Transcript – Episode 119
[Show music begins]
Caleb Graves: This is Episode 119 of Alohomora! for January 10, 2015.
[Show music continues]
Caleb: Hey guys, and welcome to our first Half-Blood Prince episode of Alohomora!
Eric Scull: Woo-hoo!
Alison Siggard: Yay! Woo!
Caleb: I’m Caleb Graves.
Eric: I’m Eric Scull.
Alison: And I’m Alison Siggard. And our guest this week is Estee Thomas, who you probably know as Dolphin Patronus on the forums and the main site. Welcome, Estee.
Estee Thomas: Thank you for having me.
Caleb: Tell us a little about yourself, your House, and any interesting facts.
Estee: Well, I am a Hufflepuff, Pottermore official.
Caleb and Eric: Woo!
Alison: That’s the way to be.
Estee: Puff pride. I actually started reading the books kind of late. I came to them in about 2008 after I had seen a few of the movies.
Eric: Ooh.
Estee: I like to have the mental picture in my head; I’m lazy when it comes to imagining things.
[Eric and Estee laugh]
Estee: So I just picture the actors when I read, but I fell in love fast and hard. I do everything I can to try and find out as much as I can, and I annoy people sometimes with my trivia of Potter.
[Alison laughs]
Estee: I am also on a podcast called Common Room. I met the girl that heads that project because of Alohomora!, so I have made friends because of Alohomora!
Caleb: Oh, that’s so cool.
Alison: Yay!
Eric: So, this podcast Common Room sounds like a Harry Potter podcast.
Estee: It’s pop culture…
Eric: Oh, okay.
Estee: … but we’re all big Potterheads and like I said, the girl who started it was actually a guest host once on Alohomora! here…
Eric: Oh, look at that!
Estee: Yeah.
Alison: Oh.
Estee: We met on your site. She enjoyed my comments and we just started talking back and forth on the Internet and she invited me to join her podcast.
Caleb: Well, very cool.
Estee: Yeah, awesome.
Eric: Yeah, that’s really cool that our listeners and previous hosts have formed their own pop culture stuff after either being on our show or just having that community that the
Estee: Yes.
Eric: It’s so nice to hear those sorts of stories. Well, this week, as Caleb mentioned, is a very, very special week. We begin the sixth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and so for this chapter’s discussion, which we’ll be getting to in just a moment on the show, please be sure, listener to have read Chapter 1 titled “The Other Minister.”
Alison: But before we get into our chapter, we just want to take a moment and thank our sponsor Audible. For fans of Alohomora! they’re offering a free audio download. All you have to do is go choose one of their over 150,000 titles by going to audiblepodcast.com/open to get yours.
Caleb: All right, so we’re going to take a few moments just to ease our way into the book. Of course, we don’t have any recap comments or previous Question of the Week because we’re at the front end of the sixth book.
[Eric laughs]
Caleb: And just as we think about the fact that we’re starting the sixth book, let’s first think about how this has been a really, really long journey for the podcast, and it’s a little weird that we only have two books left.
Eric: Yeah.
Alison: It’s exciting.
Eric: [laughs] Totally. I’m excited to be starting this book. This book is… if it weren’t for Book 3, that darn Book 3, this would be my favorite Harry Potter book.
[Alison laughs]
Eric: Book 3 is my favorite, is the best, but Book 6 is a close second. And so, even just while prepping for this episode, obviously reading “The Other Minister” chapter, I was instantly reminded why I love this book. Really, a lot of the magic that I thought was out of Book 5 for other reasons is immediately back, and it’s really an exciting moment for me getting back into this book, the book that kind of started it all for me and Harry Potter podcasting, too. Because it was immediately following this book’s release that MuggleCast began, and it was one book away from the end of the series when we were all pondering what would happen. And that was hard to believe, but at the end in June when we are in the thick of this book, it’s going to be the tenth anniversary of this book being published.
Alison: Wow!
Estee: Wow.
Eric: So no better time. Sorry if everybody feels old now…
[Everyone laughs]
Estee: I felt old long before this…
Eric: Yeah. No better time to be getting back into it.
Caleb: So just to remind everyone of the synopsis of the book, just like we do at the beginning of all the Harry Potter books, “The war against Voldemort is not going well; even Muggle governments are noticing. Ron scans the obituary pages of the Daily Prophet, looking for familiar names. Dumbledore is absent from Hogwarts for long stretches of time, and the Order of the Phoenix has already suffered losses. And yet… as in all wars, life goes on. Sixth-year students learn to Apparate – and lose a few eyebrows in the process. The Weasley twins expand their business. Teenagers flirt and fight and fall in love. Classes are never straightforward, though Harry receives some extraordinary help from the mysterious Half-Blood Prince.”
Eric: Ooh.
Caleb: “So it’s the home front that takes center stage in the multilayered sixth installment of the story of Harry Potter. Here at Hogwarts, Harry will search for the full and complex story of the boy who became Lord Voldemort – and thereby find what may be his only vulnerability.”
Eric: A-oh.
Caleb: It’s just like bringing in… the thing that always gets me the most is, “As in all wars, life goes on.” Because, though obviously we waited a couple of years post-Order of the Phoenix, still Sirius’s death is very fresh.
Alison and Eric: Yeah.
Estee: Yeah.
Caleb: And yet, life must go on.
Eric: That’s true.
Estee: I think one of the things I like most about this particular book in the series is it’s so real, like teenagers flirting and fighting and falling in love. It’s very much accurate and it’s like how teenagers act. The fact that life does have to go on after a loved one passes and you grow up and these things happen, it’s just very real and that’s one of the reasons I particularly like Half-Blood Prince. It’s one of my favorites – that and Deathly Hallows are both my favorites. So, I think that’s what I like most about this particular book.
Eric: I think that if we’re talking about broad strokes, like you just mentioned too, I also like how the romance does play a role in this book. And it just seems both right and late in a way because he’s sixteen. They’ve had years and years to start thinking about girls. And Harry has to some extent, but he’s just had other things bothering him, other things distracting him, like the return of Lord Voldemort.Alison: Yeah.
[Estee laughs]
Eric: It’s not like he’s just been doing nothing. But the fact that the romance aspect was not completely overlooked by Jo and actually manages to become a pretty big part of this book felt right. I was just glad that it was receiving some treatment from her, because she writes so well and makes it really enjoyable.
Estee: I agree.
Alison: Yep.
Caleb: Moving on, the dedication for the book reads: “To Mackenzie, my beautiful daughter, I dedicate her ink and paper twin.”
[Eric laughs]
Estee: I love it.
Caleb: It’s such a nice little writing there to start off the book, and as a reminder to all the listeners, Mackenzie is J.K. Rowling’s third child, and she became pregnant with Mackenzie while she was writing Half-Blood Prince. And I was looking back at some things and actually had to remember this, but she often joked at the time that – or I guess probably more joked about it afterward – that Mackenzie and the book were on a race to enter the world to see who would make it first.
