge and Scrimgeour. Scrimge-er? This is going to be a whole book of me going, “Scrimge-er? Scrimge-our?” Scrimge-our, I think.
Micah: Well, luckily, he’s not in it that much.
Andrew: True.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Deathly Hallows is another story.
Andrew: The lion man arrives late, if you believe Fudge, and he’s straight to the point with the British Prime Minister. He’s firm. He knows what he wants to do. He just seems way more competent than Fudge has been.
Eric: Well, what I love is that the Muggle PM picks up on this too. Having won at least one election campaign before, the Muggle PM’s take is, “Oh yeah, I can see why the public wanted this guy at a time of war,” and that makes Scrimgeour seem cool, just by kind of getting that level of acknowledgement. It’s almost like a head nod between the two, between Scrimgeour and the Muggle PM there, of “Oh yeah, I get this guy.”
Micah: Right. And Scrimgeour, as we’ve talked about, was former Head of the Auror Office, right? He’s no-nonsense. He delegates responsibility. Fudge is his mouthpiece for right now, his intermediary with the current Prime Minister. But Kingsley is his real eyes and ears, I think, more than anybody. I would bet that it was Scrimgeour who put Kingsley in this position, not Fudge. And Kingsley is doing the hard work, not just the day-to-day desk job that he has to pretend to do, but he’s there to protect arguably the most important person outside the Minister for Magic in the UK. Sorry, Harry.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I think Harry would give you that, too, if you’re looking at the whole world spectrum thing.
Micah: And just in terms of how he might interact with the Muggle Prime Minister… I really wish this guy had a name, because I hate that I have to keep saying “Muggle Prime Minister.”
Andrew: I know.
Eric: Yeah. But then that would date it, and he’d probably just be named…
Andrew: Sir Micah Froggingsworth.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: … Will Finton or something.
Micah: I think we do just need to give Scrimgeour a little bit of grace, because he’s just been thrust into a crazy situation where he has to manage so many different things, and probably this relationship with the Muggle Prime Minister is not high on his list.
Andrew: Definitely.
Eric: We’ll name this British PM “Shmony Shmair.”
Andrew: [laughs] Okay.
Micah: Well, who was the Prime Minister in…?
Eric: Tony Blair.
Andrew: Oh, okay. Let’s go with…
Micah: TB.
Andrew: TB, who wanted to have a phone call with George Bush or Bill Clinton.
Eric: [laughs] We can’t decide who.
Andrew: Depending on who you thought the author was thinking about.
Eric: Closing out the chapter here with his ruminations on Scrimgeour, again, I do think, ultimately, it is a big, perfect description for a guy that we don’t see too much of, to the point of the Pensieve segment. But there’s something to be said for the Ministry trying… I mean, I think what we were talking about, Voldemort maybe having to go back and recalibrate after the bridge incident, is strictly because the next time Voldemort rises is, what, after Bill and Fleur’s wedding in the next book? And he kills Scrimgeour. Scrimgeour shows up to give Harry Dumbledore’s things, and it’s right before whatever move Voldemort makes that takes him. So Voldemort basically spends the next year planning to get rid of Scrimgeour, and it takes him the whole year to do it.
Superlative of the Week
Eric: So anyway, it’s time for the most valuable person in this chapter segment, in which we discuss in this case… there’s so many men in this chapter; it’s all about manly working men all doing good jobs. So who is the best guy doing the best at his job in this chapter?
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Eric: I’m going to give it to the Muggle PM, because he’s doing the best he can with what he’s got.
Micah: Kingsley, for all of the reasons previously stated.
Andrew: And you two picked the best answers, so I’m going to go with Fudge, because he didn’t have to take on this role, still working with Tony Blair, or Shmony Shmair. But he’s there! He’s hanging on! He wants to be a part of the situation. He feels bad [laughs] about the mess he caused, in a way, and he’s trying to fix things. Look, it’s not the best answer, but it’s the third of three options.
Eric: I like that a lot. No, you’re right, Andrew, he doesn’t have to… yeah, Fudge…
Micah: You could have picked Scrimgeour.
Andrew: You just don’t see much of him, though.
Eric: And the portrait guy. He’s doing his job, probably, for like 400 years.
