Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #755, Dumbledead (HBP Chapter 28, ‘Flight of the Prince’)
Cold Open
Eric: They did give us a nice little battle at the Burrow at Christmastime to keep the pace up.
Micah: Ohh.
Andrew: I’d rather have the other one.
Micah: I mean, they had budget to burn down the Burrow.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Right.
Eric: Wow.
Micah: They wasted the money burning down the Burrow.
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, gathering to talk about the books and the movies and the TV show, so follow us in your favorite podcast app and you’ll never miss an episode. And this week, make sure your hippogriff is up for battle, because we’re discussing Chapter 28 of Half-Blood Prince, “Flight of the Prince.” Before we continue, though, if you love this show as much as Harry loves calling Snape a coward, head over to Patreon.com/MuggleCast and support us today. And to thank you for your support, you’ll receive bonus episodes of the show, ad-free episodes, and we’ll give you an on-air shout-out, and lots more benefits. Speaking of on-air shout-outs, thank you to recent patrons, including Melanie, Riley, Kylie, Jailyn, Sarah, Jeremy, and Le Le! And we’d appreciate if you left us a review in your favorite podcast app, or told a fellow Muggle about our show. And finally, you can visit MuggleCastMerch.com to buy official show gear, like a “Choo-choo” shirt, a “We criticize because we care” shirt, maybe a “Security Nightmare” hat, some glassware for the warmer months… lots of options for you. Now, before we get to this chapter, we do have a couple of show updates for everybody. Eric?
Eric: Yes, I’ll take it away. For those of you who’ve been following the show these past 21 – almost – years, you know that something great we’ve been able to do is always stay on top of the latest news in HP fandom, and cover on the show the books, the movies, and assorted media coming out of the wizarding world. Yes, that includes Cursed Child and Crimes of Grindelwald, grudgingly.
[Andrew shudders]
Eric: Can you imagine? Thank God we’re past that, right?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: So I’ve enjoyed being along for that ride, but I’ve recently come to determine that the show is going somewhere that I personally can’t, which is into the heart of the discussion for the upcoming HBO TV series. I am announcing here that I will not, moving forward, be joining MuggleCast for the TV show episodes that we do moving forward, and my reasoning is – what else? – J.K. Rowling, her just absolute monstrous attacks and denigrations of transgender people. I can’t do it, you guys. I can’t. The situation for trans people in the US and Britain gets worse every year, it’s made worse every day by every awful thing she tweets, and as a trans person myself, I can’t support the show because of this or anybody that pretends she isn’t doing what she’s doing, and I just wouldn’t want any of my comments, even positive ones, about the TV show to be misinterpreted as endorsement of J.K. Rowling. Now, I know my panelists have made their feelings on the matter of Jo crystal clear; very grateful for that. It’s my personal choice to walk away from our TV show coverage, but I support their still finding joy and excitement in what’s sure to be a good production, so you can look forward to the usual panel minus me, and I know we’re getting some special guests in discussing the TV show before, during, and after it airs in the fall, but my commitment to refrain from discussing the show on the show means that I will not be present on those episodes. So yeah, as long as Rowling is attached to the show, I’m not going to be discussing it in podcasts. So in the meantime, we do have about 40 more Chapter by Chapter segments left to do, and I’m very excited to still be along the journey and usher MuggleCast towards the end of those.
Andrew: Well, we understand where you’re coming from, and we also recognize that this is a big moment for fandom, the TV show, and the three of us are looking forward to covering it. Speaking of Chapter by Chapter, now is probably a good time to let everyone know that we’ll be making some updates to the format when we get to Deathly Hallows starting in a few weeks.
Eric: Can’t wait for this, by the way. I’ve been looking forward to doing Deathly Hallows since we started this.
Andrew: Yeah, Seven-Word Summary will return; we had a lot of fun with that segment with previous books. The Pensieve segment will be canceled. We’re canceling her.
Eric: Augh!
Andrew: Because the last time we did Deathly Hallows Chapter by Chapter, the audio was so bad, we’d be so embarrassed to play audio from that.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: It was 2007, and this is true. We’re not lying or joking. It is really bad to listen back to.
Micah: You know what’s really at play here is we can’t get into Dumbledore’s office anymore now that…
Eric: It’s locked.
Micah: … we’re camping.
Andrew: Oh, right.
Eric: So we can’t… we tried to book him for the Pensieve segment, but getting a hold of him at King’s Cross in the afterlife is slightly difficult.
Micah: He’s busy.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. But no, I really appreciate all the feedback we’ve gotten, the warm feedback about the Pensieve segment, but yeah, this time it’s just going back too far in time for our comfort. So that’s going to be wrapping up in three more segments, and they’re all pre-recorded. They’re all in the bag, you guys. [emotionally] I did the last one just last night.
Andrew and Laura: Aww.
Andrew: And one more adjustment, and I’m actually really excited about this: Quizzitch is going to be evolving, so starting with Deathly Hallows Chapter by Chapter, we’ll be asking a trivia question about the chapter we’re discussing that day at the top of the show, and then giving you the answer at the end of the episode. So it’s going to be a play-at-home type of game, you’re not going to go to the website anymore to fill out the form, and we’ll miss all your crazy names. You can still feel free to drop them in a contact form or in the Discord if you really want. But it’s going to be like a play-at-home in real time type of trivia game, and the trivia question is going to tie into the chapter.
