Transcript – Episode 15
[Show music begins]
Noah Fried: This is Episode 15 of Alohomora! for November 4th, 2012.
[Show music continues]
Noah: Hey guys, welcome to Episode 15. As we are now recording, a great storm is about to hit the East Coast, Halloween is about to come. I’m Noah Fried.
Rosie Morris: I’m Rosie Morris.
Caleb Graves: And I’m Caleb Graves. And we are joined this week by a special fan guest and his name is Jon. So Jon, why don’t you tell us a little bit about you?
Jonathan (Jon) Kunitsky: Hi. Well, I’m a Slytherin on Pottermore. My wand is… the wood is ebony, 10 3/4 inches, and phoenix feather, and surprisingly swishy. [laughs]
Noah: Cool. I’m also surprisingly swishy.
Rosie: Me too. [laughs]
Jon: But yeah, that’s…
Caleb: Well, it’s good to have a Slytherin on board. We don’t have, I feel like, many Slytherins join us…
Jon: Yeah, yeah.
Caleb: …that are Pottermore Slytherins, so that’s good to have.
Jon: I like listening to the show, so that’s why I sent in the little recording.
Caleb: Well, awesome.
Rosie: Thank you.
Caleb: We’re really excited to have you on board, and I’m sure you’ll be able to do all the Sytherins proud as we get closer to the Chamber of Secrets.
Noah: Oh, yes.
Caleb: So, we would like to take a quick moment to thank our sponsors, Audible. Exclusively for fans of Alohomora! they are offering a free audio download. They have over 100,000 titles to choose from, so head over to AudiblePodcast.com/Open to get yours now. All right, well we’re going to kick it right off and start with comments from our last episode, where we discussed Chapters 9 and 10 of Chamber of Secrets. So, our first comment comes on the topic of the writing on the wall and sort of where that phrase comes from, and this comes from our forums and it is from AIS Rhodes:
“I noticed on the most recent podcast that you were wondering about the significance of the chapter name ‘The Writing on the Wall.’ Incidentally, I had researched a little on the term earlier this week. It comes from an old bible story about King Belshazzar and how he had been praising fake gods at a feast when a hand appeared and wrote on the wall. It was a simple bit of wordplay that said…”
Oh, man.
“…’mene, mene, tekel, parsin’…”
Noah: Something like that.
Caleb: Someone fix me. All right.
“…which meant that his reign was going to end and his kingdom was going to be divided because he praised idols and sinned against God. Now the term is used when there are signs showing that something bad is coming. Jo would have been using this idea of the doomed king to relate it to how the writing on the corridor was promising destruction and like the old king, Hogwarts would be doomed.”
Noah: Wow, yeah, that’s really cool. I mean, when I first brought it up I was thinking just about the fact that the writing on the wall most often means the obvious message, or the truth when people can’t see it. But it’s interesting that it’s also tied to this King Belshazzar in this story about not believing in God or idol worship. And in the same way, I’m sure Salazar Slytherin believed that only purebloods attending Hogwarts was kind of sacred, and everybody else who was letting Muggle-borns in was this radical move out of that. So, the writing on the wall, the Heir of Slytherin has returned, is kind of like that scenario, actually. It’s very similar. It’s cool.
Caleb: Yeah. I agree. Thanks for sharing that story, and we all know that Jo likes to insert a little bit of biblical stuff – or things from Christianity – every now and then, so it’s good to see.
Noah: That she does.
Caleb: All right, well our next comment comes on the topic of Harry hearing the snakes, and we talked a little bit about whether maybe it’s in his thoughts, or if he’s just hearing the slithering, or however it’s working. And this comes from She Floo Like A Madman from the forums, and the user says:
“I agree that the others (the non-Parselmouths) wouldn’t be able to distinguish the sound of snake hissing from the general hissing of pipes, et cetera. I don’t think Harry was hearing the snake’s thoughts. Parselmouths can only speak to snakes, there’s no mention of them being able to read snakes’ minds. The only reason he can read Nagini’s mind is because she has another piece of Voldemort’s soul inside her (and that acts as a window into her thoughts for fellow-Horcrux Harry).”
Noah: Yeah, that was a really great comment, and I believe, Caleb, on the last podcast, you were saying that you thought it was just the fact that they couldn’t hear the hissing, and that’s why Harry could get it, and I was the one kind of pulling along that Harry could hear it in his mind. But yeah, I think I was just thinking back to Nagini, and it’s more likely that it was just the fact that they didn’t register the hissing.
Caleb: Yeah, I think so.
Noah: And actually, She Floo Like A Madman is all over these forums. I think she came in a little bit later on our episode discussions, but all the mods are really, really happy about all her comments, and so am I. She actually made another one if, Caleb, it’s okay if I read another. From…
Caleb: Yeah, go for it.
Noah: All right, so this one was on animals in the series, and as you guys all know, I’m very curious about the way animals are treated in the series. So, this is from her talking about Mrs. Norris:
“On a less cheerful note: about the hanging of Mrs. Norris from the torch bracket, I imagine Ginny used magic to hang Mrs. Norris up. But that’s not what struck me about it! I think the real significance (bearing in mind that ‘CoS’ and ‘HBP’ are almost ‘twinned’ books), only becomes apparent in retrospect, when you realise that Tom Riddle had been torturing people’s pets long before he ever came to Hogwarts.”
