Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #742, Prince It ‘Til You Ace It (HBP Chapter 18, Birthday Surprises)
Cold Open
Laura: I think offering these kids some strategies to approach the three D’s with would be helpful here, but instead he’s just like, “Oh, I mean, Susan’s leg fell off because she wasn’t determined enough.”
[Everyone laughs]
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: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: And we’re your Harry Potter friends, here to talk about the books and the movies and the upcoming TV show, so make sure you press that follow button in your podcast app, and you’ll never miss an episode. And this week, brush up on all of Golpalott’s Laws, because we’re discussing Chapter 18 of Half-Blood Prince, “Birthday Surprises.”
News
Andrew: Before we get to Chapter by Chapter, though, couple of news items. Micah, what did you catch this week?
Micah: Yeah, so I know, Andrew, you and I did an episode, a mini episode a couple months back, talking about how Netflix was set to acquire Warner Media. Just kidding; in 2026 the tables have turned a little bit, and at least for right now, it appears that Paramount will be acquiring Warner Media instead of Netflix. They tried to get Netflix to up the amount that they were willing to pay, and Netflix declined, Paramount stepped in, and so who knows where we might be six months from now? But at least for the time being, this is the big news, and we’ll see what it holds for the Harry Potter series.
Andrew: So the big question is, where are you going to watch the Harry Potter series next year? On Paramount+? On HBO? All of the above? We’ll just have to wait and see. Well, speaking of the TV show, the show today, the day we’re recording, did announce a couple dozen young actors who will be playing various specific Hogwarts students, and we’ll look at these castings in our next TV show-focused episode of MuggleCast in a couple of weeks. I mainly want to see if any of these characters were in the book but not in the movie, and maybe from there we can get some clues about the plot lines that the show might include that we didn’t get in the films.
Eric: Oooh.
Andrew: So we will see.
Eric: I like that.
Andrew: So that’s what’s happening in the news. If you love MuggleCast as much as Slughorn loves Harry’s cheek, we invite you to support us at Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and we’ll hook you up with bonus episodes of the show, ad-free episodes, livestreams, a monthly Zoom hangout, and lots more. Coming up in bonus MuggleCast later this week: Since this book is very focused on Horcruxes – we’re learning about Horcruxes – I want to know, if each of us were to make our own Horcruxes, what items would we turn into Horcruxes? And I want the panel to think what items mean so much to you that, like Voldemort, you would want to turn these things into Horcruxes? And don’t worry, everybody; I’m not going to ask you who you’re going to kill in order to create these Horcruxes.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Well, thank you for not asking us to incriminate ourselves.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Laura: That’s really good of you.
Andrew: Not on air, anyway. After the show, the after after show, I’m going to be asking who you’re killing. [laughs] There are other great ways to support us to help us run MuggleCast. You can leave a review in your favorite podcast app, you can tell a fellow Muggle about our show, and you can visit MuggleCastMerch.com to buy shirts and hats and glassware and lots more.
Chapter by Chapter: Pensieve
Andrew: All right, so now it’s time for Chapter by Chapter. This week, we’re discussing Half-Blood Prince Chapter 18, “Birthday Surprises.”
Eric: Yeah, we last talked about it on Episode 407, way back on March 4 of 2019. Guess what, guys? That title was “G.O.A.T.”
Andrew: Oh.
Dumbledore: What you are looking at are memories. This is the most important memory I’ve collected. It is from MuggleCast Episode 407.
[Sound of memory uncorking]
[Sound of plunging into Pensieve]
Micah: And I think one of the other things that’s kind of underscored through this chapter when we’re talking about the Horcruxes, or we’re talking about the potion-making, is the fact that when the three of them aren’t working together, it makes things a lot more challenging and a lot more difficult, because they all bring something to the table. And I think it’s challenging, particularly for Harry, to have to constantly be sharing information in two different situations, right? He can’t tell Ron and Hermione together about what Dumbledore has tasked him with. Can’t tell both of them together about the Horcruxes; they can’t work on a solution together. When they’re together, they’re at their best.
Andrew: [emotionally] Need to get the band back together. This is so sad.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: I can’t take it anymore!
[Sound of exiting Pensieve]
Dumbledore: This memory is everything.
Andrew: It’s true. Power in numbers.
Eric: They don’t call it the golden trio for nothing.
Micah: It’s very thoughtful insight.
Andrew: By you?
Micah: Yeah. Well, what? By you?
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Yeah, good job, past Micah.
Andrew: No, no, I was just confirming you’re complimenting yourself. I just want to be clear.
Micah: Yeah, I am complimenting myself.
Andrew: Okay, okay.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Eric: Well, I know we’re going to get into discussion about Harry and Hermione. We’ve actually done a pretty good job, I think, so far on recent Chapter by Chapters talking about sort of the various character struggles that we’ve had. So during reading and planning for this week’s episode discussion, I kind of came at it a little off the wall, and will pray you guys humor me here. But I noticed something, and Harry in Potions class during this chapter finally finds himself, much to Hermione’s glee, at a complete loss. He’s out of his depth, and I know we will start there.
Andrew: Yeah, well, I mean, it is refreshing to see Harry struggling, at least for a little while, after so much success with the Prince’s book. He’s built up a lot of confidence, he feels like he’s kind of cracked the code, he’s at ease, and it’s kind of throwing him off his guard, because now he’s feeling stuck in Slughorn’s class. And I think it’s a good reminder for readers that even when you think you have everything figured out, there will be more bumps in the road ahead. And I like this little ego check for Harry. Do you agree, Laura?