Eric: Yeah, as they used to do. And this is something I’m excited for, for Quizzitch. We’ve actually been doing Quizzitch for more than half the lifespan of this show. It’s entirely impossible to believe that, but we have. For 400+ episodes, Quizzitch has been a thing, and this is the first time we’ve done a play-at-home edition, so this is something else very exciting to look forward to during our Deathly Hallows discussion.
Chapter by Chapter: Pensieve
Andrew: All right, well, with that show business out of the way, it’s time for Chapter by Chapter, and this week we’re discussing Half-Blood Prince Chapter 28, “Flight of the Prince.”
Eric: And we last discussed this chapter on MuggleCast 420. Blaze it.
Andrew: Ayy.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: That episode was called “Really Loose Pockets,” and it was for June 10 – so yeah, nearly seven years ago – in 2019.
Micah: Wow.
Eric: Here’s the clip.
Dumbledore: What you are looking at are memories. This is the most important memory I’ve collected. It is from MuggleCast Episode 420.
[Sound of memory uncorking]
[Sound of plunging into Pensieve]
Laura: And Harry notices the locket on the ground because he’s leaning on it… and hats off to Dumbledore’s really loose pockets, apparently, that allowed that to fall out.
[Alexa and Eric laugh]
Andrew: He needs some zippers on those. Doesn’t matter now, but could’ve used zippers.
Laura: Really convenient for the plot. Thank you, Dumbledore.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Well, somebody… yeah, I guess. I mean, if I was Harry, I would have probably at some point wanted to go through his pockets to check out what he’s got on him.
[Alexa and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Is that morbid?
Alexa: Just to see if he has any cool stuff?
Eric: I was going to say, if Harry doesn’t… yeah, yeah, the Put-Outer. What other cool gadgets of his own making…?
Andrew: Or a heart necklace with Harry’s picture in it.
Laura: Aww.
Eric: And then Grindelwald’s on the other side.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: And Harry is like, “Why is Johnny Depp in here?”
[Everyone laughs]
[Sound of exiting Pensieve]
Dumbledore: This memory is everything.
Eric: You guys remember when Grindelwald was Johnny Depp?
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: We were having fun that day, apparently.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Andrew: I was going to say, that was a very fun clip, but this is a heartbreaking chapter. There is heartbreak all over. S is getting real in a whole new way. Dumbledore is dead, Harry shares that news with Hagrid, everybody’s seeing Dumbledore’s body, a fake Horcrux after all that effort, Death Eaters in the castle… everything is going to change now, isn’t it? It’s just… I was bummed reading this chapter, but it was also so good.
Eric: Absolutely. Yeah, no, for me, the best part of the chapter is there’s so much happening underneath the main emotion of it all. So if you’re reading this for the first time and you’re like, “Oh my God, Snape killed Dumbledore,” that’s all you can see, and it’s obviously such a big moment for Harry that that’s all Harry sees, but there’s so much hidden in the background here, and so much going on that if you’re a little bit more removed… Dumbledore’s death, you guys, doesn’t even faze me now. I’m like, “Pfft, yeah, that happened. Sucks to suck.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: But for me, being able to read this distance from having first read it, you kind of miss the smarter things that we’re going to talk about. But it’s impossible still not to get at least a little emotional, because this chapter is this chapter.
Andrew: I was actually surprised that I was kind of in my feelings about it. I think just seeing Harry and Hagrid talking together, and then Buckbeak coming in, Snape leaving… lots of big moments. So Dumbledore is Dumbledead, and Harry has no choice but to step up while not yet being able to process his good friend and headmaster’s murder. So this chapter is focused on Harry pursuing Snape and Draco, and this is a mission that ends in a fight between Snape and Harry, a whole scene, by the way, that was completely cut out of the movie.
Micah: Yeah, this was a bit disappointing to me that it didn’t make the films, and I know we’re going to talk a little bit about some of the comments that were made in terms of why it was not included, but for Harry in this moment, he’s just a man on a mission, right? He’s running on pure adrenaline, and nothing is going to get in his way. But I do really want to see this adapted when the TV show is filming Half-Blood Prince, because it’s important. Why not include this in the films? You need action in the films. You just have Harry chasing Snape, which, okay, fine, but they could have done… I mean, look, I enjoyed Bellatrix, I enjoyed Helena Bonham Carter running through Hogwarts, but she didn’t really run up against much when she was traipsing through and busting up the Great Hall.
Laura: Totally. Well, because I had forgotten until this reread, but there are students all over the school as this is going on. People are coming out of their dormitories, there’s a lot of danger, there are a lot of obstacles going on, so there is a lot of opportunity for this to be better adapted, and when we get to the next chapter, I have an idea that I want to share with y’all about how I hope that they’ll adapt from all POVs based on what we know happens during this time.
Andrew: Ooh.
Laura: So when we get to the next episode, I’ll get into that. Just put a pin in it for now. But I definitely agree; reading this chapter really makes the film ending feel very rushed.