Lynx Line
Eric: We, as listeners will know, always ask our patrons different questions for the week for the Lynx Line segment, which is next, and this week’s question: We had people tell us what moments in modern world history were actually magical but were covered up to protect the Statute of Secrecy. So this is more interaction between Muggles and wizards covering up the truth from the Muggle public.
Andrew: I love this question. When I saw this question, Eric, I gasped. I was like, “Oh, that’s a good idea.”
Eric: I was very happy with it.
Andrew: So Kyle said,
“The outcome of the 2024 US election was the result of a widespread Confundus Charm carried out by members of the magical community who are actually behind AI technologies.”
Eric: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Carlee says,
“The Dancing Plague of 1518 baffled Muggles in Strasbourg, Holy Roman Empire, as scores of people danced uncontrollably for weeks on end. Many theories exist: mass hysteria or psychological illness, demonic possession, poisoning, etc., but no theory has been proven. Several people even died from strokes, heart attacks, and exhaustion before the dancing finally ended as mysteriously as it had begun.”
Eric: Now I’m wondering if this was a real…
Andrew: That’s a real thing that happened. It is a real thing!
Eric: What?!
Andrew: I Googled it! I couldn’t believe it.
Eric: Oh my God!
Andrew: The Dancing Plague of 1518. Go Google it, y’all. Wild.
Eric: That writes itself.
Andrew: Yeah, a dancing mania. Dance Dance Revolution! That was the original inspiration. [laughs]
Micah: The Dancing Plague of 1518 can only be outdone by the Great Molasses Flood of 1919, which was “caused by a catastrophic mistake by Gendry Fluke, who was trying to start a Honeydukes franchise in Boston. Paranoid about theft, he put his day’s work in a safe he bought from an ex-Gringotts goblin. When his children tried to sneak some candy from the safe, it set off Flagrate and Gemino Curses. The candy heated and multiplied until it flooded the streets.”
Andrew: That is another real thing that happened, the Great Molasses Flood.
Eric: Oh my God, I’m looking at… yeah.
Andrew: Fascinating.
Eric: A large storage tank filled with… this is amazing. These obscure moments in history are just delightful, delightful pickings.
Andrew: Here’s one people are probably more familiar with. Michael said,
“Area 51 is where they keep all of the ‘unexplainable’ things, so as to try to make Muggles think it has something to do with aliens. However, the wizards are in fact using this area to come up with new spells. Ever wonder how and where they come up with them? Well, it’s in Area 51 and the spells are random magical-sounding words used on test subject Muggles who dare to get too close to this area.”
Andrew: So Michael is saying, “Don’t get near Area 51.”
Eric: Oh, man. Andrew, you’re not far from there right now.
Andrew: I’m not.
Eric: Can you confirm?
Andrew: I’ll go investigate. Didn’t you go out to Area 51 once?
Eric: I did, yeah. Check out the Little A’Le’Inn. There’s cabins you can rent, but it’s a little restaurant, kind of cute. Get some burgers, get some merch. It’s fun. It’s fun. But yeah, the base itself is terrifying. There’s just a gate that you drive up to in the middle of nowhere. The roads aren’t even labeled. But yeah, Catherine adds to this:
“Every UFO sighting is just another instance of a vehicle or item being bewitched to fly or summoned. It wasn’t a flying saucer, it was just one of Arthur Weasley’s kids messing around.”
Eric: Love this.
Micah: And the Molasses Flood was sent in by Matthew. I just wanted to make sure to credit him, because I didn’t say his name earlier.
Eric: All credit.
Micah: Carly says,
“The Bermuda Triangle is actually where Azkaban is located. Back when Dementors guarded it, if any Muggle vessel or aircraft came close, the Dementors fed on the unlucky souls aboard. But ever since the Battle of Hogwarts and the Ministry cutting ties with Dementors as its guards, there are no longer any ‘unexplainable disappearances.'”
Andrew: Hmm.
Micah: Love that.
Andrew: Cassandra said,
“King Edward VIII had to abdicate the throne not because Wallis Simpson was divorced, but because she was an American witch who wanted to end all this Secrecy nonsense.”
Eric: Oooh! I love the idea of somebody famous having to, again, abdicate somebody in power because they fall in love with a witch. That’s great. That’s a tale that we hear about happening in the modern day, and I love imposing world history on it. So someone named Forty says – I love this one:
“The 2008 financial crisis was caused when Ludo Bagman hid a series of bad gambling debts labeled as subprime mortgages in various mortgage backed securities and collateralized debt obligations.”