Laura: Yeah, I think anytime you’re trying to take shortcuts to get through something difficult, eventually you’re going to be called to the mat to prove your knowledge, your capabilities in whatever area it is that you’re faking it in. And I think the problem with that is that “Fake it till you make it” falls flat on its face when there’s no substance behind it. It still works out for Harry, ultimately, in this scene, but I’m going to have a question later about why that is. So yeah, we’ll get back to it as we get through the doc. But yeah, I mean, this is… I think, Andrew, you put it perfectly. It’s a great ego check.
Andrew: “Fake it till you make it. Prince it till you… ace it”? That doesn’t totally rhyme, but close enough. [laughs]
Eric: Oooh. “Snapes it till you ace it”? I’m trying to think here. But yeah, it’s remarkable just how out of their depth everyone except Hermione is in the Potions lesson. It’s said that absolutely no one seems like they understand Golpalott’s Law except for Hermione, and during the class, she’s doing all this nonverbal magic because she’s mastered it so no one can copy her too. And it’s just like, there is something to be said for putting your head down and doing the work as Hermione and apparently nobody else has done. But a question I had for you guys was, is “Golpalott” a pun or something? We’re talking about potions and…
Andrew: Like “Gulp, I don’t know what I’m doing”?
Eric: Well, if you drink a potion, if you gulp it down, gulp a lot…
Andrew: Might be.
Laura: Yeah, actually, I thought this was a really clever catch, Eric. I think you’re on to something. Because again, we know that a lot of names in this series are not accidental.
Eric: Yeah, another way of saying that is all of them are intentional. Golpalott is pretty straightforward for… okay. Yeah, that’s what occurred to me. But that’s not all; if you guys would like to read this quote I’ve selected from Slughorn, he talks about “if you take Golpalott’s Law to be true…”
Andrew: “Our primary aim is not the relatively simple one of selecting antidotes to those ingredients in and of themselves, but to find that added component that will, by an almost alchemical process, transform these disparate elements.”
Eric: Alchemical, you say, dear professor? I want to, in just a moment, take us down a road inspired by that word alone, because I think it’s… we’re in a very high level Potions class, and this is the first time, I think, in context, we get any sense of what alchemy might look like in practice in the books, though it’s been mentioned sparingly before. But before I do that, I know, Micah, you have a good note about what function this serves within the chapter.
Micah: Yeah. I mean, I love that we’re going to dive in and talk a little bit more about alchemy, but I think the main reason that this lesson is introduced is so that Harry can ultimately cut corners with a bezoar, which we know is going to play a much larger role at the end of this chapter. And speaking of a bezoar, we get another hint that Snape is, or could be, the Half-Blood Prince, because it was him… even though Harry can’t fully recall the exact moment, he does reference it that it was Snape who taught him about this back in Sorcerer’s Stone. Harry can’t quite put his finger on it, but we as readers certainly can.
Andrew: Well, Snape is soooo stupid and dumb and mean, there’s no way that this book could be his.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Eric: Yeah, we’re beefing with him. He couldn’t help us.
Micah: Yeah. And one process, or I guess one comparison that came to mind while this whole scene was playing itself out does relate to Horcruxes. So just as you have to isolate and understand each component to identify the correct antidote to this poison – and this poison is basically like super poison; it’s a combination of different poisons all thrown together – you can’t defeat Voldemort outright. His power right now is tied to his Horcruxes, and only by destroying each individual fragment can he ultimately be overcome. So I’d like to think that this was there for a reason, not just so that we get the introduction of the bezoar, especially following the last chapter, right? We ended the last chapter hearing the word “Horcrux” for the first time.
Eric: Right, and Harry pursues the Horcrux angle a little bit in this chapter, though he’s rebuffed by Slughorn and the plot. I like it, because again, this is such advanced potioning, and even Hermione doesn’t actually succeed in making the right antidote. She has something like ten different phials of potion, and she’s trying to cram more in after the clock runs out, which is not a good look for her, but whatever. So it’s wild to think of it and compare it to Voldemort’s quest for immortality, and how there’s always that little extra something, as Slughorn says. When it comes to defeating Voldemort, it’s greater than the sum of its individual parts, if you will.
Laura: Yeah, what I love about this point you make, Micah, is it also speaks to the headspace that Harry has to be in in order to successfully hunt down the Horcruxes and destroy them all. And clearly he’s not in the mindset yet, because he goes for the easy way out in this lesson. But we also see Ron and Hermione need to eventually get in this mindset as well so they can all go camping next year and hunt down the Horcruxes, and as Eric pointed out, even Hermione is not successful at this point. So yeah, I love that little bit of analysis and how you can apply it to the overall arc of the story. It’s cool.
Eric: Yeah. So digging back in to this word, “alchemy,” I’m reminded of the first time that we encounter it way back in Philosopher’s Stone, which is the big alchemical thing. Who wants to read the Chocolate Frog entry?
Andrew: Do you have it here?
Eric: Oh, it should be, isn’t it? Oh, crap.
Andrew: Oh, no, it’s here.
Micah: It’s further down.
Eric: I was like, [gasps] You don’t know it by heart, you guys?
Andrew: I know, right?
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: It says, “Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel.”
Eric: So the whole first book, Philosopher’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, has to do with this quest for immortality, and not just Voldemort’s, but the actual success by this old alchemist named Nick Flamel, who basically is on league with Dumbledore, which shows you how powerful he is. But more than that, he’s 600 years or 500 years Dumbledore’s senior. And so it’s interesting that, following the destruction of the Philosopher’s Stone, which was canonized into Harry Potter as a significant branch of magic that Dumbledore himself studies, and it can make you live for 600 years if not live forever, but we never really hear about it again in the books. And so I was kind of just… I honestly forgot about it until coming across that quote from Slughorn and thinking, “Oh, so maybe alchemy is closest to, or resembles most closely, the level of intensity of having to concoct these antidotes.” And so it kind of just led me down this rabbit hole of thought of why don’t we ever learn more about alchemy? And can anybody even learn it at Hogwarts? Because it only is a mention.