Andrew: So film producer David Heyman made some comments when Half-Blood Prince was released, and I am still not over these comments. They make no sense to me. He said they didn’t adapt this battle for the movie because Deathly Hallows was going to have an end battle, and they thought it would be redundant. He said, “The reason why we left out the Battle at Hogwarts is because we have a battle at Hogwarts in the seventh film and we are avoiding repetition.” Now, what makes that comment even more bizarre is that the battle he’s referring to in Deathly Hallows would be in Deathly Hallows – Part 2, so that means two movies prior to Part 2 without an end battle. And big blockbusters end in battles! That’s how it works! So I’m just like, did they do this for budget cut reasons? Because I otherwise cannot figure out why they did this.
Eric: Yeah, probably. I mean, they did give us a nice little battle at the Burrow at Christmastime to keep the pace up.
Micah: Ohh.
Andrew: I’d rather have the other one.
Micah: I mean, they had budget to burn down the Burrow.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Right.
Eric: Wow.
Micah: They wasted the money burning down the Burrow, and then the effects at the beginning of the movie… what was it, the Millennium Bridge that they tore apart?
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Micah: The reason why I was disappointed in this, too, is that not only is the ending rushed, Laura, as you said, and not only is there no real battle – I mean, you get a little bit between Harry and Snape – but then they also cut out Dumbledore’s funeral…
Andrew: Right.
Micah: … which we can talk more about when we get to that chapter.
Eric: [imitating David Heyman] “Well, there’s going to be so much death in the next movie that we needed to pare it down.”
Andrew: There’s going to be so much funeral next movie.
Micah: But what was missing, though, is the fact that you could have brought so many characters back for that, because there are so many that are present that make cameos in that moment. It would have been a nice tribute of sorts to the series to see all of those characters come back for his funeral. But was it because they decided to give a funeral to a spider that they couldn’t do another funeral at the end of this movie?
Laura: Right. [laughs]
Eric: “I’m sorry, there’s a one funeral limit to this.” Look, I support… I don’t think we should get hard on some of the other choices made in Movie 6, because I think Movie 6 is one of the best. But we can criticize for sure the lack of the…
Micah: We criticize because we care.
Eric: We care. Who’s wearing that shirt? Is anybody wearing that shirt?
Micah: No.
Andrew: MuggleCastMerch.com.
Eric: Listeners, if you wore that shirt, raise your hand.
Micah: But David Heyman, Episode 200. Go give it a listen. Fantastic interview.
Eric: Yeah. Oh, I mean, I listen to that… that’s on my weekly rotation. It’s such a good one.
Micah: We love David Heyman.
Eric: Anyway, one thing I’ll say, though, to all of our points, is that the Battle of Hogwarts is so tense, and it’s… or this… [laughs] Sorry, canonically, the first Battle of Hogwarts, I’m talking about. Not the one next year, but this one tonight. It’s so tense, and you get a sense of how completely mismatched Harry and the children’s magical abilities are with the Death Eaters. They are pinned down; they are cornered. Harry is stepping over bodies he assumes are his friends, and he’s dodging Killing Curses left and right, while still only using Stupefy, Petrificus Totalus, Impedimenta, Incarcerous… I’m not saying these are not good spells, but compared to what they are avoiding, there’s no comparison, and so – just like everything else in Book 6 – this, if anything, sets up the struggles ahead by giving you an accurate picture of what the kids are up against. So yeah, this chapter is so, so, so tense, and the movie does not convey that very well.
Andrew: Yeah. So what you’re describing, too, it’s symbolic of how necessary and important Dumbledore was to the story, and this is a quick reality check for the remaining characters. Dumbledore had systems in place, he was obviously a very powerful wizard, and now they’re fighting without him, and everybody’s going to have to step it up to fight back against Voldemort, and Snape too.
Laura: Totally. It really does make our heroes feel underpowered compared to their enemies, but what I will say is it is kind of a nice setup for what ends up happening in the climax of the series, because Harry doesn’t need any fancy ultra-violent spells or curses or hexes to take Voldemort out. It’s literally a disarming spell that saves the day. [laughs]
Eric: Well, listen, don’t advertise that. You don’t send troops into battle with just a defensive setup, okay?
[Laura laughs]
Eric: I think it’s the dumbest thing ever that what you’re saying actually happened, but it’s true. It’s very true.
Laura: It is.
Eric: Yeah, it just comes down to chutzpah.
Andrew: So in his fight against Snape, Harry attempts multiple spells, but is ultimately outmatched. He can’t successfully hit Snape with a single one. And at one point, Snape says to Harry, “Blocked again and again and again until you learn to keep your mouth shut and your mind closed, Potter!” And reading it this time, it seems to me that Snape is frustrated that Harry never fully learned how to close his mind. If you believe Snape is bad, you can easily connect the threads as to why he’s saying such a comment, but if you read this from the perspective of Snape is good, Snape and Dumbledore see it as a vital skill for him to have, closing his mind, and Harry still isn’t able to do it, and Snape is very frustrated by that, and I think that’s where these comments come from.