[Alison, Eric, and Estee laugh]
Caleb: So the book as we just mentioned was released on July 16, 2005. It was just over two years after Order of the Phoenix – Order of the Phoenix was sometime in June of 2003. It sold nine million copies in the first 24 hours.
[Eric and Estee laugh]
Caleb: It went on to set a record for sales, which was only then broken by Deathly Hallows. It won numerous prizes of course, including the 2006 British Book of the Year Award. We talked about this a little bit just a second ago, but maybe we can finish off this introduction with our first impressions. Like we were saying, for me it was the real… like I’m realizing right now with the podcast, it was the first real time that I felt this series is ending soon, and that was a really hard moment.
[Eric and Estee laugh]
Caleb: I was obviously very excited about the book. But yeah, there was a lot of anticipation with the war, and you get that immediately in the synopsis when you open the cover and things are definitely getting ready to move into high gear now that the Ministry has stopped being as stupid as it was – I wouldn’t say “not stupid”…
Eric: Yeah.
Estee: [laughs] I’ve been thinking about this for about a week, I don’t remember this book coming out.
[Caleb and Eric laugh]
Estee: For some odd reason, I can’t remember the first time I read it. I can’t remember the things I was thinking. It’s just this odd blank space. [laughs]
Eric: Is there a Harry Potter book that you forgot to read?
[Alison, Caleb, and Eric laugh]
Estee: No, no. Okay, I do remember reading the end. I do distinctly remember reading that part, but I don’t remember waiting to get this book. I don’t remember… it’s odd. There’s like a gap in my memory somehow. [laughs]
Eric: Huh. Well, maybe you repressed it. [laughs]
Estee: [laughs] It was that bad. I don’t know.
Eric: Maybe you waited in line and they ran out of copies and you were like, “No!”
[Estee laughs]
Eric: And it was the worst night of your life ever and you’ve chosen to forget so you can go on living. But I have to say too, being the pen-ultimate novel, it’s super important to get this book right, which I think Jo does.
Estee: Yeah.
Eric: That’s just my opinion, but I think that a lot of this book’s focus on the origins of Voldemort… I guess it’s a side-story because if you go by the title, this book is really about Snape or whatever, but Voldemort and the Horcruxes, which we learn about in this book, go a long way to set the stage for Book 7. And that was something that could have been very daunting and difficult for J.K. Rowling to do, but of course she handles it in stride and seems to have no difficulty at all setting up what has to be the final year… in the meantime, coming up with a year of school that is I think one of the most entertaining.
Estee: Oh, it’s definitely entertaining. [laughs]
Caleb: Speaking of Snape, I remember when we got the title it was probably… there are distinct things I remember about this book being released like the things leading up to it. I remember there was a short description of Rufus Scrimgeour. Before, you didn’t know what it was, but I remember there being a page of that behind the door on J.K. Rowling’s website.
Eric: Yeah!
Alison: Oh, that’s true.
Caleb: But I think the biggest thing unquestionably was “Who is the Half-Blood Prince?” and the next thing, “What does that mean?” So, do you guys remember who you thought that title would be referring to?
Eric: Ah… I think I remember. Does that…
[Alison, Eric, and Estee laugh]
Eric: I think I remember thinking that it was somebody new.
Caleb: Mhm. I did too.
Alison: Yeah, I did too.
Eric: I didn’t think we knew… I didn’t think the Harry Potter books were headed in any kind of direction or had been in any kind of direction where we knew royalty, where it’s like “so and so is a prince.” And of course I didn’t realise it was just a moniker that was picked out at school age or whatever, which it ends up being. But yeah, I thought it was somebody new and cool, and that summary that you read, Caleb, where “Harry is getting assistance from the mysterious Half-Blood Prince,” I’m thinking it’s some schoolmate or somebody like an exchange student maybe from America.
[Alison and Eric laugh]
Eric: Although America does not have royalty, but I felt pretty confident. I remember feeling pretty confident that it would be a new character because it just felt that way.
Caleb: Yeah, I definitely thought the same. One of my friends guessed it but didn’t mean to.
[Alison and Eric laugh]
Caleb: I distinctly remember talking about it and him saying, “Watch it be someone really ridiculous like Snape.”
Alison: Oh, gosh!
[Alison and Eric laugh]
Caleb: We laughed, and I swear, as soon as we finished the book, that was the first thing we talked about.
[Alison laughs]
Caleb: We couldn’t believe it.
Estee: I’m not sure who I thought it was. Honestly, I think there was a brief point in time I thought it might actually have been something Tom Riddle decided to go by before he went with Voldemort, just because we found out that he was half-blood.
Eric: Right.
Estee: But I dismissed that pretty quickly.
Eric: Yeah, I think if you were thinking about how he was a prince before he became a lord – that kind of thing, ascending the ranks – if this book is known to be about young Riddle, before he was Voldemort, you could probably guess that the Half-Blood Prince would be another name for him.
Estee: Yeah, well, and he’s got that cockiness where he wants to make himself be the lord, so I could see that being…
Caleb: Tricky Jo.
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Harry: Always with the acronyms.
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Eric: Well, Caleb, thank you for the introduction. Of course, now we are going to get into Chapter 1 of Half-Blood Price, titled “The Other Minister.” I’m super excited. How are you guys? You excited?
Alison: So excited.
Estee: Very.
Alison: This is a great chapter.
Caleb: I love this chapter.
Eric: Great, great chapter. And we know, after all, neither can live while the other Minister survives.
[Alison and Estee laugh]
[Half-Blood Prince Chapter 1 intro begins]
Portrait: To the Prime Minister of Muggles…
[Sound of crackling fire]
Cornelius Fudge: Chapter 1.
[Sound of crackling fire]
Portrait: Urgent we meet. Kindly respond immediately.
[Sound of crackling fire]
Cornelius Fudge: “The Other Minister.”
[Half-Blood Prince Chapter 1 intro ends]
Eric: Okay, so we have a summary here of the chapter before we get into the individual points we want to bring up: Late at night, the British Prime Minister is alone in his office contemplating the particularly difficult week he has just had. Behind him, the portrait on his wall coughs and announces the imminent arrival of Cornelius Fudge. We learn that Fudge has been there before and always tends to bring bad news to the Minister regarding the Muggle world. Before Fudge is gone, he introduces the new Minister [of] Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour. So before we get into our points also, we do have a voicemail that was sent in from one of our listeners, which we would like to play right now because we think it’s pretty good intro.