So, that was all about why was Mrs. Norris the first victim. Some people on the forums were speculating that Tom Riddle wanted to practice on an animal first before the snake could get to a human. So, it actually is true that when Voldemort was in his orphanage, he tortured a little boy’s rabbit, if you remember that scene.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: So, do you see this thread through the series, that Voldemort has an issue with animals?
Rosie: Animals except snakes, of course, because he uses them quite a lot.
Caleb: Right.
Rosie: I don’t know, I always assumed that Mrs. Norris just kind of, almost walked in on Ginny painting the message. So, the only real significance of her being attacked was that she was there at the time, a bit like everyone else that was petrified. They kind of just happened upon the monster.
Noah: That’s true.
Rosie: But yeah, you can definitely see animals being attacked, as pets are things that people love and Tom Riddle is all about destroying that aspect of people’s lives. So yeah, you could see why he would do it.
Jon: Mrs. Norris got petrified, right? By the snake?
Noah: Right.
Jon: Okay, so how is the snake petrifying people if he’s in the pipes? Is he coming out of the pipes, or…
Caleb: Yeah, I guess he has to come out at some point, or else… it’s not like Mrs. Norris is crawling through the pipes herself.
Jon: I just find… I can’t picture a huge snake going through the pipes and then somehow getting out of it and going through the halls in Hogwarts.
Noah: That always confused me, too. Maybe it was just peeking out of the bathroom.
Rosie: Yeah, because it is meant to be opposite Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, isn’t it? That’s why she only got petrified because the cat was looking at the water that was coming out of the bathroom.
Noah: Yeah.
Jon: Okay.
Noah: Or maybe somehow the snake was acting through Ginny, and Mrs. Norris looked at Ginny’s eyes.
Jon: Hmm.
Rosie: That would be creepy. I don’t think that’s true. [laughs]
Noah: That would be pretty crazy. [laughs] But yeah, anyway, thanks She Floo Like A Madman. Excellent comments throughout the entire… on each episode. Keep them coming. I enjoy reading them.
Caleb: Yeah, definitely.
Jon: That’s a great name, too. [laughs]
Noah: It’s “She Floo” like Floo Powder.
Caleb: Right. Okay, so our next comment comes on the topic of Professor Lockhart’s portrait and Noah sort of bringing up that maybe it’s a feminine quality that was used for the description. And this comment comes from our forums from LumosNight3:
“I read Lockhart’s portraits with their hair rollers in a different light from feminism. I see it more as drawing attention to the fact that Lockhart is completely one hundred percent artificial and thus, his portrait-selves do things like fuss about hair and how they look because Lockhart is all about the exterior presentation. He is image-conscious and his books similarly are only surface deep, owing to the fact that they are fake. His portraits are a reflection of that. I often find that the small glimpses Jo gives us of portrait personalities are much more blunt and forthcoming about the real person they portray.”
Noah: Yeah.
Rosie: Yeah, I agree. It’s a lot more about vanity than any kind of feminine aspect.
Caleb: Right.
Noah: I’d agree with that, but then what about the fact that Lockhart is supposed to be this brave hero? Shouldn’t he have these bold-looking pictures of himself being a kind of masculine hero? And if not, don’t these feminine attributes tend to invalidate that and show that he’s more of a woman?
Rosie: But aren’t the hair rollers and things… isn’t that an aspect that only happens at night when they’re not being seen? I thought they were meant to be the bold heroes during the day when they’re on show.
Noah: Right, but just for the pure fact that Jo is showing that their true from is this feminine version, does that mean that she’s using feminine characteristics to belittle him? Even associated to one of the earlier chapters where Draco and Harry are flying during the Quidditch game and Draco is like, “Trying for the ballet, Potter?” when Draco is watching Harry jumping all over and the implication of that is that Harry is being associated with ballet, which is… actually my roommate is a dancer, so it’s possible for men to do ballet, but in this instance, Draco is using it to emasculate Harry. So, we’re getting all these instances of characters being emasculated or belittled by other characters by saying that they’re a bit more feminine. Which is realist because that’s what happens in our own societies, especially around young guys, but it has certain implications here. And I think the fact that we see Lockhart this way in private, without any character going out and saying it, like with Draco and Harry, it’s almost as if Jo herself is making this idea.
Rosie: I really think it’s just all to do with the vanity and the idea that he is obsessed with the way he looks and his celebrity, rather than… you can have hair rollers and things without necessarily being a feminine trait. Most of the male celebrities that have long hair will probably use hair rollers if they want the wave in it. [laughs] There is a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that happens to make men look good, as well as women…
Noah: Oh yeah, for sure.
Rosie: …that are considered feminine aspects that aren’t actually feminine at all.
Jon: Yeah.
Caleb: Yeah, a very good point.
Rosie: And it’s a glimpse of that.
Noah: Okay.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: We can either be two sides of the same coin. But if you want to keep talking about this in the forums – anybody who is listening – come chat at us and we’ll be happy to keep talking about it.
Caleb: Definitely. Okay, and last episode we also talked about Hermione’s motivation for basically defying Harry and Ron when it came to the Polyjuice Potion and the possibility of breaking a lot of rules. And we talked about whether she was motivated by her own fear or the desire to do something good and protect those people who might be attacked. And ZeoRegrediens from the forums took one side and said:
“I didn’t get the ‘scared vibe’ from Hermione at all. I think she was just in her Hermione-on-a-mission mindset. Her eyes were described as ‘bright’ and her cheeks quite flushed. I think she was aware that she could be attacked herself, yes, and that this gave her some real motivation to do something and take action. It’s sort of similar to her ‘save-the-house-elves’ mind-set: all that passion and motivation. Oh Hermione, your Gryffindor is showing.”