Eric: Yeah. He’s still teaching him, he’s still instructing him, he’s still… up until the very last moment that Snape can give any advice to Harry, it’s “Keep your mouth shut and your mind closed.” Harry takes it as an insult, but this is… I think he’s given… I mean, Harry can’t even get a spell off because Snape anticipates what it is and blocks him. This is what any adult wizard could do to Harry, and so it’s essential that he learn the things that he was supposed to learn, or at least should have been. This is why I find Book 7 a little underwhelming. I think that everything we see Snape do – while we think he’s a bad guy in this chapter – are, again, defensive spells, not offensive. He could flatten Harry if he wanted to, but he not only doesn’t do that, he also tells the other Death Eaters, “No, he’s the Dark Lord’s. Lay off.” So we think of this as this huge confrontation between the guy that just did the unspeakable thing in killing Dumbledore, but he’s still teaching Harry. Even though he doesn’t like Harry at all, he’s still protecting him, because that is what he promised Dumbledore that he would do. Heck of a thing.
Laura: Totally. And to your point about Snape still teaching Harry here, and how he’s calling him out for “Hey, man, you never learned how to close your mind; here are the consequences of that,” he’s also reminding Harry and the reader that Harry never came close to mastering nonverbal magic, which is also a part of why Harry can’t get a single spell halfway out before Snape stops him. And unfortunately, that was a topic in Defense Against the Dark Arts earlier this year, but it’s not something Harry paid much mind to.
Micah: No. And to the point about “He’s the Dark Lord’s”? If we needed any more evidence that Snape was actually good, Snape could have taken Harry in that moment back to Voldemort. There’s nothing stopping that from happening.
Eric: Not even Buckbeak could have stopped that.
Micah: Maybe a little bit of a rescue attempt by Buckbeak, but let’s be real; there’s nobody there to protect Harry.
Andrew: It does make you wonder why the Death Eaters didn’t flag that. Like, “Oh, Voldemort has to be the one to kill him? Okay, so let’s grab him and bring him with us.” But that doesn’t happen.
Eric: I think it’s that they got the golden goose. They got their prize.
Andrew: They got Dumbledore? It’s time to party?
Eric: For once, they were coming to Hogwarts not because of Harry, yeah. So I think they’re all terrified, maybe. In fact, here’s a read of it that I don’t think I’ve ever had before: They are still so terrified by the memory of Dumbledore, and this is Dumbledore’s castle. Even if he’s dead now, this is still Dumbledore’s castle, and so they’re hightailing it because they’re such cowards, all of them, and they don’t know what other spells remain. They got what they came for? They’re immediately leaving. They won’t even take Harry, because they’re running for their lives.
Andrew: Yeah. So do we think Snape could have handled this differently at all? He surely anticipated it would come to something like this, with Harry being enraged that he just killed – or Malfoy just killed – Dumbledore. Or would any other strategy have been no use here?
Eric: He should have sat Harry down and said, “Once again…” or, “I must tell you everything.”
Andrew: Micah, I know you have some thoughts here.
Micah: I just think that Snape has an act that he needs to keep up, and that he wasn’t anticipating having to emotionally contend with Harry at that moment. He probably could have said less and recognized that Harry was grieving the loss of Dumbledore, but the irony here, of course, is that Snape is also grieving the loss of Dumbledore. And throughout this entire battle sequence, Snape is actually protecting Harry, as we talked about, even while Harry really only sees Snape as Dumbledore’s murderer. So I just think for Snape, just like Harry was in the beginning of this chapter, he’s a man on a mission too.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: I agree.
Laura: Yeah, and I… go ahead, Eric.
Eric: No, I agree. As I said, he’s shouting, “No, he’s the Dark Lord’s.” His mission is protect Harry still, still to this day, and keep his cover, so it works out that he happened to sign an Unbreakable Vow, or make an Unbreakable Vow, that allowed him to do exactly what he’s always been able to do. But so much of Snape’s actions are also, I think… the way he hightails it out of the top of the tower is to continue protecting… after tonight, the Unbreakable Vow that he took is probably no longer threatening to kill him, because he helped Draco to do the thing. Draco failed; he did the thing. And so Snape has been protecting himself, his own life, as much as possible, I think, as well, tonight. But after this, he can finally relax a little bit.
Laura: Yeah. Well, and it’s a good thing for Snape that emotional regulation just isn’t a thing he ever mastered…
[Eric laughs]
Laura: … and basically the only emotion he ever seems to be able to convey is anger or resentment or something along that spectrum. He’s repeatedly described as being angry-faced from the moment that he kills Dumbledore in the last chapter.
Eric: He should smile more, I’m thinking.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: That should have been my entry for what’s coming up in the Lynx Line later.
Eric: “You should smile more!”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: “Can you just smile more?”
Eric: “You’ve gotten everything you’ve wanted!”
Laura: But it is so convenient that this anger passes to Harry as Snape revealing his true allegiance, when really what it is is Snape is ticked off that he’s left kind of holding the bag on Dumbledore’s plan, and nobody else knows it.
Micah: Right. And to build on that, Snape needs Harry to hate him in this moment, because if Harry suspects, even for a second, that Snape had a reluctance in killing Dumbledore, or he was under orders, the entire plan falls through. This genuine hatred from Harry really helps sell the lie to everybody else.
Andrew: Totally.
Eric: Yeah, that’s a good point.