[Audio]: Hi, guys! This is Holly from Texas, a.k.a. [unintelligible] on the forums on the main site. I know you guys are starting with Half-Blood Prince, which is my favorite book, so I had a comment: My biggest problem with Half-Blood is the first couple of chapters, when it takes you out of Harry’s point of view, so I was interested to hear what you guys had to say and your opinions on it because I feel like it doesn’t have the same quirkiness and personality that a lot of the writing from Harry’s point of view has. The bigger problem for me is Goblet, but for Half-Blood I really liked the chapter about the news to the Muggle Minister. So I’m interested to hear your opinions on how that affected the writing style. Can’t wait to hear what you guys have to say, and I hope you guys have an awesome day! Thanks!
Eric: Well, that was a good voicemail. Thank you for sending that in. Guys, how do you feel about this chapter and about being away from Harry for a little bit?
Estee: Yeah, I think this is the moment where I feel like the books really start to grow up because we’re getting away from Harry and his perspective and expanding into this whole world. I mean, this chapter is all politics, so…
Caleb: Yes! I love it.
Estee: … this and Deathly Hallows… I like that they start this way. They both start away from Harry. We start to see what’s really going on with the rest of the world, that this problem is so much bigger than just a boy at school.
Eric: You mention that it is more adult. I mean, the characters in this chapter are all adults, and after the debacle at the Ministry, where Harry and his friends – “The Dream Team” – went and caused a lot of bad stuff to happen, now we’re dealing with adults and the real world, having to work. Actually, the real Muggle Prime Minister of all people, too, which is… I think for me what is exciting and special and replaces some of the humor that we’re use to is this humor that comes from how this British Prime Minister is treated – both by Fudge and by Scrimgeour – and how again, you sympathize with the British Prime Minister for having an additional burden. In addition to running a country, he’s got to worry about this subversive other world, which more often then he would like, encroaches on the regular world. So I think the humor and the quirk is still plenty there in this chapter and in this book; it’s just approached from a different direction.
Estee: It’s almost more of a dark humor because it’s not “hee hee, haha, giggle” funny, but it’s…
[Everyone laughs]
Estee: He’s so downtrodden, and they’re so condescending to him. They treat him like a child – even when they talk to him – and…
Caleb: Yeah, even Fudge, who just lost his job. [laughs]
Estee: I mean, he says that Fudge pats him on the shoulder and treats him like a little kid, and he hates it.
Eric: Okay. Well, no, I don’t disagree. That’s pretty much quoted in the book. But I will say [that] we’ll have a lot of things to talk about, then in this chapter. But yeah. Well, okay, then let’s move on to the first point here, which is when the prime minster is in his office, this chapter for me really flows extremely well. It’s able to go into present day. As soon as he hears the cough, he’s able to reminisce, “Oh, when’s the last time I heard the cough?” And it goes back into all the times that Fudge has made this very similar entrance by the Floo Network before, so we learn all about the previous times that Fudge has arrived. And they are as follows; I’ll recap: on the Prime Minister’s first night in office, that was basically the introductory, “Hey, there’s this whole other wizarding world thing.”
Caleb: Let me blow your mind.
[Alison and Estee laugh]
Eric: Yeah, don’t you worry about it; we’ve got this under control.
Estee: The fireplace dude is jacking your world up.
[Alison and Estee laugh]
Eric: The fireplace dude and the Quaker character, the portrait with the long silvery hair. A very interesting choice there. But the next time that the Prime Minster saw Fudge was in Harry’s third year or just prior to it with the escape of Sirius Black from Azkaban Prison. In this, part of this point as I want to bring up, it ties up a plot hole or a thread that I didn’t necessarily realize was open from the third book, which is that the Muggle police did know about Sirius Black. It’s pretty cool to think that, in general, Fudge was obligated to come tell the Prime Minister about it and specifically so that they could enlist the Muggle public, too, in trying to capture him.
Estee: Put it on TV. I remember that being on the news. Not our news, but…
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: The next time was during the fourth year for Harry, which was after the Quidditch World Cup incident, and Fudge is depicted… in each of these times, the Prime Minster is recounting each time that Fudge comes, but he realizes that Fudge really only shows up when there’s bad news. And my analysis is, each time Fudge plays this huge crisis off as being not a big deal. Did you guys realize that?
Alison and Estee: Yeah.
Eric: Each time, he’s like, “Oh, we can take care of this,” so it’s like contradictory because on one hand, this is big enough news to come bring it to the Muggle Minister, and on the other hand, Fudge is just like, “Oh, we have this under control, but this is happening.” So on such a occasion as the Quidditch World Cup debacle, he assures the Prime Minster that the incident with the Dark Mark is an isolated incident. “Oh, we’re sure he’s not back. We’re sure that this was just a one-time thing.” And he also tells the Prime Minster at this time – this is funny in this chapter – about the dragons and the sphinx that they’re bringing in to the country for the Triwizard Tournament.
Estee: He’s so offhand about it. He’s like, “Oh yeah, by the way…”
Eric: I know! Just as a real failure of diplomacy here.
Alison: [laughs] He also actually never comes back and tells him, “Oh, we’re bringing another one.”
Eric: Right?
Estee: And I noticed that, too. I’m thinking, “He tells them about three of them, but… eh, a fourth one’s no big deal. We don’t need to bother telling him.”
Eric: Yeah! It’s just a Hungarian Horntail.
Caleb: Well, wouldn’t he only need to tell them about three because one’s a Common Welsh Green, so it’s already in the UK?
[Eric laughs]
Alison: Oh, that’s true.
Estee: True. [laughs]
Caleb: I think that’s why he only told them about three.
Eric: Caleb is on fire, man. That is astute.
Alison: Yeah, I didn’t think about that one.
Estee: I didn’t either.
Eric: Wow. Oh, okay, and then just two more visits here to talk about. The next time was the mass breakout from Azkaban…
Alison: Right, he doesn’t even stop.
Eric: … all of the Death Eaters. This was… this news just progressively gets worse and worse, and you really feel for the Muggle Prime Minister in this time. And then finally, this visit, which lasts the whole chapter, and Fudge is coming to announce not only his demotion from office, but [also] the return of Lord Voldemort, and he also gets into Sirius Black’s death. So the Muggle Prime Minister can’t really catch a break, but I guess the silver lining here, if it’s silver lining, is that the Ministry is… well, the magic is responsible for really all of the Prime Minister’s issues at this point, at this week from hell that they’ve had. Is that comforting or not for him, do you think?
Estee: I would think no.
Alison and Caleb: Yeah, he seems pretty angry about it.
Estee: He’s particular, too, that he can’t tell anybody that “This isn’t my fault! It’s magic! There’s nothing I could do about it!”
[Eric laughs]
Caleb: He says that he’s out of office the next day.
Eric: Oh, man. I love that he’s – there’s this quote – having to answer questions about corroded expansion joints and stuff for bridges. It’s just the politics of it all. Meanwhile, there’s just some Death Eaters running loose in the country, and Fudge has not been successful at all in containing it.
Estee: And it seems like they’ve been out for a while. He is taking a long… these things happened over a fortnight or however they… and he’s just now bothering to come say, “Oh yeah, by the way, this is all magic.”