Andrew: It’s an extra fee.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Oh, like Apparition?
Andrew: Apparition, yeah. [laughs]
Laura: To that point, Eric, Broc in our Discord is saying, “I think you can see Potions as 101, and alchemy as PhD level of the same field.”
Eric: Oh my gosh.
Laura: I love that.
Eric: I like that, because I think of it as more of like chemistry kind of. But also with potioning, especially because the method that Slughorn mentions of transforming the potion seems to be… I mean, he refers to it as alchemy, so I’m really curious. But the other thing that came up is that since the last time on MuggleCast where we would have been able to talk about alchemy was way back when Nick Flamel was in the Fantastic Beasts movies nine years ago, I was reminded that Micah, you have since read a particular book series called The Secrets of the Immortal Nicolas Flamel, which was recommended by one of our patrons, I believe. And can you speak to that book and what happens? And do they give any better insight into what alchemy might look like in practice?
Micah: Yeah, I thought you were going to say that I’ve become an alchemist since the last time we discussed…
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Well, I mean, I wasn’t going to spoil the fact that you are now immortal.
Micah: Oh.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Micah: So I think probably the biggest difference is that in The Secrets of the Immortal Nicolas Flamel, that alchemy is the core magic system, so magic in essence is presented as advanced alchemy. In Potter, we know that magic is really presented as spell-based, and as you were just talking about, alchemy is more background lore; it’s not something that we spend a lot of time with. And many of the characters in the series can manipulate the natural elements – so things like earth, air, fire, and water – to create really powerful effects and more so they can channel their aura or their life energy to perform alchemical feats, so they can heal, they can create illusions, they can control elements, or they can even enhance their physical strength. And there’s two kind of main core characters, in addition to Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel, Sophie and Josh. They’re these young kids, and throughout the series, they’re gradually unlocking their magical potential through alchemical training and ultimately looking to awaken these auras that I was talking about earlier. And the Philosopher’s Stone is still sort of the most important alchemical object; just like in Sorcerer’s Stone, it allows Nicolas Flamel and his wife to remain immortal, because it produces the Elixir of Life. But what happens in this series is the Codex – this is a 10,000-year-old book that contains the secrets of alchemy and the formula for creating the Elixir of Life – it’s stolen, and what happens is that the Flamels no longer have access to it, so they begin to age very rapidly, and so there’s this urgency to have to recover the Codex, and so what happens is basically the series is a race against time to recover the Codex and save the Flamels.
Eric: That sounds cool. [laughs]
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: So are we declaring all this canon for Harry Potter, then, since the Harry Potter books don’t…?
Micah: Sure.
Eric: Oooh.
[“I declare canon!” sound effect plays with thunder]
Micah: Why not? And what I love about the series in particular – and I think a lot of the people listening would, as well as the rest of this panel here – is that the author, Michael Scott… not that Michael Scott, the other Michael Scott.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: He would not be that smart to write this.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Laura: Yeah, this author did not verbally declare bankruptcy, I’m guessing.
Andrew: [laughs] Oh, wait, we have one of those sound effects too.
Michael Scott: No, God! No, God, please, no. No! Noooo!
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: “Michael Scott, did you write this book?” Okay, sorry. Go ahead, Micah.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: It really does this amazing job of interweaving historical figures and mythological creatures and fictional heroes, and you never know when they’re going to pop up or who they’re ultimately going to be allied with.
Andrew: That is really neat.
Micah: So it’s a fun… they’re very easy reads. I forget how many books exactly are in the series, but it’s something I feel like listeners of the show would thoroughly enjoy, and I definitely recommend it. Eric, as you touched on, it was recommended to me by… I think in a Slug Club hangout it came up.
Andrew: There are six of these books in the series.
Micah: There we go. There should be seven.
Eric: Yeah. No, it definitely feels like sharing life energies and transmuting substances… it feels like the perfect marriage in Harry Potter between Potions and Transfiguration, basically. So we don’t know that there’s a college for wizards, but that would clearly be where you would have to go to learn the thing. But when I got this connection to Dumbledore… because Dumbledore is all over this chapter, even though he’s not mentioned in it. We have Dumbledore pressuring Harry to extract this memory, this untarnished memory from Professor Slughorn. But if Potions is just alchemy junior, and this book is all about Snape, who’s the Half-Blood Prince, whose book Harry heavily relies on for his innate Potions knowledge, I’ve got to ask: Is Dumbledore actually a super potioner, basically?
Laura: Because I guess he’s good at everything, right?
Eric: Well, that’s it!
Laura: I feel like at every turn in the series, it’s like, “Oh, okay, yeah, he does alchemy,” and “Oh, yeah, he can be places and not be seen,” and so on and so forth. He knows everything, right?
Eric: He’s so OP, my gosh.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: But yeah, I mean, if you even think back to that same Chocolate Frog Card that we read earlier, Dumbledore discovered – and was the first wizard to do so – the 12 uses of dragon’s blood. That, to me, does sound also straight-up alchemical, talking about stuff like the uses and what you would use the blood for. And it sounds potion-y, too.
Laura: Totally. Yeah, I don’t think we ever explicitly get all 12 uses laid out…
Andrew: We don’t.
Laura: … but I know dragon blood is a key ingredient in the Wolfsbane Potion. I believe it can also be used as an oven cleaner.
Andrew: Yeah, I’ve used it for that once or twice.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Laura: So it’s multi-faceted.
Eric: Now I’m trying to think… doesn’t Slughorn use it at the beginning to pretend he’s been grievously injured?
Laura: He does.
Eric: Oh.
Micah: That’s one of the uses, too.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Decoy blood.