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: But on the other side, this came from the forums from MissouriMuggle7:
“It seems like I’m certainly in the minority with this opinion but I believe Hermione was very fearful, if not terrified, after the petrification of Mrs. Norris. It really stood out to me on page 145. After Dumbledore dismisses the trio from the scene of the crime, they duck into a classroom to quickly discuss what had happened before returning to their dormitory. What struck me was Hermione’s silence. I had to reread it because I was sure I must have missed her saying something. It just seemed so out of character for her not to be offering ideas or history or at the least shooting down others’ ideas. I think she was very shaken and afraid. She had already been singled out for ridicule as a Muggle-born earlier in the year and it had just been taken to a much more serious level. She is a twelve-year-old girl who has been singled out and threatened with a monster of unknown origin and power. What makes Hermione a Gryffindor here is that her fear drives her to action, not to cower in her dormitory.”
Noah: Well…
Caleb: So, we’ve got two very well thought out sides that both sort of draw upon the Gryffindor trait. I thought that was really interesting.
Noah: Yeah. And isn’t it interesting that the second commenter, MissouriMuggle7, points to the fact that she’s not speaking in that dialogue, and that being a point to the fact that she is clearly shaken. I would actually agree with that, I think that’s pretty accurate. I know she’s really brave, definitely she’s got that, but she can also be scared. I think we try to paint her too much as the hero, but even the heroes can be scared, and then that’s what makes them even braver because they rise out of that. But yeah, I still see instances of her being pretty scared here.
Rosie: Yeah, I agree.
Jon: Maybe the reason she wasn’t talking was because she was busy thinking about who could have done it. Maybe she wasn’t necessarily scared, but more trying to contemplate on who could have done that to Mrs. Norris.
Rosie: Yeah, I thought that too. It’s really hard to know. It’s really interesting that she doesn’t speak, I’ve never actually really noticed that before.
Caleb: Mhm.
Rosie: But yeah, I think she would definitely be afraid a little bit, but I don’t think that’s necessary a motivation behind the Polyjuice Potion. I’ve always seen the Polyjuice Potion as this super advanced piece of magic that Hermione wants to show off about. She’s read about this way that she can kind of find out about Draco a bit more, and she wants to show off and prove that she can do [this] advanced potion that shouldn’t be able to be done by second years. So, I think… yeah, she might be afraid in that scene straight after the message has been posted up, but I don’t think it lasts very long and I don’t think that she feels any real fear because I think she thinks that they’ll figure it out long before it gets to the stage where she could be attacked, at this point at least.
Jon: Mhm.
Caleb: Yeah, I agree, but I also do like that MissouriMuggle7 pointed out the fact that she is twelve years old.
Rosie: Yes.
Caleb: So, it’s obviously very clear that there has to be at least some level of fear for someone that young, which is obviously understandable. But I agree with Rosie.
Rosie: Is she not thirteen at this point? I thought her birthday was just before term started, so she would be thirteen.
Caleb: Okay. Well, still, she’s super young. [laughs]
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: I think she’s actually twelve now, and Harry might be… oh wait, no. No, you might be right. Thirteen.
Caleb: Yeah, she’s the oldest of them, so…
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: Right. I thought that she was scared from the beginning, but…
Caleb: Mhm.
Noah: We’ll have to see. I mean, she doesn’t really break rules that much and the thing about this extraordinary scene is the fact that she does break so many rules without even thinking about it.
Rosie: Definitely.
Noah: Especially in these chapters, Ron and Harry saying you’ve never… you’re usually pretty strict on the rules. I feel like that gets repeated. Do we see scenes later where she is breaking… I know in the fifth book it happens, she’s breaking more rules because she’s angry. Doesn’t that make this scene extraordinary?
Rosie: The whole actual Polyjuice Potion section later on in “The Dueling Club” chapter, which we’ll get to a little bit later, it’s all Hermione and it’s all her breaking the rules. It’s quite interesting to look at her at that point.
Noah: Okay.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Well, our last set of comments come on the topic of the Hatstalls that we talked about last episode and we were sort of looking for some more interesting combinations other than what we see most people having, which is Gryffindor-Slytherin or Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw. So, the first comment came from Efthymia from the main site and the comment says:
“My sister was a Hatstall between Ravenclaw and Slytherin, which I think makes a lot more sense than Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Most of the prominent Slytherins in the series (Voldemort, Snape, the Malfoys, and even Slughorn and Nott, whom we know less about) are quite intelligent, and Slytherin has won the House Cup many times, often for years in a row, and I don’t think it could have gotten all these points if a good percentage of its students weren’t intelligent – ambition can only get you so far. I think the difference between Ravenclaw intelligence and Slytherin intelligence is that the first is used for its own sake, for gaining more knowledge, while the second for reaching certain goals and for personal gain.”
Hmm. We don’t have a Ravenclaw on today, but maybe Jon, you can sort of speak to the Slytherin side of that.
Jon: Well, I think the person is right, that that’s pretty much the difference between Ravenclaw and Slytherin. I never really thought the Slytherins were unintelligent, but yeah, I definitely think that they use their intelligence for their own sake.