Eric: Yeah. He’s still… they’re seeing more and more of each other, the Prime Minister still recognizes that, but it’s still not as expediently told to him as quickly as we think it probably should be. Especially if you have a portrait that’s just there in the office and can convey news at all times, and I guess in a sidebar here, to know that Muggles can see wizarding portraits… it’s never stated or really been suspected that they couldn’t, but they actually just have a wizarding portrait in the Muggle Prime Minister’s office as a form of… I mean, I’m sure it’s a form of espionage…
[Estee laughs]
Eric: … subterfuge or whatever, but also there are some security risks I think that poses, but also, in general it’s just how they choose to communicate most of the time with the different worlds, which I thought was interesting.
Estee: I didn’t notice this until this read-through – and this is the book that I read most of them all – that when the portrait announces Fudge, he never explicitly calls him – this particular time in coming – the Minister of Magic, and we go the entire chapter almost, assuming that he still is the Minister until he comes out and says, “Oh yeah, you think I’m still in office after all this? I got sacked. And here’s the new guy.”
[Caleb and Eric laugh]
Eric: Yeah, it’s a really exciting reveal. It’s unexpected because even in the flashbacks, it’s all from when Fudge was the Minister. So you’re just expecting this to be the latest info-dump, and then all the sudden it’s like, “Oh, wait, actually, no, I’m not he Minister anymore.” It is really cool how she carefully worded that. But it’s like, Fudge, at the same time, and we learn, has been retained as basically the liaison to the Muggle Prime Minister. How low a job is that?
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: In the wizarding world, it’s pretty bad. But he’s like… because they’re familiar with one another and because the new Minister, Scrimgeour, is just too busy to deal with the Muggle Prime Minister, apparently Fudge is going to remain the contact between the worlds moving forward. At least that’s the plan as stated in this chapter.
Alison: The interesting thing about that is, he shows almost a wizarding elitism, where Scrimgeour… he doesn’t feel like he should be responsible to being in contact with his…
Eric: Counterpart?
Estee: I can’t even think of the… Yes, thank you. [laughs] Couldn’t think of the word. Where he just can delegate it; it’s not important enough that the Muggles, any Muggles, have any idea what’s going on even though they’re pretty much in full-out warfare based off of the week that we hear about. There’s some pretty awful things happening in the wizarding… especially the Ministry has gotten to this point where they just… it’s almost like they don’t care. Like the wizards are more important than the Muggles.
Eric: Well, that’s an interesting read, because I do want to say [that] it’s not just some intern [who]’s informing the Muggle Prime Minister; it is the former Minister [of] Magic. So even though we dislike Fudge so greatly, he’s probably the second most qualified person to talk to a Prime Minister of a foreign country. Because he’s the former person who did that for a living, but…
Estee: And in fairness to Scrimgeour, he does have a lot on his plate.
Alison: That’s true.
Eric: Well, mostly covering up for Fudge’s issue, his years of…
Alison: Yeah, all the more reason Fudge should have to do it.
[Caleb and Eric laugh]
Alison: To make up for what he screwed up.
Eric: I’m very, very glad that you brought that up, Alison and Estee, because the next point I want to make here is just how much the Ministry has already been interfering in the Muggle world. We learn this throughout this chapter, so this is another one of those summary things throughout the whole chapter. But basically, as soon as the minister gets that cough and that call [and] starts talking to the portrait, he actually says it’s not a good time to see Fudge, and [laughs] can he please come back later. And he is expecting a phone call from a foreign president, who is not named in the book. And the portrait, of all things, says that they will simply modify the memory of the president, who is supposed to be calling…
Alison: [laughs] How do they do that?
Eric: … and he will forget to call tonight but will remember to call tomorrow night instead. It’s just the audacity of this portrait to be like…
[Alison and Eric laugh]
Eric: … we’re just going to change his memory and that’s going to be because this time suits us best. It’s basically along the lines of what you were saying, right?
Alison: Yeah. My question is just how do they do that? I mean, [laughs] if… this is probably just my assumption, but I’ve always assumed it’s the President of the United States because it’d be afternoon at this time. So do they just have a wizard and they just send a message and say, “Oh, he needs a Memory Charm. Right now.” “Okay. Let me walk into the Oval Office and just go ‘BAM!'”? [laughs]
Eric: I imagine that somebody in the Oval Office… yeah, I imagine somebody high up… it’s the exact same thing we’re seeing here with Kingsley…
Alison: Uh-huh.
Eric: … who is revealed, and this is another one of those instances where the wizarding world is interfering. So there’s the portrait that threatens… there’s basically the memory modification of the president who is supposed to be calling the prime minister – that happens. There [are] the teams of squads that are already running around the country. This was not approved by the Muggle prime minister, but there [are] wizards running around modifying the memories of the people in the west side of the country, I believe it’s said, where all the giants are running loose and the Death Eaters. And the report on the news is about a hurricane – we actually find out that it’s Death Eaters running loose and possibly a giant – and there [are] memory modifiers running around, Obliviators just modifying all these Muggles’ memories. Those who really saw a giant are being changed. Again, without the prime minister’s approval. He did not find out about this until just now. So there’s that. There’s also Herbert Chorley, this guy who worked for the minister until [laughs] very recently – it’s like the past week – he began acting very strangely. It’s not stated at first what he did, but apparently he’s quacking like a duck.
[Eric and Estee laugh]
Eric: He basically has been… the wizarding world has taken custody of him, took him over to St. Mungo’s, and actually Fudge tells the prime minister that in this chapter. And that’s, again, not something that I’m sure they cleared with Mr. Chorley’s family. They just knew, they recognized instantly, that this was an Imperius Curse – their domain, their territory – and have taken this man, presumably against his will. Whether or not it’s for his own good is debatable, but they’ve taken him from the Muggle world into the wizarding world. And I just have to ask if this is more along the lines of what we were saying with this condescension or this feeling of superiority, this air of superiority, that the wizarding world has and this dominion that they presuppose or assume over the Muggle world.
Caleb: I don’t think so. I think that they would probably… Whether this is right that they think this, maybe it’s like a privileged perspective, but I legitimately think that they acted out of the right place. Like in emergency care, they knew they were the only ones [who] could probably save him, and they obviously have this self-interest of this senior position not embarrassing the Muggle Prime Minister and causing some very weird questions of what’s going on. But I think, for the most part, they’re acting out of a good place. I don’t see it as taking him against his will. Technically, I guess, it is that, but I don’t see it as a bad thing.
Estee: I don’t either because they say he tries to strangle three Healers or something like that, so it’s actually probably for the best that they took him because he could have hurt someone.
Alison: Yeah. I think in this situation it’s gotten to enough of an emergency that they’re the only ones who can help him and not have this unneeded casualty on their hands or anything. They’re the only ones who can clear up this mess, really.