Laura: Fake a crime scene.
Eric: I’m pretty sure… see, that’s the funny thing, is I’m not sure it’s a unique use of dragon’s blood. You can use any blood as a decoy. But I’m going to give Dumbledore his credit here. But yeah, it’s kind of wild to me that…
Micah: Well, what does it say, though, that…? Maybe it’s a movie-ism, but doesn’t Dumbledore taste it?
Laura: I think that is a movie-ism.
Micah: I was going to say, how do you know what it tastes like?
Eric: It’s clearly something he’s very familiar with. If you’re trying to find out new uses for it… maybe one of the uses is as a frozen ice cream pop for vampires.
Andrew: An ice cream topping.
Eric: [laughs] Knowing Dumbledore’s love of sweets, that sounds pretty aligned. But there was actually another deep kind of magic that we hear about in this chapter in Apparition, and before we get to talking about that, let’s hear a word from our sponsors.
[Ad break]
Eric: Welcome back. Okay, so we get on to our Apparition lesson, and it’s our first proper lesson. We meet Wilkie Twycross, who is delightfully described as a guy who’s kind of barely there. I laugh every single time I read this chapter for that. But what’s interesting about this lesson is similar to the Potions lesson, where it’s over pretty much everyone but Hermione’s head. The so-called three D’s are not really grasped by anybody either, and over a course of weeks, nobody has managed to accomplish what seems like it only has three easy steps. What do we make of that?
Laura: This lesson is so frustrating to read because there’s no actual teaching that happens here. This guy is literally like, “Just focus, y’all. Just focus on it really hard.”
Andrew: “Guys, it’s easy.”
Laura: And how do you expect these teenagers to figure this out? Especially when we know that there are grown wizards who can’t necessarily Apparate. There’s a skillset to it, and while I understand that it’s probably nebulous, and there’s no quick bullet list of exact steps you need to follow to make it work, I think offering these kids some real-world strategies to approach the three D’s with would be helpful here, but instead he’s just like, “Oh, I mean, Susan’s leg fell off because she wasn’t determined enough.”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: “Yeah, let that be a lesson to you all. Got to get more determined.”
Laura: Right. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, these are vague instructions. And we remember, too, that this is a paid add-on at Hogwarts…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: … so you would think, if you’re paying, you would get the best teaching.
Eric: That’s right! “Thanks for your 12 Galleons!” Oh, they’ve all been ripped off.
Andrew: And you would also think the Ministry would be treating these lessons a little more seriously, because they don’t want kids losing limbs. Yeah, they can fix this, but I don’t know. They do seem to be very relaxed about teaching such a pretty serious, consequential form of magic.
Eric: I mean, maybe it’s one of those things where you either get it or you don’t. But here’s the thing: I think that maybe Wilkie Twycross was at one point a good teacher, and he eventually over time… he’s the kind of guy you could see his lesson plan over time devolved into a catchphrase, right? So maybe 20 years ago, he was spending more time with individual students, and he had more to say in the matter, but whether through age, senility, or the fact that he’s been Apparating so often that parts of him are getting stuck being left behind, maybe he really doesn’t have it anymore, what it takes to really show the kids how to do it.
Micah: Reminds me of the person who scores you on your Driver’s Ed. test who just looks like they don’t want to be there anymore.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: They’ve been there for 50 years, and they’ve seen so many people not be able to parallel park or properly execute a turn. You know what I’m saying.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Micah: Anyway, I also think there’s probably a certain level of pressure on all of these students being in the same room together and trying to concentrate with so many of their peers around them. You’d think that maybe at least initially, they would separate the groups and maybe take them to different places within Hogwarts, although I know that they’re lifting the Apparition ban within the Great Hall specifically, but I’m sure that they could do that in other places.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Laura: It is pretty chaotic. And I feel like, too, trying to teach them a skill like this and having such a narrow target seems like it would be more difficult.
Eric: Ohh.
Laura: It’s effectively a glorified hula hoop they have lying on the floor in front of each of these kids. It just seems like it would be easier to master this if you had a larger radius that you could be targeting.
Eric: Like a hill.
Laura: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: “Try and get to the top of the hill,” and it’s not, “I’m going to try and get…” Maybe they did it because you have to visualize the destination, so maybe it’s just easiest if you can see all of it already, so it’s just in front of you.
Andrew: Yeah, I was going to say something somewhat similar: Because they are so close to this glorified hula hoop, maybe it is, in theory, easier to Apparate into something so close by, thus it can be a small target for you. Whereas the further away it is, the harder it is to actually narrow down where you’re actually going. Just a thought.
Eric: So they’re doing everyone a favor. I love these theories about Apparition, too, like that maybe Wilkie is the ideal build for this because there’s not much to him, so he’s very thin. And we hear that Charlie failed the first time he tried because he was bigger.
Andrew: But also, yes, Laura. Hogwarts is chaotic. I mean, this is just par for the course at this school.
Laura: Yep.
Eric: You know what’s funny is the last time we were discussing this chapter, we were just getting in the vogue of talking about how much of a nightmare, in many ways, Hogwarts was, which led to the clip, which is really, really sweet. But yeah, the thing that I want to focus on, too, before we move on is this idea that you can feel your way into nothingness. Here’s the quote…
Andrew: I wish.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I want to disassociate.
Eric: Well, say more. Say more.
Andrew: [laughs] No, no, I just… this reminds me of just wanting to shut your brain off and disassociate from everything. It was just a joke. Go on.
Eric: Do you think you could Apparate into nonbeing, though? Because that actually… you know what? That kind of does sound peaceful.
Andrew: That would be pretty cool.
Laura: I don’t know, maybe give these kids a smartphone and let them doomscroll. Always does it for me.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: No, there are certain elements of this that remind me of meditation.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Micah: So Andrew, when you were talking about dissociating just before, parts of these… or some of these steps do have meditative elements to them.
Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. Determination, I think, is…
Eric: Right. Yeah, Apparition seems to all be about will and willpower, and the fewer distractions that you have – so empty your mind, get ready to meditate – the more likely you are to be successful. So Wilkie’s steps: Destination. “Fix your mind firmly upon the desired destination.” We understand that. “Step two, focus your determination to occupy the visualized space! Let your yearning to enter it flood from your mind to every particle of your body!” Interesting use of the word “particle,” by the way. Sounds like he’s talking about science and physics. And “Step three… Turn on the spot, feeling your way into nothingness, moving with deliberation!”
Andrew: [laughs] This is like rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time, I feel like.
Eric: Oh, right.
Andrew: “Turn on the spot, feel your way into nothingness, while also yearning for that determination to flood from your mind to every particle of your body.” There really is a lot you have to juggle here.
Eric: That reminds me, there’s probably a comparison to be drawn of like, you suck at teaching something after you’ve already learned to do it and have done it successfully for 40 years. It’s like, oh, you don’t really think about how to swim; that’s why you take your kid to swimming lessons when a professional who’s learned at teaching people who don’t know how to swim to swim, otherwise you just kind of swim, right?
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: But yeah, again, feeling your way into nothingness, feeling it with every particle of your body, really reminds me of the most advanced magic that we have seen in Harry Potter. The Patronus, for one, the Summoning Charms in year four, all involved a tremendous amount of willpower and concentration, and to me, this idea of “Feel your way into nothingness…” these students have never… it’s first day, and then it’s several weeks later, and they still haven’t done it, because they haven’t felt nothingness before. “Feel your way into nothingness”? How can I feel something that isn’t there? It literally isn’t the physical space, so it’s intangible; you can’t feel it. To me, this sums up…
Micah: Especially this year; they’re all feeling each other.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: They’re feeling so many tangible things this year that this comes at the worst time, really. That’s a great point. But to me, I feel like I’m reading Plato’s “The Cave” for the first time or something. And it’s like your will, human consciousness, informs the world, and for a wizard who has magic, they need only be sufficiently determined and deliberate in order to literally break all of the laws of nature down to transport themselves, and it all comes back to this idea of willpower. So somebody like Dumbledore, who can Side-Along Apparate somebody else that’s never done it before, that must be two or three times more difficult than just regular Apparating, but we’re reminded he has a superior brain.
Andrew: Yeah, no, I like that a lot. I mean, and what you’re sharing here, I think, just speaks to how these kids probably aren’t fully ready to learn Apparition. And Micah mentioned that it sounds like meditation; there should be probably some sort of meditating class that comes along with these lessons, or… we’ve seen Harry practice Occlumency and fail to succeed.
Eric: Oh, that’s a good call-out.
Andrew: It’s kind of similar in that you need to clear your head and focus.
Eric: Yeah. We’re being given kind of the roadmap to more advanced type of magic, and the through-line is all of this meditative type stuff. To have superior willpower, superior brainpower, and a lack of distraction seems to be the key to success in all of these.
Andrew: Yeah, even something like Floo Powder, you have to speak clearly, or else you’re going to be going to the wrong place.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: You’re right; these are all tied together. Focus is super important when it comes to magic in this wizarding world.
Eric: I mean, it also just kind of reminds me of The Matrix, right? When Neo learns that it’s all simulation, and so he and Trinity and the others can all basically start bending the rules of it. If you know, you know, and you can exercise it. So again, that makes it hard to teach.
Laura: Yeah. It also just really makes me wish that in the core series, we got more exposure to the building blocks of magic and more advanced forms of magic and how it all works. And I know we’ve had episodes talking about that, but it really feels like an opportunity for HBO or Paramount, or whoever is going to own this stuff, to look at a spinoff. I’m thinking about what is it that Dumbledore and Flamel were doing together for all those years that got Flamel labeled as Dumbledore’s partner in the Chocolate Frog Card? There’s an entire backstory there of research and academia and alchemy and all these things that we never get in the books; it’s just mentioned. That would be a cool prequel.
Andrew: Yeah, and remember, we’ve seen these photos of Flamel and Dumbledore meeting with each other on a beach, so we might get bits and pieces of what you’re describing. Doesn’t seem like we’re going to go back in time, but their relationship is going to be expanded for the TV show, it seems like.
Eric: I want it.
Laura: For sure. I just think a spinoff would be cool.
Andrew: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I would not complain about any additional series.
Eric: All right, well, thanks for joining me on this journey into more advanced magical topics. Okay, guys, let’s talk more about Hermione and how she’s kind of very gloaty in this chapter, and then she’s kind of very upset with Harry.
Micah: I can understand where she’s coming from, but I also think she’s being a bit of a tit in this chapter, the way that she is gloating at Harry. Let Harry have his one year in a particular class of being the star pupil. Suck it up, buttercup. No?
Laura: But there’s no merit to it. It’d be one thing if he was the star pupil because he actually was, but it’s all a lie.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: My big thing is that Hermione is frustrated by Harry because Slughorn is all tickled by Harry’s use of the bezoar, but the reality is, he didn’t follow Slughorn’s directions at all! He totally went a different direction! And Slughorn is like, “Oh, yeah, that actually could work! Good job, Harry. Ten points to Gryffindor.” I don’t like that part.
Laura: And so here’s my question that I referred to at the top of the show: How would Slughorn have reacted if any other student pulled what Harry pulled here? Would he have been as impressed? Would he have been as tickled by the sheer cheek of somebody to do exactly what Harry did?
Eric: Immediate expulsion.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I don’t think so, but I just think Harry is getting preferential treatment.
Andrew: I agree, 100%.