Andrew: So let’s talk about Harry calling Snape a coward. What is it about being called a coward that rocks Snape to his core? This is clearly his Achilles’ heel. He can’t stand hearing this from Harry; Harry found something that just enrages the guy. And on your first read, you might agree with Harry that Snape is a coward, but after you finish, you see why Snape actually hates this accusation. He’s a double agent who has to convince Voldemort, one of the most powerful Legilimens alive, of his loyalty every single day. He killed the one person he was loyal to, who knew him best, who he was devoted to protecting, and he had to kill him on his own orders, knowing it would make him the most hated man in the wizarding world. He had carried the grief of Lily’s death for over a decade; he hasn’t been able to tell anybody besides Dumbledore. He has no safety net; if either side ever truly doubts him, he’s in trouble. And he’s unable to tell Harry any of this! So really, he’s not a coward at all. He’s going through a lot, he’s handling it really bravely, but he can’t say it, and that’s why it enrages Snape so much, I would say.
Eric: That’s a tremendous summary. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Snape is probably the bravest man that Harry ever knew.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: And Harry may one day see it that way.
Micah: Possibly name a kid after him?
Eric: Maybe, maybe. Partially.
Micah: Only middle name. First name would be a little too much.
Eric: Second name, yeah.
Laura: And it’s more than Hagrid gets.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, poor… yeah, no Catherine Rubeus or…
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Aww.
Micah: He saved “Rubeus” for his dog. Care of Magical Creatures, right? I think another reason why this pisses Snape off so much – and this builds a little bit on the points that you talked about, Andrew – is that we know Snape was… well, we’re going to learn that Snape was abused at home. He was also humiliated socially; we saw this in Order of the Phoenix. Particularly he was bullied by James and Sirius, and so I think that that is also a factor here too.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, Snape’s main response when Harry calls him a coward – except the freaking out and getting really, really, really upset by it – is that “Your father would only attack me when it was four on one. What do you call him, I wonder?” And we only have one example of Snape being bullied, but it’s exactly that; it’s the four Marauders against one Snape. So I’m inclined to take Snape at his word and just say, you know what? He’s kind of got a point, because we don’t hear of James really ever doing anything of his own when it comes to his Hogwarts years.
Andrew: Yeah. It does make me wonder if that is true or not. Is that the case? James only fought Snape when he was with his other three friends? And I could see why that would also hurt Snape on multiple levels. James has friends and Snape doesn’t. Snape doesn’t have anybody to back him up other than his spells that he comes up with.
Eric: Right.
Laura: Yeah. I definitely think James and Sirius were the ringleaders when it came to bullying Snape; I think they were actually the perpetrators. But Lupin definitely sat on the sidelines and let it happen. We saw a clear example of that. Worth pointing out that Lupin was a prefect too.
Eric: Should have stopped it.
Laura: Yeah, the guy should have stopped it. He didn’t. And we know Peter Pettigrew was there with his pom-poms, and he was just like a cheerleader on the sidelines…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Aww.
Laura: … because he was totally useless otherwise. But yeah, I can understand why from Snape’s vantage point, that would feel like four on one, because you have two other people there who are either tacitly accepting what’s happening or cheering it on from the sidelines, so I get it.
Eric: Something we’re overlooking, too, about Harry hating Snape for killing Dumbledore is that Dumbledore was going to die anyway. We’re led to believe that the curse that was on the Horcrux, that was on the ring Horcrux, was bad enough that it would have eventually claimed Dumbledore’s life; Dumbledore says as much. So the circumstances… pretty much everything Snape has done has been the bravest and most needing to happen thing for taking the cards they were dealt and making something out of it.
Laura: Yeah. Well, and he also… this is a form of giving Dumbledore some mercy, because Dumbledore, in knowing that he’s going to die, says, “Okay, let me figure out how I can play this particular piece of the game to my advantage and let Voldemort think that they got me.” I think it’s earlier in this book where he says, “Please don’t let it be Bellatrix who does it, because she likes to play with her food before she eats it.”
Eric: Oh, God.
Laura: “I want a quick, clean death.” So Snape is also kind of doing Dumbledore a favor here. In addition to all of that, I would just say at the center of everything, his mission here is to protect the child of his school-age bully, the child who, by the way, has been using his teenage Potions book all year and learning all of these spells from it that Snape invented that Harry is now trying to use against Snape, and then on top of that, he calls him a coward, and Snape is like, “Yo, I’m just trying to keep you alive, you little… bleep.”
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah. It sucks, but it all helps build to that climax in the next book.
Eric: One more thing on the whole coward thing… because I think we’ve given very many good reasons why Snape should resent this comment. But something about the way his face twists when Harry calls him that makes me wonder if there’s a very, very old school memory that Snape has of maybe Lily calling him that specific word, a coward. Because we know that when Snape looks at Harry dead on in the face, he sees Lily, because of the eyes. It’s something, to the point, so powerful that that’s what Snape’s last moment is doing; his last request is to look in Harry’s eyes. So for me, when Harry calls him a coward, what’s happening is not anything James did, but maybe there was a moment that Snape is now being forced to relive where Lily either would have been tired of him hanging around with his Death Eater pals, maybe doing the Remus Lupin thing of not stopping them from carrying on the way that they were, like with James and Remus, but with the Death Eaters. I can see a few instances where the love of Snape’s life, unrequited as it might have been, would have called him a coward, and it would have haunted him these entire years.