Noah: I wouldn’t say that Slytherins are necessarily more intelligent than Gryffindors or Hufflepuffs, but maybe due to their ambitions they tend to be more vocal about what they think, and that wins them praise at the end of the day, wins them points.
Jon: Mhm.
Noah: And that could be where the… that’s why they’re connected.
Rosie: Yeah, all that cunning and scheming kind of needs a certain amount of intelligence to plan it all out. Whereas Ravenclaw intelligence is more bookish and more scholarly intelligence, I think.
Noah and Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: And Gryffindors act on a lot of instincts.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Right.
Rosie: They don’t need to plan. [laughs]
Jon: And Hufflepuffs… [laughs]
Rosie: We just do everything best.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Noah: Or we’re not thinking. But I think we’re thinking.
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: And the second comment on this topic, I think is just so awesome. This got emailed to us at our alohomorapodcast at gmail dot com. And the comment says:
“When I was sorted on Pottermore I was a three-way Hatstall…”
Rosie: Wow.
Caleb: [continues]
“…between Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor.”
Noah: Whoa.
Caleb: [continues]
“This surprised me because I felt the only two houses I might conceivably fit in would be Ravenclaw or perhaps Slytherin. I definitely didn’t feel brave enough to qualify as Gryffindor, nor hard-working or patient enough to blend into Hufflepuff. It was an easy choice for me to choose Ravenclaw to be my home, as that’s the house I’ve always had an affinity for, but I don’t know anyone else who had to choose between three houses.”
So, I saw this and I also saw someone else post on the forums about this, that they had read about this happening. And I was completely unaware that this was even a possibility.
Rosie: No, I had never heard of a three-way Hatstall before.
Noah: How many questions are on the test? Maybe seven?
Caleb: Yeah, somewhere between seven and ten, maybe.
Noah: That’s just incredible. I wonder if it’s possible to be split between all four.
Caleb: Yeah, I was just thinking that too. That’s crazy. I don’t know what that says about a person, if they’re just so spread out as far as different personality traits. I don’t know.
Noah: I mean, the fact that Dumbledore said maybe they sort too soon, seems to imply that either your values change over time and that leads to your decision, or that people are just inherently multiple houses. So, I’m not sure which one of those is true, but this would seem to imply that some people naturally have indications for all these different mindsets or houses. Because I think at the end of the day, each one of these houses reflects a kind of ideology or thought structure.
Caleb: I think it’s interesting that the person that said this, said that there was one of those three houses that he or she was definitely not aligned with. Like Gryffindor for this person, and that he or she could have sort of seen the split between the other two houses. So, I think that’s interesting that they didn’t even consider the third one. Because I feel for me, I’ve always felt very torn between… obviously, I’m a Gryffindor, but it’s only been another house, Slytherin, that I’ve always felt like, well, maybe that’s also where I belong. I’ve never considered, oh, maybe I also belong in this third house.
Noah: I was the same way, but then I was a Hufflepuff.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Yeah.
[Jon and Noah laugh]
Rosie: Whereas I’m kind of a Hufflepuff by nurture because of my experience with other Hufflepuffs on the fan fiction beta boards. So, when I got… I was a Hatstall between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. I picked Hufflepuff out of loyalty rather than exploring my more Ravenclaw side. So, yeah.
Caleb: Hmm.
Noah: That’s interesting. I was a Hatstall between those as well.
Rosie: [laughs] But yeah, to have a three or a four-way Hatstall must make you a very interesting person.
Noah: We’d like to meet you. [laughs]
Jon: Is it possible to get a four-way Hatstall?
Caleb: If you have… if someone out there has had a Hatstall with all four, you’ve got to tell us…
Jon: Yeah, that’s crazy.
Caleb: …because that’s insane.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: How do you choose?
[Caleb and Noah laugh]
Caleb: Well, those were definitely some great comments. There were a ton more when I was going through the forums and we just don’t have the time, unfortunately, to read all of them, but please continue to share them with us on the forums and the main site because we love going through them.
Rosie: Definitely.
Noah: You can either go into the “Discuss the Podcast” thread, where you can respond to our comments, which we tend to read, or you can go into individual topics, which are really cool, where fans get together and they break down specific instances of the chapter. And we go through all of it, so there are many different ways that you can comment and be on the show.
Rosie: Okay, so we’re now going to discuss our special feature from last week, which was Trelawney’s Seeing Glass, and it was all about hidden chambers. So, this comment is from the forums and it’s from Ali Wood, and it says:
“As I think Ron says at one point, ‘How many monsters can this place hold?’ how many secret lairs and monsters and heirs opening places can one castle have? It does beg the question, though: Did the other three founders have secret chambers? Did they hide things in there for their heirs to find? Is this where Gryffindor’s sword was kept until it appeared in the Sorting Hat? Did Ravenclaw plan to keep her diadem there, before Helena stole it? Was Hufflepuff’s a place filled with plants and sunshine, or where magical food appeared?”
Maybe it was the kitchens. [laughs] What do you guys think?
Noah: I mean, are we sure that the Room of Requirement wasn’t created by one of the founders?
Rosie: That would be interesting.
Caleb Yeah, I mean, I don’t think we really know, as far as scanning goes, how it was created, right?
Noah: I don’t think it was ever explained.
Caleb: I would be really happy if that’s Gryffindor’s room, as a Gryffindor.