Eric: So then let’s look [at] the placement of Kingsley Shacklebolt in the Minister’s office. Again, something else that they did without his consent. And there’s a funny bit at the end of the chapter with Scrimgeour. He’s like, “Didn’t you just say you like all of the work that Shacklebolt is doing?”
[Estee laughs]
Eric: And he’s like, “Yeah! Well, I did.” And he’s like, “Well, then there’s no problem, is there?” But again, they actually just put Kingsley in office, basically, in this high enough position that the Prime Minister relies on him for reports and things. And this is, again, something that was done without his knowledge or consent. And they can play it off as being security. I would certainly want Kingsley guarding me, if he would be willing. But at the same time, this is a little bit of insight into the Muggles being treated not nearly as badly as we see [them] being treated by the Death Eaters at the Quidditch World Cup, but overall, it’s this mindset of “We can do whatever we want.” There’s a portrait that cannot be removed from the Prime Minister’s office. That is a security risk for the Muggles, bigger than any other risk that you could possibly have if, for a moment, your political interests do not align with those of the wizarding world. You guys see what I’m saying here?
Estee: Yeah, I do. And with Kingsley, they probably should have at least told him that they were doing that ahead of time, and I definitely see your point with the portrait because when the Death Eaters end up taking over the Ministry, they can see straight into the Prime Minister’s office now.
Eric: There you go.
Caleb: Do you think that the… I agree that throwing Kingsley in there without saying anything is a little questionable at best, but do you think that that fact is lost on the reader, maybe on [the] first read, because it’s played off as a humorous moment?
Alison: I definitely think so, yeah.
Caleb: Because the first time I read it, I was like, “[laughs] That’s really funny.”
[Eric and Estee laugh]
Caleb: “Look at what they pulled.”
Estee: It’s still funny now too.
Eric: It’s still funny.
Caleb: Yeah. Because Kingsley is awesome. But what if we found out it was Dawlish they put there, who can’t walk straight, so…
Alison: Oh, gosh. [laughs] Then you would know something was a problem.
Estee: Oh, I would feel so bad for the Prime Minister.
Eric: Rule of thumb: If Dumbledore made him look like an idiot, we don’t want him anymore in the books.
[Alison laughs]
Eric: If, however, he has a really cool one-liner or something or says Dumbledore has style, then we want him in every office in the book.
[Alison laughs]
Eric: Just doing side tasks. I guess, here’s a sub question since we are talking about Kingsley: It is said that he does double the work of the other guys. [laughs] Is he cheating?
Alison: Oh, I have no doubt he’s cheating. Yeah!
Eric: Magic to confuddle and impress? Really? You guys think that he’s cheating?
Alison: I don’t think he’s trying to befuddle anyone. I think he’s just speeding himself up.
Caleb: Because he’s probably still got to leave to go do his own stuff.
Eric: So if he has paperwork to do, Muggle paperwork, boring paperwork, is he cheating in the sense that he’s making it go faster by… I don’t want to say “manipulating time,” but… I don’t know. Filling it out without…. maybe dictating. Maybe something as simple as that.
Alison: Oh, yeah. He’s using a special quill. He’s using something.
Eric: Versus what it would normally take somebody to type it or whatever. Is that the kind of cheating? Or is he really just doing no work at all and Memory Charm-ing the Prime Minister into thinking that he’s awesome?
Alison: No, I think he’s doing the work. I think he’s just using magic to do the work.
Eric: Okay, because I’m pretty sure he’s capable of doing the latter too. Even if he’s not… We all love Kingsley, so that’s not really a serious question, but it is funny when you start thinking about wizards in Muggle public office and how easily that could be abused.
Alison: My question with that, though, is, why Kingsley? I feel that he’s a high enough person, especially with the rest of the kind of attitude we’ve seen the Ministry showing the Muggles… It seems odd that they would use Kingsley there… Do you think maybe he volunteered? Did Dumbledore help put him on him? To say, “We’ve got a member of the Order, then, as well in this position”?
Caleb: Absolutely!
Eric: It’s nice that he’s a member of the Order, and it’s interesting for Dumbledore – how that works – because then Dumbledore is going to have a direct line without being Minister [of] Magic himself as to what the Muggles are doing. So that’s also why it’s interesting. I think Kingsley probably requested, but it’s just a sign of trust from the magic Ministry too, that he is that well trusted to be basically, it’s mentioned security, and Scrimgeour says, “We have to talk about your security,” and then he actually reveals Shacklebolt is there, but I don’t know if there was more about the security or what or if Kingsley is all they have. Basically, Kingsley is there to make sure that nobody makes a second go at either the Prime Minister himself or another Herbert Chorley. Basically, somebody got to this cabinet member with an Imperius [Curse], and Kingsley is there as a precaution to prevent that from happening in the future or to notice the signs of that having happened and to put an end to it, so… Now, there’s actually an issue in this chapter that again is glossed over. There’s a lot of humor, there’s a lot of story happening, but it’s something that Fudge mentions, and I really wanted to bring a heck of a lot more attention to it than I think it’s ever received, which is the bridge collapse. And none of the issues that the PM has been dealing with we mentioned earlier have actually been his fault. The hurricane is actually some giants. The strange mist is, of all things, Dementors breeding. The bridge collapse, however, was actually a planned attack, and this attack was planned and pre-announced by Voldemort. I was blown away on this read-through to find out… Because I guess I had forgotten. The movie doesn’t do it credit. I mean, the movie is… It’s an awesome beginning opening scene where the bridge is attacked. It’s really cool, and I loved… Ever since I saw the trailer for the sixth movie, [I was] super excited to see it, but it doesn’t quite get into as much detail [of] the fact that this was a premeditated attack that was actually announced, and there was some blackmail involved of Fudge. Here’s a quote from the book:
“[Voldemort] threatened a mass Muggle killing unless I stood aside for him.”
This is what Fudge tells the Muggle Prime Minister, and I’m thinking, “Wait, what? Did Voldemort really just make a go to become Minister [of] Magic? Could he really be so transparent? Could he really be so bold?”
Alison: I don’t know if he wanted to be Minister. I think more by standing aside, I think he was just meaning letting him get away with things, almost? Letting him slide under the radar. Don’t send Aurors after me. Don’t get in my way, basically? That’s what I’ve always read it as, more than Voldemort is trying to directly become Minister.
Estee: Yeah, because I think if he wanted to be Minister, he would’ve put himself in that position later on when he puts Thicknesse in.