Andrew: Let’s also remember that in the next book, McGonagall calls Snape a coward too. He has to hear it again.
Eric: It’s not the C-word we all would be going for…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: … but it’s one that has followed him throughout his whole life.
Laura: Yeah, and I will say in our Discord, SquibMatthew is calling out, “Usually, someone only gets mad at an insult if it’s something they secretly believe.”
Andrew: Ooh, yeah, yeah.
Eric: That’s why when you guys call me a Ginny lover, I get very offended.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Because it’s true.
Andrew: Too close for comfort. All right, let’s talk about Buckbeak and R.A.B. So the battle between Harry and Snape wraps up, thanks to Buckbeak, which I had forgotten about this, so this was a pleasant surprise to me. He spooks Snape and gets him out of there, and I thought there was a bit of symbolism here with Buckbeak protecting Harry when Buckbeak had been given to Harry by Sirius. It’s almost like Buckbeak was standing in for Sirius in fighting Snape.
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: And it’s not the first time we’ve seen Buckbeak come to Harry’s rescue. He’s done it before. He did in Prisoner of Azkaban with Remus Lupin when he was in werewolf form. But what I loved about this particular moment, if we’re to connect the threads back to Chamber of Secrets, is that it’s also very similar to when Fawkes comes to Harry’s aid in the Chamber against the Basilisk, and thinking about… I know a hippogriff isn’t technically a bird, but it’s part bird, and obviously a phoenix is a bird, so there are definitely some similarities here.
Laura: For sure. And I think also important to call out that Harry saved Buckbeak, right, in Prisoner?
Andrew: Aw, yeah, that too. Oh, it’s come full circle.
Eric: So that’s his… Buckbeak is like, “Finally, that life debt is paid. God, that was weighing on me.”
Andrew: [laughs] “Phew! I’ve been trying to get that off my feathery chest for a while.”
Eric: [laughs] “Feathery chest.”
Andrew: So again, we’re having some fun, we’re doing some great analysis, but again, this chapter is very sad. Harry and Hagrid make it over to the foot of the Astronomy Tower, and people have gathered around Dumbledore. I feel like an adult should have quickly retrieved the body. Does everybody have to be looking at him? That’s just really hard for me to picture. And also, an old man falling hundreds of feet, this body has to be in horrific condition. Just splayed out, bones broken, arm in position it can’t normally move… this must be a horrific sight, and yet Dumbledore has only got a little drop of blood coming out of his nose. [laughs]
Eric: Well, that actually, apart from being PG-friendly, kid-friendly in the book, is striking me as being something that is that way because of what you’re describing would actually look like. But I mean, there’s people who fell out of planes and landed in a bush and survived with only a few scratches. It can happen. For me, it always says Dumbledore, how powerful he is, that although he… I mean, if you think about it, the Killing Curse doesn’t usually have any physical effect, but he was blasted off. And then I guess something about the impact… I just think Dumbledore’s bones maybe are so intact still because magic is holding them together because of the wizard he was, or something like that.
Laura: So I think that the sight probably was pretty horrific, if you just think about physics of what happens when a body hits the ground like this. And I think that the description is left intentionally kind of vague, because I don’t know if the author or the editors, whatever, didn’t want to get that graphic, but we have to remember he’s described as lying there, spread-eagled, broken, and as having his arms and legs being positioned at strange angles, so I think it was probably pretty grotesque-looking. Again, if you just think about the physics of what happens to a body. The other thing is, too, I think he was… he was dead before he hit the ground.
Andrew: Oh, that’s true.
Laura: Right, yeah.
Andrew: All right, yeah, it was a quick and painless death. I just feel bad for the students witnessing this, and it almost feels disrespectful to me. He deserves… people’s last memories of Dumbledore are going to be this mangled body, you know what I mean? It’s sad.
Eric: Well, anyone who happened to see it. No, I think the other thing is that everybody’s just shocked, right? I mean, Hagrid eventually takes his body somewhere. But nobody expected this. Even with Death Eaters in the castle, nobody expected this. The other members of the Order later are going to be like, “Yeah, what does Dumbledore think?” They just don’t expect that he would be gone, and so everyone… you have to allow even the teachers to be in a little bit of a state of shock here, and not performing as quickly or as smoothly as they normally would.
Micah: I did want to bring up one other thing very quickly, because it is a noticeable movie difference, before we kind of move fully away from Dumbledore’s death. And we didn’t talk about it in the last chapter, but the “Severus, please” line, the way that it’s delivered in the movie by Michael Gambon very much leads the viewer to think that there’s a plan in place here. At least, that’s the way I’ve always felt. I never felt as if Dumbledore was begging for his life the way that it’s described in the chapter.
Andrew: But you have the benefit of hindsight, so when you’re watching the movie, you know how this all plays out.
Micah: That’s true.
Andrew: I agree… I love the delivery of the line in the movie.
Micah: You do?
Andrew: Oh, yeah. Because I think…
Micah: I feel… oh, go ahead.
Andrew: If you don’t know what lies ahead, I think he walked a nice line down the middle. You can read his delivery both ways, in my opinion.