Eric: I know some of those words. Ludo Bagman caused the housing crisis, y’all.
Andrew: Nice.
Eric: Unbelievable.
Andrew: Not nice, but good connection.
Micah: Not surprised.
Eric: Well, actually believable. That guy.
Micah: Rachel says,
“The Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared. Someone on the plane touched a Portkey? Vanishing spell? Invisibility Charm that never wore off? Who knows!”
Andrew: And finally, James, who was a Slug Club cohost a few months ago here on the pod, said,
“This one is for Micah — in the bottom of the 10th inning of Game Six of the 1986 World Series, the noise and vibration suddenly ruptured a vial of Felix Felicis (it had been left in the Mets’ dugout years before when the Beatles, undercover wizard couriers from England, dropped it off before playing a famous concert at Shea Stadium as a cover story). Obviously, the Mets have been coming down from the Felix Felicis high ever since, which explains the last 39 seasons.”
Andrew: They’re not good.
Micah: No. [laughs] You don’t have to tell me that.
Eric: They got increasingly worse.
Andrew: I’m sorry, Micah. Go Phillies.
Eric: Oh, man.
Andrew: Red October is here. Y’all, this – again, Eric, great question, and listeners, great answers – these make me want an HBO Harry Potter TV series where wizards have to fix the issues they’ve accidentally caused in the Muggle world. That would be awesome.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: And we obviously learned a lot today too. This was a great lesson in history. You can send us some feedback about today’s episode; you can email or send a voice memo that you record on your phone to MuggleCast@gmail.com. We also have a contact form on MuggleCast.com. And next week, Chapter by Chapter will continue with Half-Blood Prince Chapter 2, “Spinner’s End,” and one of our friends, Irvin – who is actually publishing a new Potter book about the Malfoys – will be joining us. He asked about coming on, and we said, “Well, come on for a Malfoy centric chapter!” So we’ll have him on next week, and Laura should be back too. Don’t forget to check out Patreon.com/MuggleCast to support us; we really appreciate your support there. Also, visit MuggleCast.com for quick access to all the information we have shared today. And if you’re looking for more podcasting from the MuggleCasters, listen to our other shows, Millennial and What the Hype?!, for more pop culture and real world talk.
Quizzitch
Andrew: Or continue listening to MuggleCast right now for Quizzitch!
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: This week’s question, regarding the bridges in London: Built in 1175, what is the oldest bridge in London? The correct answer is the Clattern Bridge. And yeah, built in 1175, it’s still standing. 93% of people with the correct answer did look this up, so it was one of those… there’s a lot of bridges, and everyone kind of gave up on guessing. But correct answers were submitted, nonetheless, by #PleaseDoMoreLivesShows; A Healthy Breeze; Ashley B.; Bony Pony Express; Carolyn; Cast Shane Gillis as Ludo Bagman… we’ll Google that. Granger Things; and someone – our old friend – Laura’s Personal Umbrella Academy Heckler submitted twice, then adding on the second time, “Laura, please forgive me; I submitted my previous answer before listening to this week’s Millennial, and I’m so glad you like the Umbrella Academy. So sorry for trolling.”
Andrew: Yeah, I was going to say, she did finally watch it.
Eric: Oh my God. She likes it, huh?
Andrew: Laura got bullied into watching it.
Eric: Unbelievable, unbelievable. And some few names here: London Bridge is Falling Down, My Fair Voldemort; Mary Poppins is a Witch; and of course, last but not least, Tofu Tom. So thanks to all for submitting for Quidditch. Here is next week’s question: So looking ahead to “Spinner’s End,” speaking of spinners, the silk that’s made by the Darwin’s Bark Spider is actually the toughest biological material ever studied by man. What country in the world does the Darwin’s Bark Spider call home? That’s the question. Submit your answer to us on the MuggleCast website with a lovely-looking main nav bar. Click on “Quidditch,” or go to MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch.
Andrew: All right. Thanks, everybody, for listening to this week’s episode. We’ll see you next week, or we’ll see in a couple days for our latest bonus MuggleCast. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: And I’m Micah.
Andrew: You are not just Micah; you are actually Sir Micah Froggingsworth. Bye, everyone!
[Screaming goat sound]
Eric and Micah: Bye.