Eric: Right. But I guess seeing as how his request is denied, these Muggles are killed, the bridge is attacked and collapses, and then Voldemort’s next course is to – what, basically? – infiltrate the Ministry silently and cast doubt onto his presence there? Is this…? I don’t know. It’s questionable because… Again, it’s glossed over, but this was the demand that Voldemort made. Somehow, Voldemort was in communication with Fudge directly and said, “I’m going to kill some Muggles unless you stand aside.” It’s just… I don’t know. I can see this as being potentially a pretty big moment for Fudge’s term of office, and I guess this is really reminiscent of the War on Terror and in general the US in particular policy to not negotiate with terrorists. Fudge says no and asks the Prime Minister, “Wouldn’t you have done the same?” and the Prime Minister says “maybe.” I don’t know. It’s just interesting that this occurred because this bridge collapse I did not remember being this organized act of terrorism and not just some Death Eaters frolicking.
Caleb: Yeah, I do read it for it imply something a little more specific, but I really can’t think of what it might be because I totally forget it every time, and then I think about it every time I reread it, but it reads to me like it’s something more specific, but it’s so unfulfilled that you don’t really get anything else out of it.
Eric: Yeah. I don’t know. I just think they could’ve made a whole season of 24 out of it is all I keep thinking about.
[Alison and Eric laugh]
Eric: Jack Bauer stops a bridge from collapsing.
Estee: And this is a very deadly chapter. Without actually seeing any of the deaths “personally,” I count at least 14 people because you figure a dozen cars. There had to be at least one person in each car.
Caleb: Probably more.
Estee: And yeah, probably more, and then Emmeline Vance and Amelia Bones. It’s a lot of people dying in this particular chapter just to start out the book.
Eric: Yeah, right, we haven’t learned… well, I guess following Book 5, it makes sense. Jo has talked in the past in interviews about trying to place this chapter. This chapter or some blueprint, some rubric for it, was always in the works. She said, I think, in a quote that she considered starting Book 2 this way and may have been Book 4, which started out a different way but also without Harry. Anyway, basically finding out… this is where it feels right, I think. I really agree with now it’s time to see what the the Muggle Prime Minister’s relationship is because as Fudge says in this chapter, this is a war, and what shocked me or what I didn’t always think about is just how small the UK is in terms of land mass, and it is a lot smaller than the US, and so to have all these wizards running around, these creatures, these giants that are set loose, it’s a bit more of a concern.
Estee: In a rather small area.
Eric: It’s a bit more of a… yeah, it’s a bit bigger of an issue than it would be in the US, I think, too just because of land mass and stuff. It’s a lot more crowded over there – I guess I want to say – for giants. The world isn’t big enough for Muggles and wizards and giants to be running loose, so I just feel like, in addition to the murders, it’s the idea of a war. I’ve always struggled with whether or not the war in the Harry Potter series is worldwide, and Dumbledore stresses international magical cooperation, but really, it’s just the European countries that we ever see. And so it’s unclear, I think, as of Book 7, whether Voldemort is in power of the whole world, necessarily, because he’s focused on just conquering Britain and killing his nemesis, Harry Potter, at the point where his downfall happens. So it’s a question that I’ve already struggled with in terms of how big of a war is this? But this is the time when Fudge admits to many things in this book, and he admits to the Prime Minister that they’re at war, and we’re just supposed to take that word seriously, I guess, and the Prime Minister does too. He says, “Surely it can’t be that bad,” but the word that Fudge used was “war.” So you’re right, Estee. The deaths of Emmeline Vance, too, and Amelia Bones really just what comes to mind here is Amelia Bones’s death being highly publicized. Emmeline Vance’s was too. It was called a breakdown of the law in the Prime Minister’s own backyard. But Amelia Bones was known by Muggles as just being a middle-aged woman who lived alone, and it brings home the point that these wizards who are adults living in the world have apartments. They live in places. They don’t all live in places that are hidden by charms.
Estee: Yeah, that are strictly wizarding communities.
Eric: Right, we’ve seen plenty of those types of places in the Harry Potter books, but some wizards just live in Muggle buildings and Muggle establishments, and Amelia Bones, who was Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, was one of these such people who lived in Muggle society, basically. And I’m sure her neighbors knew her, and it wasn’t all secretive and wasn’t all hidden [with] charms and things. And that is an interesting concept, which I think I’m glad to read here, that [wizards] are more integrated than we sometimes see them being.
Estee: Yeah, we have three wizards really integrated into Muggle society in this chapter. Because we have Kingsley, Emmeline, and Amelia – all three, really – living among the Muggles.
Eric: Yeah, even when Fudge shows up through the fireplace, he’s coming from a relatively close distance. Because they’re in London, I assume, so it’s interesting to think just how small the world is and the fact that these people do have to integrate with society, but bless Amelia Bones because she put up one heck of a fight by all accounts.
Caleb: I always found this really sad. Even though Amelia only pops up a couple of times before, I was always really drawn to her character. I always found her and McGonagall as very similar: stern but very intelligent and able women who are very respected in their fields. And how she’s characterized as dying by the Muggle Minister is… I think it’s something. I can’t remember the exact text but a woman who lived alone. They see her as this middle-aged to older woman who was living alone, who doesn’t have much of a life, and it’s just “Oh, it’s sad, but there’s not much loss,” but to the wizarding world, I mean, it’s a huge loss, and it’s devastating, so it really shows the sharp contrast between the worlds there.
Estee: It’s a big deal. I always found Emmeline Vance as sad. I mean, we’ve only met this character once, but she’s in the Advanced Guard that went to take Harry to Grimmauld Place, and I think she was one of the ones [who] just volunteered, didn’t know him, was really excited to finally get to meet him, and then a year later, she’s killed.
Caleb: Yeah, one of the newest members of the Order.
Eric: Oh, man. Way to bring it down. Hey, here’s a slightly cheerier topic! Let’s talk about Fudge getting sacked.
Estee: Finally.
Caleb: Should we have known as soon as he stepped out with his bowler hat in hand rather than wearing it? It’s a defeated, deflated stance already.
Eric: [laughs] He’s twiddling it, he’s twirling it, it’s a…
Caleb: I did think, “Something’s up. What’s wrong with Fudge?” He doesn’t twiddle with his bowler hat.
Eric: Fudge has changed a lot. Well, no, I won’t go so far as to say that. Fudge made some big strides as a person, I feel, in this chapter. Fudge actually admits to Sirius Black’s innocence, just as an example. It’s offhand, way too late, way too little, too late – right? – to say, [as Fudge] “Oh, by the way, we were wrong about him. [laughs] Yes, it turns out, he was innocent all along. Well, he died. Oh, well.”
Estee: And only to the Prime Minister. They never really say it to the wizarding world.
Caleb: He stumbles on it too, right? He tries to describe it, and he could explain the story well enough to the other Minister, more than he does, but he can’t even really come to terms with the awful mistake that he has made. He knows how horrible it is, what he’s done, and he can’t even speak it fully aloud to himself.
Eric: So there’s a quote. It’s right after the quote where he says, “Did you really expect that I would still be able to remain in office after this horrible week?” He says, “The whole wizarding community has been screaming for my resignation for a fortnight. I’ve never known them so [united] in my whole term of office!” So my question for you guys is “Does Fudge get what he has deserved all of this time, or does he not?”