Micah: Okay. I’m curious what other folks think. To me, it was more of Dumbledore almost asking Snape to do it versus him begging for his life.
Andrew: So you’re saying it doesn’t align with how the book describes it.
Micah: No, it’s like, “Hey, put me out of my misery,” versus…
Laura: I think where the movie loses me in this is that Dumbledore, in this scene, if I recall correctly, he’s standing upright. He’s not struggling like he is in the book. In the book, he’s slowly sinking down the side of a wall, barely able to keep himself up. He’s out of breath. So I think not doing that in the movie impacted the way the moment hits, right? Because it allows him to sound really serene in the way the line is delivered. So again, hoping that they get this right in the show.
Andrew: So Harry retrieves the locket from Dumbledead’s carcass, and there’s this note inside addressed to Voldemort. It reads, “I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more.” And the note is just signed R.A.B. And it’s a bummer.
Eric: A mystery!
Andrew: It’s a mystery, but it’s also sad.
Micah: It is. It’s a bit of salt in the wound for both Harry and the reader, because now Dumbledore is dead, this whole Horcrux hunt that you went on… there’s certainly value in it, because you’ve at least established the fact that the Horcrux is a fake, but you’re no better off than you were, really, than when you went to the cave a few hours earlier. [laughs]
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: Well, I guess my thing would be if you’re reading it for the first time, you don’t know that R.A.B. wasn’t successful at destroying that Horcrux.
Micah: That’s a fair point.
Eric: So you’re like, oh, even though it sucks that what they thought they were going to the cave to do is not what ended up happening, you don’t right now know that there’s still that Horcrux out there, because if somebody else in this world could have figured out Voldemort’s secret, there’s hope, not only that this Horcrux has already been destroyed, just like he says it will, but maybe some others. Or Harry could have an ally in the next book who comes out of the shadows. “It is I, R.A.B. Let me tell you where the rest of them are.” Maybe there’s some hope there. But I think for the most part, especially the way Harry characterizes it in the next chapter as such a staggering loss, you’re kind of left to believe, “Oh yeah, it’s probably not as good as we thought it was.”
Micah: Right. There’s also a bit of irony if you compare it back to Chamber of Secrets, because Harry unknowingly destroys a Horcrux in Chamber of Secrets, and in this case he knowingly goes after a Horcrux, but it’s not real. [laughs]
Andrew: Well, another R will eventually destroy this real Horcrux. But I also wanted to touch on R.A.B. There was a lot of debate around R.A.B. after this book was released, and in fact, this was actually a topic on Episode 1 of MuggleCast.
Eric: Augh.
Andrew: And I listened back to it. We were talking earlier; it’s hard to listen. Yes, it is hard to listen, but I did for today’s episode.
Micah: [laughs] Play a clip.
Andrew: No, no, no. [laughs] And we were actually feeling pretty confident – Ben, Kevin, and I – that it was Regulus. Our only hesitation was that it seemed too easy, because as Ben had put it, “Rowling is the queen of deception.” And we were so well-trained to overthink everything in these books that we’re like, “No, this is too simple. Why would it be initials, just the initials? There’s got to be a mystery here if it’s just initials signing this letter.”
Eric: Yeah. “R.A.B.? No, we’re on the lookout for a giant rabbit.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: And the pen ran out of ink as they were…
Andrew: Ronald, Arthur, Bill. That’s who did that: Ron Weasley, Arthur Weasley, and Bill Weasley. [laughs]
Micah: And in this chapter – we didn’t talk about it much – but we learn that Snape is the Half-Blood Prince. Now Harry has to go figure out who another person is.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Yeah, H.B.P.? R.A.B.? What is it with these friggin’ initials? You know what’s interesting to me?
Andrew: “I just got done figuring out that mystery…”
Eric: Regulus is taking credit for destroying a part of the Dark Lord’s soul, and he’s writing this letter that’s basically “Na-na-na-na, foo-foo. If you ever see this, I know I might be dead, but screw you; you’re going to be mortal again.” But then he signs it R.A.B. This is so unrealistic to me. For me, this exists solely to be a mystery and a puzzle for the readers. There’s no good reason Regulus would put his name. There’s no… “Na-na-na-na, foo-foo. Guess who? R.A.B., hee-hee!” Voldemort is going to go around, look up on the phone book, “Who do I know that has those initials?” No, you would sign it Regulus, and then do like, “Deuces” at the end of it.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Deuces.
Eric: That’s what I would do.
Odds & Ends
Andrew: That’s pretty much the chapter, but Micah, there was one other moment you wanted to call out?
Micah: Yeah, just a quick odd and end was the symbolism. So as Harry is running through Hogwarts and out to the grounds, it’s noted that the Gryffindor House rubies had poured out all over the castle floor, and I think that is a nod to Dumbledore, who has poured out all over the Hogwarts grounds, more or less. [laughs]
Eric: Pretty much.
Micah: The blood that has been spilled inside of Hogwarts, rubies are red, and so it’s a moment of symbolism.
Andrew: I fully agree. And it’s Gryffindor specifically that breaks open, not the others.
Eric: Specifically, and Dumbledore was, yeah, Gryffindor. So I like that a lot.