Noah: Well, just speaking from my Hufflepuff knowledge – I don’t know about Helga – but as a child, I always dreamed of crawling into a place where I can find all my secret, favorite foods. Now, my being a Hufflepuff really makes sense because we’re so close to the kitchens. So, I’d agree. Hufflepuffs can have a secret kitchen somewhere.
Rosie: So, what about Ravenclaw? What kind of secret room would she have?
Jon: A library.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Exactly. But a much more intense library.
Jon: Yeah. [laughs]
Caleb: How ever a library can be intense, but…
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: That kind of makes me want to go and move all of the books in the library to see if one opens a secret door.
Jon: Ahh, that’d be cool.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: The Restricted Restricted Section, for only smart people.
Rosie: It’s not really hidden though, and it’s more dangerous than smart.
Noah: It might be hidden in the invisibility section because there is one in the library and that’s where Harry ends up hiding later in the chapter, pretty funnily.
Rosie: Interesting thought.
Noah: But yeah, I don’t think they had secret chambers. I feel like that was only Slytherin, that was his claim to fame, because the other founders, as far as I know, were working on the castle.
Rosie: Yeah. And to hide something away is more of a cunning, a Slytherin trait than the others. They’d be more proud to say, “Look at this room. Isn’t it amazing?”
Noah: Yeah, exactly.
Jon: But are their dormitories not secret chambers? Do the students know where each of them are? Because later in the other chapter, Ron and Harry seem lost when they’re trying to get to the Slytherin common room.
Noah: Right, I think they just… students have a general sense where the other common rooms are, but for each house, those common rooms are pretty sacred and those are the secret chambers. So, I think for the other three founders, those common rooms would have been the extent of what they needed. They would have been fine with that. Slytherin clearly wanted something more or deeper.
Rosie: It was interesting that Jo said that it was always her intention for Harry to go to each of the common rooms and obviously, we see him go to Slytherin in this one and then Ravenclaw right at the end. But sadly, he never makes it to Hufflepuff’s. [laughs] There’s just no reason for him to go there.
Noah: Yeah.
Rosie: It would have been nice to see.
Noah: Well, we get all that on Pottermore, so…
Rosie: This is true.
Noah: That’s pretty nice.
Rosie: Okay, so another comment from the forums was from WatchStone and it says:
“You have to wonder if it’s standard wizard practice to put secret passages in institutions or if the founders thought it would be fun in a school for eleven to seventeen years olds. For example, does the Ministry have more entrances than we know about? Or what about St. Mungo’s?”
Personally, I always love a good secret passage whenever I go to a manor house or anything here in England. So yeah, secret passages are definitely fun for eleven to seventeen-year-olds.
Noah: Do you find that it’s standard in castles and buildings in the UK for them to have some form of secret chamber?
Rosie It’s not standard, but there are a lot… okay, history student time.
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: There’s a lot in kind of Elizabethan era castles because of the religious battles that were going on at the time. When Catholics were outcast from the country, they created these things called priest holes, where they would hide those of a certain religious disposition that wasn’t allowed to be practiced. So, there are quite a few old houses and old castles and things that have these secret passageways deliberately made to hide something away. And there’s a fair amount of tunnels to churches and other things as well. It’s quite fun. If you come over to England, do try and find a good house with a secret passage. [laughs]
Noah: No, we’ll have to. And that actually sounds pretty significant as to what this is because, of course, Salazar Slytherin is building this secret chamber because his beliefs are separate…
Rosie: Yes.
Noah: …and he needs to hide it away.
Rosie Yeah, definitely.
Caleb: I love secret passageways. I’m going to build a house with, like, eight of them in there one day.
Rosie: [laughs] I’ve always wanted a hidden room behind a bookcase. It’s got to happen at some point. [laughs]
Noah: I just want my secret bakery.
[Everyone laughs]
Rosie: Okay, so we’ve got another comment from She Floo Like A Madman and it says:
“I always reckoned if there was a Gryffindor room it’s the Room of Requirement because it acts so much like the Sorting Hat, providing the Sword of Gryffindor in times of need and also because the Room of Requirement will help anyone – no matter if they’re breaking school rules – so long as they ask for it.”
Caleb: Yup.
Jon: I agree.
Caleb: I’m down with this.
Noah: I don’t know, it sounds like that would be the mutual room that all the founders would have helped to create because it can be so many things. It doesn’t seem to be even a matter of loyalty.
Rosie: Or even the Hufflepuff room because it will be whatever you need it to be. It’s there to take everything into account and help whoever needs.
Noah: I mean, it was even a bathroom for Dumbledore.
Rosie: Exactly. [laughs]
Noah: So…
Rosie: It’s not a very good [unintelligible].
Noah: I think it’s so fascinating. I think we have to wait until Book 5 for us to truly talk about it…
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: …enough, but that’s a thought.
Rosie: Okay, and our final comment in this section is from suprememugwump and it says:
“And finally, the founders and their secret chambers: Caleb said that Ravenclaw’s would probably be a library, and that’s entirely possible, but I also think her hypothetical chamber could contain really dangerous or complicated spells relating to knowledge. What if there’s a way to learn everything someone else knows, instantaneously transfer their knowledge to yourself, that kind of thing? There could also be dangerous or sensitive pieces of knowledge themselves (in book form or some other form) that could explain things that the general wizarding population shouldn’t know.”
What kind of things are we hiding from the general wizarding population? That’s quite scary. [laughs]
Caleb: Yeah, geez.