Micah: If it were somebody in the Slug Club, I think he would be okay with it.
Laura: Of course.
Micah: I don’t know if he would have had as exuberant of a reaction as he did with Harry, especially because he starts shouting Lily’s name and associating him with his mom. “Oh, his mother’s son,” and he just goes on and on and on. But for me, though… I mean, it is important in this moment that Harry learns about the bezoar, because if he doesn’t, Ron is in a lot of trouble at the end of this chapter.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Micah: So it’s actually really good for Hermione, too. I know she’s not on speaking terms with Ron in this moment, but she would be down a future husband…
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: It’s true.
Micah: … if not for Harry being cheeky during this particular lesson.
Laura: Yeah, it all works out. [laughs]
Micah: I think the part that bothers me, though, is that she wants to be the teacher’s pet. I think that’s part of it.
Eric: Because she’s put in the work, though, right?
Micah: But she’s always the teacher’s pet, so share it.
Eric: But she knows this stuff. I don’t know. I think Hermione is done a disservice in the writing, or from Harry’s perspective, because it’s harkened on how she recites exactly the answer from the book, and she recites it faster than you would believe, and it makes her feel disingenuous, except she really does get it. In this chapter, she really does get it.
Micah: And she’s using nonverbal magic on top of it to ensure that nobody is cheating off of her.
Eric: But if you could do it, you should, right?
Micah: 100%. No, and I’m not trying to discredit her here in any way. She works harder than anybody else in this chapter and still isn’t able to complete the task. And Harry just uses a workaround here, thanks to the Half-Blood Prince.
Eric: I’m starting to think that if Harry were my classmate, I wouldn’t like him.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: I mean, come on, the guy’s always doing the bare minimum and getting praised for it. But I mean, for me, the telling part about Hermione in this chapter and why she’s so, let’s say, extra – almost bordering on too much – is that Harry, again, just wants… he’s worried about how it affects him. He’s sad that it affects… that it’s uncomfortable for him to have to tell Hermione about Horcruxes and then Ron about Horcruxes. But at the end of the day, he goes up to Hermione and he literally says, “Couldn’t you just…?” And she says, “No,” flat out, because he’s still asking her to be the one that comes down to Ron’s level and forgives him and apologizes, and why does she have to do that emotional work? Why is she the one that Harry is asking “Couldn’t you just” to? And so I’m with Hermione in this chapter.
Laura: Yeah. Unfortunately, Harry is just recognizing that of the two of them, Hermione is the one who has the emotional and mature capacity to be able to do that. And I don’t know that he would say this, but he recognizes that Ron is not it in this regard, not yet.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah. I think he’s asking her to be the bigger person, and she interprets it as if he’s asking her to compromise her morals or something.
Laura: Yeah. Well, the thing is, Hermione is always the bigger person in this series. She’s probably tired of it.
Eric: Wouldn’t you get sick of it? Yeah, yeah. So we know that Harry does ultimately fail to get the memory from Slughorn during the first part of this chapter, but what’s interesting to me is even though he hasn’t taken the Felix Felicis – we had that chapter named “Felix Felicis”; Felix, actually, we see the little vial in this chapter when he’s rummaging through his trunk – but Harry hasn’t taken it, and yet he still gets this sixth sense that, let’s be honest, he’s almost always had when it comes to handling situations, because he gets this sense of exactly what to do. Like the bezoar, he’s like… the book says, “If it were anyone else’s class, he wouldn’t have dared. If it were Snape, he wouldn’t have even tried it.” But because it’s Slughorn, he just had this sense. Harry just kind of felt like it would maybe be just enough to win the day. And he’s right, and so Harry already has a Felix sense of, I don’t know, serendipity.
Andrew: And maybe Harry was sensing that Slughorn would go easy on him, too. Just because he wasn’t following the directions doesn’t mean Slughorn was going to be mad at him or punish him.
Micah: The way he approaches the questioning of Slughorn, though, is just way too forward. It reminds me of earlier on in the book when Hermione goes into Borgin and Burke just after Draco was there to find out what it was that he was inquiring about…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: … and there’s just no thought that goes into the questioning, and it’s the same thing here with Harry. He’s outright asking Slughorn about Horcruxes, and when was even the last time Slughorn heard the word “Horcrux”?
Eric: Right.
Micah: There’s definitely… there wasn’t… and I think maybe this goes back to the clip that you played at the start of the show; the fact that the three of them are not working together in this moment, it hurts Harry in this particular time, because he’s just going for it, and he doesn’t put any kind of real thought behind it.
Andrew: I can’t remember when we were discussing what I’m about to share, but we were talking earlier in the book, I think, about Harry jumping straight to the point with things, maybe because he’s feeling rushed that there’s no time to waste. That’s kind of the impression that I’m getting here again. I mean, maybe Dumbledore should have said, “Hey, take your time with this. Play the long game, longish game. My hand’s not getting any better, but play the longish game.”
Eric: [laughs] “We have all the time in the world, provided… you get one month.”
Andrew: Yeah, I guess this is also a good learning lesson for both Harry and the reader that sometimes things like this take time. You can’t just… it’s not like a switch. You’ve got to work somebody for a little while. But I also just think Harry knows very well at this point, especially after how well that lesson went for him, that Slughorn is forgiving towards Harry, and maybe he felt like Slughorn would do him another solid here.
Laura: Yeah, honestly, I think it was a little bit of a Hail Mary, because Harry didn’t really know what to do here. Dumbledore didn’t exactly give him good instruction on how to approach this.
Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “It’s a test. I’m testing him.”