Alison: I think he does. I think he ignored so much. Like Dumbledore said, he was too fond of his power. He swept every sign under the rug, wouldn’t pay attention to what was going on, and pretty much put everyone in some serious danger, and people got killed, and it’s his fault.
Eric: Well, yeah, but shouldn’t that mean that he deserves more than to just be sacked but still be able to retain a position of diplomacy here, where he’s basically…? I mean, we looked at this job of being a liaison to the Muggle Prime Minister as a low job, but at the same time, Fudge is not being brought up on criminal charges here. None of that kind of talk at all is happening, even though in the Muggle Prime Minister’s memory, it’s been years since Sirius Black broke out, since the Dementors broke out. The Dementors now are running free everywhere, creating all this mist. The Death Eaters are all running free. It’s chaos all over the UK for wizards and Muggle,s and this is all because of Fudge. It’s directly… you can trace the source to Fudge, and Fudge still gets to still live the life and be in this office here with his bowler hat by his side and still be doing his duty. I don’t know. I feel like maybe Fudge got off easy.
Alison: Yeah, but I think he lost the thing that was most important to him, which was the fact that he was the Minister [of] Magic. He was the most powerful person, really, in wizarding Britain, and now he has been reduced to a joke, just shunted off to the side, and…
Estee: Yeah, and I can’t see what… I mean, what criminal charges could they bring against him? I mean, he hasn’t really… has he done anything illegal?
Caleb: Yeah, I mean, it would be similar to executive immunity. The psident here has it. I’m sure there’s something similar in the UK. And I always thought [of] it like it’s a pretty exceptional time in the wizarding world, and it’s obviously bleeding over into the Muggle world. This is certainly a time of extreme war that they’ve really only experienced once before when Voldemort was at the height of his power before, and so it makes sense. And maybe it’s something they would deal with at the resolve, but they’re in the thick of a war, they’ve just promoted a new Minister [of] Magic, no one knows the situation bureaucratically, despite his faults, better than Fudge, and I think for the sake of urgency, emergency, and relations, it just makes sense to keep him there.
Eric: So gross incompetence in office is not a pressing crime.
[Alison and Estee laugh]
Caleb: Unfortunately. He won’t be a part of the decision process. I wouldn’t expect him to be at the decision table when Scrimgeour goes to… however that works. Whatever the… what’s the word I’m looking for? Good grief. I can’t even think of it. The situation room for the wizarding world.
Alison: Yeah. My question is, “Why so long?” It’s taken two weeks to come talk to the Muggle Prime Minister. Have we said who that is yet, by the way? If we are going along with the timeline? John Major, right? If this is taking place in ’95? ’96?
Eric: Oh, I think it’s deliberately timeless.
Alison: Uh-huh.
Eric: I basically think that this is not… I understand the HP timeline sets these books in the 90’s and all that; I’ve always struggled a little bit about how official that is. But I think that Jo took careful steps in this chapter in particular to be really vague about it.
Alison: Yeah.
Eric: So I think there is an air of… because you want to be able to read this book 30 years from now and not have it be dated necessarily.
Alison and Estee: Yeah.
Alison: That’s true.
Eric: And I think when they don’t mention… she doesn’t mention the name of the foreign president who’s supposed to be calling, and I think it’s in the same way that she’s trying to make this chapter in particular, and this book, timeless. The series is not supposed to be rooted in history.
Alison: Yeah.
Eric: But if it is set in ’96 like the timeline says it is, then this would be, you said, John Major?
Alison and Estee: Yeah.
Alison: Mhm. I think that’s what I looked up.
Caleb: If we were assuming that the president is the President of the United States, that means he’s calling good old Bill Clinton.
[Alison laughs]
Eric: And Bill Clinton forgets to call…
Caleb: [laughs] We’ll stop there.
Eric: … because maybe he gets distracted by a pretty witch.
[Alison and Estee laugh]
Caleb: We’ll stop.
Eric: Okay, all right.
Alison: Anyway, but just the fact that it took them this long to come tell the Muggle Prime Minister that they’re at war. It took them two weeks. I don’t know. It’s always just seemed odd to me.
Eric: Is it really two weeks? I hear about… Fudge says fortnight but that’s just been since his resignation. I think that this is still the same week where a lot of those other developments, like the bridge collapse, happened. It’s still within the same…
Alison: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: I imagine this being a Friday and that stuff has been happening Monday, Wednesday…
Alison: They knew Voldemort was back.
Eric: Yeah, they did know Voldemort was back.
Alison: But it took them this long to come…?
Estee: Yeah, and given all the other big things that they’ve come to tell him, you would think that would be fairly immediate because that’s definitely a big thing.
Alison: Yeah.
Estee: You would think that he would have come sooner. I would, anyway.
Eric: Yeah, that’s fair. Especially because Fudge saw it with his own eyes, right? Voldemort is back.
Alison: Yeah. So why do we think it took so long?
Caleb: I think it’s just…
Eric: Politics.
Caleb: I think it comes down to… well, no, I think it comes down to that the Muggle governments being informed is less of a priority than what has been going on. There’s an argument if that’s justified or not, I think. But the immediate reaction, the next day or probably that night, they’ve got to figure out what’s going on, how are they going to immediately respond to it… the government is probably nuts for two days while Fudge is being ousted and a successor is being chosen.
Alison: Yeah, that’s true.
Caleb: And then once they do that, then they have to start dealing with damage control, heightening security in the Ministry and other locations, starting to work on those leaflets that they’re going to send out to the public on how to protect themselves, which are horribly ineffective…
[Alison laughs]
Caleb: … and then after all that’s done, then it’s time to go talk to this Muggle Prime Minister because it’s not like he can do anything, right? And that’s probably what’s in their mindset.
Alison: That’s true.
Eric: Well, yeah, that’s true. It is them, too, who are having to coordinate the Obliviator teams, having to coordinate the cleanup…
Caleb: Sure.
Eric: … not just to protect the Statute of Secrecy, although mostly to protect the Statute of Secrecy… but giants and things. They’re the only ones who can handle Herbert Chorley. They’re the only ones who can handle giants.
Caleb: Mhm.
Alison: Yeah.
Eric: They don’t seem to have a method of preventing Dementors mating, though. But that’s just something they’re just going to have to deal with. [laughs]
Estee: Yeah, yeah. [laughs] Was Fudge ousted two weeks or…? I thought it was three days prior to this meeting.
Eric: The quote is that they had been calling for his resignation for a fortnight, so I think it only… I think the resignation itself occurred maybe three days ago, but that it had been maybe two weeks since the huge news came out.
Alison and Estee: Okay.
Eric: All I can see now is MinaLima’s Daily Prophet; “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Returns.”