Noah: Hmm.
Caleb: There’s a lot of implications there.
Rosie: It’s an interesting thought. There’s… it’s quite a common trait in sci-fi rather than fantasy to have something that contains all knowledge, that can download to your brain in some way. I think it’s even featured in Stargate at some point [laughs] and I think if anyone was going to do it, it would be Ravenclaw. But I think that she understands that knowledge can also be dangerous, so I don’t think she would want anyone or any one person to have access to that much knowledge.
Noah: I was just thinking about this in terms of the houses. In my History of Christianity class, we were talking about intelligence and if you could… reason versus faith.
Rosie: Mhm.
Noah: And it seems that Ravenclaw is… well, really the whole Harry Potter series seems to be between, in terms of intelligence, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. Gryffindor is this kind of instinctual faith, which I’d almost compare to religious faith because you’re not really going to reason. It’s just a knowing-ness that’s higher, and it’s kind of morally right. Whereas Ravenclaw intelligence seems to be this idea that reason is the highest and you can get to these places. But a lot of the older religious leaders believe that you couldn’t necessarily reason faith, you couldn’t reason belief in God, or using just your intellect own. So, considering that a lot of the big Ravenclaw theories of intelligence… I’ll go back to that riddle that McGonagall will solve to get into the common room. It’s the idea of everything being a part of everything else. I don’t remember what the exact quote was, but that kind of idea seems to be more aligned with a spiritual higher knowing, versus a logical reasoned knowing, because at some point reason stops. Do you guys feel that in the series?
Jon: Mhm. Yeah.
Caleb: Hmm. No, yeah, that makes sense.
Noah: I just feel like the Harry Potter series as a whole seems to be more on the side of this spiritual, higher knowing versus stuff making exact sense.
Caleb: Yeah. I mean, I think we’ve run into that a lot on this show, right? Trying to break down some things and it just seems to… I agree. Spiritual is definitely a way to put it, and we… I’ve already mentioned this once today, but obviously that’s something we know Jo relies on a lot.
Noah: Yeah.
Caleb: So…
Noah: Thank you, suprememugwump. I like that name.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: Okay, so that was all of that bit. But we have also got our homework from last week, which Noah kindly volunteered me to read out.
[Noah laughs]
Rosie: We asked you to write a poem based on Gilderoy’s defeat of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf, in the theme of great poetic odes to other great figures in history.
Noah: Well, also because Gilderoy Lockhart had actually asked his students in the last class to…
Rosie: Oh yeah, of course. [laughs]
Noah: …write a poem about this.
Caleb: So, this is everyone’s homework that they’ve turned in. I want to know why everyone else didn’t.
Rosie: This is true. We’ve only got a few. [laughs]
Caleb: They’re missing grades right now. Yeah, so some students are in trouble.
[Noah laughs]
Rosie: However, it does make it fit into a podcast nicer.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Noah: But, Rosie, as part of MuggleNet Fan Fiction, I thought you would like to take part and help us read some of these.
Rosie: Definitely.
Noah: Maybe we can alternate.
Rosie: Yeah. Also, we should point out that, as part of MuggleNet Fan Fiction, there is actually an Audiofictions podcast where you can listen to other great works of poetry and fiction written about the Harry Potter series. So, maybe you’ll hear some of these people writing for that in the future. That would be cool.
Noah: That’s right.
Rosie: [laughs] So, the first poem is written by Acciomagic, simply titled “The Wagga Wagga Werewolf.” So…
[Noah laughs]
Rosie: [continues]
“‘Listen up, class. Please take your seats!
I’m going to read one of my great feats!’
Lockhart waltzed swiftly to the mahogany shelf
And whimsically selected a book on himself.
Trying to be smooth, he risked a quick twirl
But lost his own balance and squealed like a girl.
The class erupted with laughter but it did him no harm
He easily fixed it with a memory charm.
With order restored, he opened his book
‘Oh my,’ he said. ‘Just look here, look!
It’s the tale of that wolf, the one from Wagga Wagga
And how I managed to slay it while performing basic yoga!
Hermione shrieked with delight and she fell off her chair
She ran up the front and joined in with him there!
First came the stretches, then came the poses
And then came some punches he bruised Wagga’s nose with.
As the bell finally rang, Harry let out a sigh
It was moments like these that he wanted to cry.
For he knew that detention was with Lockhart tonight
And so the Wagga Wagga dance he would learn to recite.”
[Caleb laughs]
Noah: Yay! [laughs]
Rosie: That’s a brilliant poem. Well done.
Jon: That was really good. [laughs]
Caleb: Nice.
Noah: I love the yoga. I did yoga last night.
Rosie: [laughs] Maybe you should try doing poetry while you try, while you actually stretch.
Caleb: Hmm.
Rosie: It would work.
Caleb: That’s what’s missing.
[Everyone laughs]
Noah: I can take the next one. It’s from jessfudd. It says:
“My poem is incomplete… I just blanked out at the end ;)”
Well, we’ll see about that.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: [continues]
“In the city of Wagga Wagga,
there lived a deadly foe.
A werewolf of great terror,
now defeated as you may know.
When Lockhart heard the tale,
of this gruesome beast,
he swashbuckled in to save the day,
and end the werewolf’s feast.
The battle that ensued
was epic there is no doubt.
But the Wagga Waggans new,
Ol’ Gilderoy would figure it out.