Lynx Line
Andrew: All right, it’s time for the Lynx Line segment. So this week we asked patrons: You’re Harry Potter, you’re enraged at Snape for killing your boy Albus, you’re ready to call him a name to accuse him of being the weak man you think he is, but the word “coward” doesn’t come to mind. Something else comes to mind. What’s the word or phrase you’re throwing at him to shake Snape to his core?
Micah: “Pathetic.” It reminds me of… you’ve all played Mortal Kombat, I’m assuming.
Eric: Oh. [laughs]
Micah: Shao Kahn? “You weak, pathetic fool.”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Love it.
Laura: I went with “Traitor,” which I feel like would burn Snape just as much as “coward.”
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: I would probably not be able to come up with something better than what he is, what I just saw him being, which is “Murderer.”
Andrew: Yeah. And I would say “Grease-bag!” So over on Patreon, we got some answers that apparently were so naughty that Patreon hid them for our filtering settings.
Micah: Thank God. Finally.
Eric: What?!
Andrew: Yeah, I’d never seen that happen before.
Micah: I love our patrons.
Eric: I am logging in right now to read these hidden ones.
Andrew: Let me get my censor button ready, because I think we really will have to censor some of these.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: Zachary said, “Your mother never loved you, and neither did mine.”
Laura: Oof.
Micah: Whoa.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Oh, man.
Micah: Burn.
Eric: Yeah, that’s a pretty big one. Okay, Justin… hi, Justin, by the way. “You mother-lovin’ greasy-haired Death Eater, you need some of my grandfather’s Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion!”
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Rachelpuff said, “Cotton-headed ninny muggins!”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: I’m surprised. You know what, guys? I’m surprised Patreon didn’t hide that one.
Laura: I don’t know what that means.
Micah: That’s PG, I think?
Andrew: I don’t know what that means either.
Eric: I think it’s a Monty Python reference.
Andrew: Oh, okay. That would make sense.
Laura: It kind of does sound like that.
Andrew: It does.
Laura: Kayla says, “You don’t have to make up for not having a big [censored] by acting like one.”
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Listen, these are really… these are truth bombs here.
Micah: It’s a Buddy the Elf reference, by the way.
Eric: Oh, okay.
Andrew: Oh. Huh.
Eric: It was one or the other. I was torn between the two.
Andrew: Rachel said, “No wonder my mother didn’t choose you! Who would?” Oh, that’s a good one.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Gross. Matthew says… oh, this is one of the ones Patreon hid. “You creepy, mom-lusting, Voldemort licker.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I don’t blame Patreon for hiding that one. Between mom-lusting and Voldemort licker, you just can’t… I mean, it’s in Patreon’s terms of service. Everyone knows you can’t call somebody a Voldemort licker on Patreon comments.
Laura: Apparently not.
Eric: They’re going to ban you.
Micah: Where is he licking Voldemort, by the way?
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Mason says, “You evil, miserable betrayal of the human race!”
Laura: And Eleanor says, “When I was a teenager, gitface or [censored]wit -“ if we’re allowed to swear “- was the highest insult.”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Apparently we are. Not on Patreon.
Andrew: If you want uncensored MuggleCast, you can listen to the livestream. You can also get the playback right on Patreon if you can’t join us when we record. Well, thanks, everybody, for contributing, and if you have feedback about today’s episode, you can contact us by emailing or sending a voice memo that you record on your phone to MuggleCast@gmail.com. You can also reach out via Spotify or YouTube or DM us on social media. And next week, Chapter by Chapter continues with Chapter 29, “The Phoenix Lament.” Visit MuggleCast.com for links to our social media, our Patreon, our transcripts, our favorite episodes, and lots more.
Quizzitch
Andrew: And now it’s time for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: This week’s question: What is the fastest speed that a human has ever fallen in free fall? Sorry, everyone. It was a multiple choice question. The options were A) 120 miles an hour, B) 300 miles an hour, C) 550 miles an hour, or D) 800 miles per hour. By the way, the person survived who fell this. The correct answer is actually D. There was a guy who jumped from space or near Earth orbit, still with some air and stuff, and it’s on YouTube. You can watch it. But 800+ miles per hour. Utterly absurd, fast way to fall. Most people fall about 300, I want to say, is where the air velocity…? Anyway, correct answers were submitted by Ashley B.; Dumbledead; Eden the Muggle established 2012; Finty; Kathryn; LynnTheAllomancer; Snape’s Lost Coat Button… I was wondering where that was. Spread My Ashes on Dumbledore’s Lightning-Struck Tower Ride; and Voldetort. And by the way, 33% of people say they didn’t look it up, so that’s cool. And here is next week’s Quizzitch question: In this chapter, Harry discovers the locket that he and Dumbledore retrieved is a fake, a phony. In the 1920s, what famous designer was known for wearing faux pearl necklaces as a statement about fashion being accessible to more than just the elite? Submit your answer to us on the MuggleCast website. This is a double header week, which means when you go to the MuggleCast website, you will see two questions and two forms listed, so check that out. MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or if you’re already on our website, checking out those things Andrew mentioned, click on “Quizzitch” from the nav bar.
Andrew: Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: And we’ll see you next week. Bye!
Laura and Micah: Bye.