Caleb: Yes!
Alison and Estee: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, pretty darn cool print there. Just the final little thing that I picked up… there’s a really great quote, again brushed underneath the excitement of this chapter, but when Fudge first tells the Muggle Prime Minister that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back… here is the quote: “Fudge took a great deep breath and said, ‘Prime Minister, I am very sorry to have to tell you that he’s back. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back.’ ‘Back? When you say ‘back’… he’s alive? I mean…’ The Prime Minister groped in his memory…” da-da-da, and then he says, “‘Yes, alive,’ said Fudge. ‘That is… I don’t know… is a man alive if he can’t be killed?'” And then really I just… there’s a great line; he says, “‘I don’t really understand it and Dumbledore won’t explain properly…'”
Caleb: Yeah, here we see the limits of Fudge’s intellect.
Alison: Yeah.
Eric: Because it’s Dumbledore?
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: But that… yeah, Dumbledore is mentioned, I think, twice in this chapter and both times Fudge… well, the second time he’s talking about Scrimgeour writing Dumbledore a letter and maybe he’ll have better luck doing whatever. But yeah, Fudge is… again I noticed that he’s very weak; he relies on Dumbledore to be the source of a lot of his intelligence and a lot of his information. But really, this quote about, “Is he really…? Is a man alive if he can’t be killed?” The fact that Fudge brings this up or that it gets brought up in this chapter; Chapter 1 of this book… this book as a whole explores exactly that. It explores the mortality of Voldemort.
Alison: Mhm.
Eric: And so it’s pretty cool. Especially following the Prophecy and everything else that happened in Book 5, the fact that that gets questioned in the first chapter, I think, is really cool to start off the rest of the book.
Estee: It is.
Alison: Yep.
Eric: So I believe that concludes our chapter discussion.
Alison: So this week, our Podcast Question of the Week has to do with what we’ve been talking about, which is this relationship between the Muggle and wizarding governments. “So as we discussed in this chapter with Fudge’s visit to the Muggle Prime Minister, there seems to be an established relationship between the Muggle and wizarding governments. But what is this relationship? How and when did it begin? Are the wizards always more in control than the Muggles know, or is this a special circumstance because of the emerging war with Voldemort?” So head on over to our main site and let us know what you think.
Caleb: All right, and we just want to take a quick moment to thank Estee for joining us on this episode. Thanks for giving us some really great thoughts today. We hope you enjoyed your time on the episode.
Estee: I did, thank you. Thank you for having me. It was super fun; I’ve been wanting to do this for ages, so thank you for having me.
Eric: You got the right chapter.
Alison: Yeah.
Estee: Yes!
Caleb: Let our listeners know how they can check out The Common Room podcast.
Estee: We are available on iTunes as well. We have a website: commonroompc.com. We have actually a lot of extra stuff on the site as well, so you can check us out there. We’re all over the Interwebs at commonroompc; so Twitter, Facebook, the whole nine.
Eric: And you’re dolphinpatronus on the MuggleNet main site?
Estee: Yes, I am. Yes. And my Instagram is also dolphinpatronus, so…
Eric: You know what? So rarely do we get to ask users how they come up with their name.
[Caleb and Estee laugh]
Eric: I want to… how did you…? Why Dolphin Patronus? Oh, wait. No, that makes sense. Is your Patronus a dolphin?
[Everyone laughs]
Estee: I would like it to be.
Caleb: Moment of the week for Eric.
[Alison and Estee laugh]
Eric: I’m sorry. I actually asked the most obvious question. We need to get Hufflepuffskein on. No, even that… we need to get other users. I’m sorry. Estee, is your Patronus a dolphin? [laughs]
Estee: I would like it… I hope it is. Based on what Jo has said on Pottermore about how your Patronus is decided, I would like to think that I emulate the same things that dolphins do because I feel like they’re protectors and they’re friendly and cheery. So I would like to think that I would be personified as an animal in a dolphin form. Plus, I just love dolphins, so… [laughs]
Eric: Dolphins are awesome. Dolphins are totally really cool. I’m sorry; I thought there was a mystery there, but that was rather obvious.
[Alison and Estee laugh]
Estee: No. I actually swam with dolphins, so… yes.
Alison: Oh, that’s awesome. That would be so fun.
Eric: Dolphins… I have a memory of whistling while on a boat and dolphins came to the surface. It was pretty cool.
Estee: I go on a lot of cruises, so we see them a lot.
Eric: If you would like to be on the show like Estee was, please visit the “Be on the Show” page at alohomora.mugglenet.com. If you have a set of Apple headphones, you are all set. Otherwise, any of all of an assortment of microphones and headsets should do it. No fancy, expensive equipment needed, but just check out what we have to suggest over at our website.
Alison: And if you just want to keep in contact with us, we are on Twitter at @AlohomoraMN, on Facebook at facebook.com/openthedumbledore, Tumblr [at] mnalohomorapodcast, or you can call us at 206-GO-ALBUS (206-462-5287). And you can also leave us an audioBoom on alohomora.mugglenet.com. It’s free – all you need is a microphone. Just please keep them under 60 seconds so we can play them on the show.
Caleb: Also make sure to check out our store, which has a lot of great swag and other items such as sweatshirts, long sleeve tees, tote bags… there are flip-flops, but if you’re wearing them now and are in the Northern Hemisphere, then you are crazy.
[Alison and Eric laugh]
Caleb: It is below zero windchill where I am right now.
Alison: Same here.
Eric: Same.
Caleb: Goodness.
Estee: It’s actually quite warm here.
Caleb: But a lot more great things. We also have free ringtones that are available on the main site, so check those out.
Eric: I was going to joke that flip flops were 100% off because it’s cold.
[Eric and Estee laugh]
Caleb: Our Aussie friends, if they want them, or anyone else in the Southern Hemisphere.
Eric: Yes. Or guys, jandles, I believe they’re called down there…
Caleb: Yeah, there you go.
Eric: … but yeah, we also have the smart phone app, which is available both on this side of the pond and the other. Prices vary. On this app you can find weekly transcripts, bloopers, alternate episode endings, host vlogs, and more. Well, guys, I’m excited to have started this new book with you all.
Alison: Woo-hoo!
[Show music begins]
Eric: I am Eric Scull.
Caleb: I’m Caleb Graves.
Alison: And I’m Alison Siggard. Thank you for listening to Episode 119 of Alohomora!
Eric: Open the Dumbledore dies.
[Show music continues]
[Sound of someone typing loudly on a keyboard]
Alison: Sorry if you can hear that music. The band that’s in the apartment complex next to me is practicing, and they’re really obnoxious.
Caleb: I can’t hear it.
Alison: Okay, good. I can hear it. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I can’t hear it. I kind of want to now hear it.
Alison: No, you don’t. Trust me.
[Alison and Eric laugh]
[Sound of someone typing loudly on a keyboard]