The great tussle commenced,
brave Lockhart pounced,
with a howl and a moan,
the beast was trounced.
The village applauded
now safe from harm,
filled with dizzy bliss
from a memory charm.
This must be how it happened,
I’m almost sure of it.
If not, then Gilderoy Lockhart
must be full of…”
[Caleb and Jon laugh]
Noah: Oh no! [laughs]
Caleb: Yes, I love it.
Noah: Oh, man.
Jon: That was good.
Noah: Well, sometimes it’s what’s unsaid is what the full meaning of poetry…
[Jon laughs]
Caleb: There we go.
[Noah laughs]
Caleb: All right, so I guess I’ll grab the next one. This one is from FawkesFan.
“Lockhart walked through the forest glade
Stopping to rest by the pond in the shade.
As he primped and admired his reflection
In the sea of blue-green
The Wagga Wagga Werewolf snuck up on
Poor Gilderoy unseen!
‘Grrrr!’ the werewolf cried.
Poor Lockhart was so startled he about died.
He saw the werewolf about to bite.
‘Oh no,’ he thought. ‘My beautiful face would be such a horrible sight.’
So Lockhart reached deep in his pockets
He threw his hair rollers and prized hair nets.
The Wagga Wagga Werewolf got all tangled up in them
That’s as good as it gets!”
[Everyone laughs]
Noah: Great. Good job, FawkesFan. And I like especially the… clearly the Greek allusion to Narcissus.
Caleb: Mhm. Right.
Noah: Who looked in the lake and sees his reflection and falls in love with it, and that captures the essence of Lockhart.
Rosie: Definitely. Jonathan, do you want to try and read one?
Jon: Let’s see, should I read the next one?
Caleb and Noah: Yeah, go for it.
Jon: Okay.
“Wagga Wagga village was riddled with fear,
Their monthly attack was drawing near.
Terror spread as villagers waited…
Would their death be the next one fated?
No one yet had managed to end
This werewolf’s obsession of biting his friends.
Its victims included ten wizards and a Muggle,
All of which had put up a struggle.
But suddenly, help was at hand!
From a wizard whose smile is renowned in the land.
His intervention was brave
As he tracked the wolf to a gloomy cave.
Lockhart slammed the menace to the floor,
His golden hair snagging in a long curved claw.
Never ceasing to grin
Lockhart gave his wand an effortless spin.
The werewolf let out a piteous cry…
Then was back as a man within the blink of an eye.
Thanks to Lockhart’s complex charm
No more villagers would ever suffer harm!”
Rosie: Brilliant. And that one was by…
Noah: Well, that’s good. I think that would…
Jon: And that was by siriouslymagic.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: That would be Lockhart’s favorite.
Rosie: That was a really good one, yeah. Okay, and our final poem…
Noah: We have one more.
Rosie: …is by Saiyangirl, and it starts by saying:
“Gave it a shot xD Wrote it as if it had actually been for Lockhart’s class, so talked him up a bit… for good marks, y’know (Slytherin; sorry xP).”
Brilliant.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: And she also says that they assumed it was situated in Wagga Wagga which is in New South Wales, Australia – which I didn’t know, so that’s useful.
Caleb: Hmm.
Rosie: And it says:
“Did you guys know that this ‘HP’ reference is actually on the wiki page for that city? It’s hilarious ^^”
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: That’s great.
Noah: Wow.
Rosie: [laughs] So, New South Wales can claim that Lockhart was there, and he saved – or probably didn’t save – Wagga Wagga from the werewolf. Okay, so…
Noah: I wonder if Bristol has a wiki page and it says that Hagrid once flew over…
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: …with baby Harry.
Rosie: Should check that out, yeah. Okay.
“For years New South Wales had been troubled;
Their anxiety had doubled
As the Wagga Wagga Werewolf wandered around
The damage inflicted profound
But the state was in luck;
World’s most courageous man had heard and come
Got his stunning features covered in the werewolf’s latest victim’s guck”
Noah: Gross.
Rosie: [continues]
“Then fooled the beast by feigning to be paralysed and numb
Yet Gilderoy knew blood did nothing but enhance his facade
And drew magical strength from the public laud
He knew would soon be his
Even when the werewolf’s claws tore his robes in that one miss
In one swift movement he grabbed his wand
Drawing complex diagrams into the sky as he muttered the Homorphus Charm
Leaving a confused Wagga Wagga man who failed to abscond
Now bound by Incarcerous ropes and unable to harm
Thus ends our werewolf tale
Lockhart’s fame righteously risen
Having ended the fatality trail
With the Wagga Wagga man in prison”
[Jon laughs]
Noah: Great stuff.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: I think the Wagga Wagga Werewolf has officially been put to rest…
[Caleb laughs]
Noah: …by Lockhart.
Rosie: [laughs] But what a great…
Noah: But…
Rosie: …fictional myth and what great poetry came out of it. So, thank you very much, guys.
Noah: Yeah.
Caleb: Definitely.
Noah: No, that was great. I think in the future if you guys want to send us a poem we’d be happy to talk about it.
Rosie: Definitely.