Laura: Yeah, and so I think up until this point, Slughorn has been very permissive of Harry, and so I think he’s just going out on a lark to see how easy he can make it for himself.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, there’s something to be said for the blindsiding angle. I don’t know who it would have worked on, but it seems reasonable enough for somebody to be like, “Oh, uh…” But instead, Slughorn is repulsed because his primary feeling is guilt about the whole thing, which that takes a lot more to unpack. But speaking of Harry, actually, Andrew, something you said about Harry being just so quick to reveal himself reminds me of this scene in the Great Hall during the Apparition lesson, when he sees that Crabbe and Malfoy are arguing, and then immediately darts off and positions himself right behind them. And just when it’s getting interesting, and Draco is talking about Crabbe and Goyle as lookouts, Harry comes from right behind him and is like, “You know, I tell my friends where I’m going at all times!”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Couldn’t Harry have waited three more seconds, or let’s say, 30 more seconds, just as a lark, and gotten more information about what they were up to? Because they were arguing about it in public, and Harry cut things short.
Micah: Yeah, patience is a virtue.
Andrew: I think that Harry is, yeah, out of patience with Draco, and just is out of F’s to give when it comes to Draco, so he can’t resist the opportunity to prod him really quick when the opportunity strikes.
Micah: Definitely puts a scare in him.
Eric: Yeah, and there’s other times when Harry is obtuse, but he doesn’t at all realize why he’s not seeing Malfoy on the map.
Andrew: I feel like that should have been a red flag, not seeing Draco on the map. I think it’s said in this book, like, “Oh, there’s so many black dots. How can I find Draco? It’s impossible.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: But he hasn’t had this problem before, has he?
Laura: Right.
Andrew: So I think this is something he maybe should have thought about more. “Why is that name not appearing?”
Eric: Maybe you could write to Lupin and be like, “Hey, having trouble trying to locate a particular somebody. It doesn’t matter who. They’re not on the map, but they’re probably at Hogwarts. So can you explain?”
Micah: Especially thinking back to Lupin’s “The map never lies” line, when it… and again, that could have been a movie-ism, but when they were talking about Peter Pettigrew. And I just think there’s a lot that Harry doesn’t take into consideration. He’s sitting there on the morning of Ron’s birthday. Draco is not in the… and we’re talking about the morning, right? So Draco should either be in the Slytherin common room, he should be in the Great Hall for breakfast, or maybe he’s with Snape, but Snape is in his office, so I just don’t understand why it’s not clicking for Harry. It should be.
Laura: Yeah, well, especially since he clearly can see Crabbe and Goyle on the map, and the fact that it doesn’t indicate a red flag for him that Crabbe and Goyle just seem to be loitering somewhere without their leader present?
Eric: Final thought here, a tiny little moment as Ron is being rushed down to Slughorn’s office. Ron brushes past Lavender, and he pushes past her and says, “Leave me alone.” She’s got a present for him; she remembered his birthday, or knows his birthday, which is very touching. But Ron says, “Harry’s going to introduce me to Romilda Vane.” Is this the beginning of the end, do we think, for their relationship?
Laura: If I recall correctly, this is where it starts going downhill. And I mean, rightfully so. Well, maybe… I think it’s been going downhill the entire time, but this is really the turning point. But I mean, rightfully so. If you put yourself in Lavender’s shoes, and yeah, your boyfriend brushes past you that way on his birthday, saying he’s going to go see another girl…
Andrew: Yeah. I mean, he could give a valid excuse after all this is resolved. But still, like you said, Laura, this relationship has been on the highway to hell for a while now. Ron’s heart is just not in this.
Odds & Ends
Eric: All right, well, I think that will wrap up our Chapter 18 discussion, save for some odds and ends, or one in particular connecting the threads. Micah?
Micah: Yeah, going back to Chamber of Secrets, Harry saves a Weasley in both. And it is worth mentioning that Ron does get poisoned at the end of this chapter, and that ties back into Draco’s nefarious activities at school this year.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Superlative of the Week
Eric: For MVP of the Week, we asked what’s the best of the three D’s?
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Andrew: I’m going with determination. Set your mind to it.
Eric: Yeah, can’t go wrong. I’m going to give it to destination, because imagining or visualizing where it is you want to go is almost as fun as actually being there.
Micah: I’ve got to agree with Andrew. Without determination, nothing much works in life.
Andrew: So true. So true, queen.
Laura: And I went with Dogbreath…
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Excuse me?
Laura: … one of the nicknames that the students came up with for Professor Twycross.
Eric: That was one of the kindest. One of the most charitable nicknames for him.
Andrew: He’s paid to teach and he doesn’t even brush his teeth. Bad.
Laura: Yuck.
Lynx Line
Eric: So we now head to our Lynx Line, where over on Patreon, our patrons at the Slug Club level can participate. We do this every week, and this week’s prompt was for our patrons to name a time in school where they found themselves totally out of their depth subject-wise. We asked them, did you overcome your knowledge gap, and if so, was it hard work and determination that did it? A good teacher, maybe, or a tutor? Or did you just merely squeak by in class and never take up the subject again?
Andrew: Monet said,
“My graphics class in first year of engineering was horrible! I have a really difficult time thinking spatially, so drawing things 3-D and cross-section and even CAD software later in the course was awful! I just sat in the labs and cried; my brain doesn’t work that way! In the end, I went to every exam prep session and learned exactly how they would mark it. I made a strategy for how to get the most points possible, given what I could do (labelling dimensions, prep work FOR the hard stuff, etc.), passed, and never had to draw a 3-D cube again.”
Andrew: Onward!
Eric: Onward. Julie Ann says,
“Generally I was a Hermione in high school and college (still am), but two classes I loathed in college were Organic Chemistry 1 and 2, and then Genetics (professor was godawful). A good Memory Charm would be nice to clear thoughts on those classes!”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Oof, glad you made it through.
Micah: Rachelpuff says,
“I don’t think I ever remember being so clueless taking tests than I was in AP calculus in high school. I only scraped by from the teacher giving a ‘curve.’ I had to retake it in college and paid attention and did great. More obvious to me now I did so poorly in high school because I was always reading Harry Potter or Twilight under my desk.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Oh, grading on a curve was the best.
Eric: Oh, it was the best, yeah.
Laura: Well, I think AP Calculus might be a trauma bond subject for a lot of these folks.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Laura: Jason says,
“I took exactly one day of AP Calculus in high school. Our teacher gave us a packet of math we should have learned in Precalculus and told us to have at it. It was horrible and I felt super stupid… *shudders*”
Andrew: I want to give a shout-out to Nicole, one of our Slug Club members too, who also called out AP Calculus.
Eric: Nice.
Andrew: I just didn’t include her full response this time. Robert said,
“In my freshman year of college I had a Media/Communications professor who was very nice but NOTORIOUSLY hard (one of those ‘Most people will fail my class’ types). He never made study guides, and literally ANYTHING he mentioned in class could end up on a test. Honestly, I ended up just barely passing by taking the Harry/Slughorn route. I constantly emailed him questions about topics he’d discussed, and also earned some extra credit he offered by pointing out typos in his textbook so he could have his publishers fix them for future editions.”
Eric: Oh! Oh, God.
Andrew: Sounds like a Lockhart situation.
Laura: Wow.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: He’s got his own textbook? Oh, that’s such a good strategy.
Andrew: “Buy my textbook for this class and you still won’t pass. It’s that hard.” Wow, I don’t like this guy at all.
Eric: Yeah, that guy sucks. Okay, Rachel said,
“I immediately thought of physics, which I took as a sophomore in high school. I loved the class and the teacher was fantastic, but once we got to the light and magnetism units, I was totally lost. I remember spending hours on homework and sitting in class copying down notes I didn’t understand at all. I went after school regularly to work with the teacher and he was so patient with me, but eventually said, ‘Try not to feel too badly. Some people are naturally good at this. You’re not one of them.'”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Whoa.
Eric: “I think he meant well. I ended up with a B for the class, which I was over the moon about.”
Andrew: That sounds like Trelawney. “Some people are naturally good at this, but you’re not one of them”?
Eric: Oh.
Andrew: She has said something like that in the books, hasn’t she? “You don’t have the Inner Eye”? [laughs]
Eric: “It’s clear that you do not possess the Inner Eye.”
Micah: And Matthew closes us out. He says,
“In grad school for professional writing, I took a class called ‘A Grammar of Standard Written English.’ Our textbook was called ‘American English: The Consensus.’ It was as hard as it sounds. I learned useful things, such as ‘It doesn’t matter if your grammar is bad, as long as you KNOW your grammar is bad.’ However, I just couldn’t get through the homework and tests. Finally, another student mentioned that she’d be happy to help me through it, so after class, I’d give her $20 and she’d help me. I passed. The teacher took her aside and thanked her.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Oh my God.
Andrew: There are a bunch more responses on our Patreon. Thanks, everybody who submitted. If you have feedback about today’s episode, you can email or send a voice memo to MuggleCast@gmail.com. You can also leave a comment on Spotify or YouTube, or DM us on social. And next week, Chapter by Chapter continues with Half-Blood Prince Chapter 19, “Elf Tales.” Be sure to visit MuggleCast.com for links to our social media, our Patreon, our transcripts, our favorite episodes, and lots more. Don’t forget, we’ll have a new bonus MuggleCast coming this week about the items in our lives that we would turn into Horcruxes.
Quizzitch
Andrew: Now it’s time for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: This week’s Quizzitch question: While Lord Voldemort commits patricide by killing Tom Riddle, Sr., what is the broader term used when someone kills a near relative of theirs, such as a grandparent? The answer we were…
Micah: It’s not unplugging.
Eric: [laughs] Yeah, that’s right. Well, Micah, sorry to disappoint. The word we were looking for is parricide, as in patricide, but you replace the T with an R. It’s double R, parricide. Some people did submit familicide. We were looking for parricide, and that’s what Riddle does to his grandparents. 33% of people with the correct answer say they didn’t look it up, so we find out why in some of these names. This week’s Quizzitch winners: Marry Me, Laura…
Andrew and Laura: Oh.
Eric: Hold on. I have her email address, by the way.
Laura: Okay. Send it over.
Eric: [laughs] Also, I Listen to Too Much True Crime so I Knew This Answer Too Quickly… that’s delightful.
Laura: Love it.
Eric: … Eden the Muggle-born, established 2012; Voldetort; Count Ravioli Impasta… as in impasta, imposter.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: That has to be the best name.
Eric: That’s the best name I’ve ever seen in my life. And runner-up, Discount Ravioli; FieryGirl; Eden Elmendorf Muggle-born, established 2012… a lot of 14-year-olds listen to our show and participate in Quizzitch, apparently. Owlebear; and Ol’ Voldymoldy. Thanks to everyone who submitted, and here is next week’s Quizzitch question: In Chapter 18 of Book 6, a bezoar from the stomach of a goat is used as a cure for poison. In reality, bezoars can appear in humans as ailments. What popular soft drink brand is used to treat bezoars in humans?
Andrew: Ooh.
Eric: Here’s a hint: It’s exactly the one that you think. Submit your answer to us on the Quizzitch form located on the MuggleCast website – go to MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch – or if you’re already on our site, maybe checking out the transcripts or the must listens page, click on “Quizzitch” from the main nav bar at the top.
Andrew: Thanks, everybody, for listening. Congratulations on your engagement, Laura. I’m Andrew.
Laura: Thank you.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: Bye, everyone.
Eric, Laura, and Micah: Bye.