Noah: But we might try to do little homework assignments every now and then that you guys can just comment on and we’ll read them. It kind of… it shakes up the listener comments that we usually do. It’s really fun. So, now onto our last section of listener comments from last episode. The… we’re going to answer my Posed Question of the Week from last week, which was: Very fortunately, Madam Pomfrey was able to regrow Harry’s bones with Skele-Gro after Lockhart erased them. That said, how does this magical potion work? Does Skele-Gro contain a bone growing formula which interacts with Harry’s DNA? Does the potion – as we’ve been saying of many magical objects – contain a certain intelligence, such that it knows exactly where to help Harry grow bones? Another question: Where do these potions come from and do you think the Department of Mysteries has tested them? So, after looking at this question, I realized that, “Does the potion have intelligence on its own?” Probably not. Definitely not. But I’m just… I’m really interested – especially looking at Polyjuice – how potions work. And some of these comments on the main site I’m going to read really helped us answer that. So, one comment from RaddishEarings:
“Our bodies have a way of knowing how to heal themselves. Without getting too scientific on you, if you were to cut your finger, your body would send clotting agents to clot your blood so that you don’t bleed out, and it would then send repair cells to that specific site in your finger. Therefore, I think that the Skele-Gro is probably helped along to the specific site by the body itself.”
So, that comment basically saying that Skele-Gro interacts with your body’s normal healing methods and therefore can help make it work. So, that’s pretty cool. What do you guys think of just the general Skele-Gro question? Just before we get into more comments, how do you guys think it interacts with Harry’s body?
Caleb: Yeah, that last comment was kind of what I was bringing up last episode, that it definitely has… I think it has to go a little more than just the general body-healing process because we don’t have a healing process in our bodies to regrow bones like that. So, I think it has to go a little deeper into the way the body system works, but definitely along those lines.
Noah: Yeah. I mean, another comment from UrictheOddball was saying that it actually interacts with DNA.
“I believe the Skele-Gro targets the affected area in much the same way that Muggle medicines do. Perhaps the potion actually picks up a small sample of DNA as it is swallowed and uses that to regenerate cells much as your body naturally rebuilds cells when you are injured.”
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: Somebody else was commenting that maybe the potion interacts with some… maybe there is a DNA plan in your body that you have ever since you were a fetus and you grow that just remains there. And therefore by tapping into that design, it can kind of allow your body to reproduce these bones the way it ought to be. Which sounds pretty right, but I can’t imagine how the potion would get a handle of this…
Caleb: No.
Noah: …DNA map that you have.
Caleb: I mean, I think that if it… as far as getting the scientific… being scientific, you would have to sort of produce stem cells that would eventually differentiate into bone cells and that would help the bones sort of regrow. But…
Rosie: Well, at the same time, all of this is magic.
Caleb: Right. That’s true.
Rosie: So, it doesn’t necessarily have to be that scientific.
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: But it does, Rosie. It does. We have to have it.
[Everyone laughs]
Noah: Of course.
Rosie: I just think it would be cooler if the potion itself… the potion maybe had some kind of calcium base in it and it just… it’s going to grow bone wherever the body has lost bone. There is actually a thing with our own bones that they carry on growing until they hit something else. So, where your joints are, that’s where your bone has stopped growing because it’s found another bone to grow next to. So, maybe it has something to do with that as well. Like it will look for the bit that is missing using magic, and then use calcium and maybe DNA or something and grow a bone from that.
Jon: Well, on the Alohomora! site I posted one and I basically just said that when making the potion, I thought maybe they’d have to add bones to the actual potion. So, when the person drinks it, the potion knows of all the bones in the human body so it can detect which are gone so it can just copy the one that you put in the potion.
Caleb: Hmm.
Jon: And just make it in your body.
Caleb: Yeah, that definitely sounds along more the magical line, so I like that.
Noah: Bone Juice.
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: Yum.
Caleb: That’s what it’s affectionately called.
[Noah laughs]
Caleb: Skele-Gro is just called the Bone Juice.
Noah: Yeah.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Noah: And one more really cool interesting thought from Suprememugwump:
“What if someone with osteoporosis drank Skele-Gro? Would the bones regrow with the same reduced mineral density? Or could Skele-Gro be used to cure diseases like osteoporosis because it grows bones ‘as they should be?'”
Caleb: Hmm. I guess… yeah, we wouldn’t be able to know until we know deeply enough how it actually works, what it’s actually doing.
Noah: Right.
Caleb: That’s a good question.
Noah: Because if it kind of re-does whatever your bone chemistry currently is, then potentially it wouldn’t really help you.
Caleb: Right. Hmm.
Noah: Yup. So, maybe we just have to see a bunch… we have to see more potions and see how they work and maybe we can eventually answer this.
Caleb: Maybe it does cure it, though. That’s why people that are super old like McGonagall and Dumbledore are so nimble and still ballers when it comes to dueling.
Noah: They’re just drinking Skele-Gro?
Caleb: Yeah.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Like it’s their morning supplement.
Jon: Well, doesn’t that seem kind of…
Noah: They’re just passing…
Jon: …selfish though because Muggles are struggling with that? Don’t you think maybe they should help Muggles with that?
Caleb: [laughs] I mean, I think wizards in general are selfish.
[Jon laughs]
Caleb: So…
Rosie: It’s the whole Statute of Secrecy thing. If we started interfering… sorry. If we? [laughs] If wizards started interfering…
Caleb: We? [laughs] Yeah, that…
[Noah laughs]
Rosie: …then…
Caleb: Did you just let out your secret, Rosie?
[Jon laughs]
Rosie: Sorry. Oh no!
Caleb: Guys, Rosie is actually a witch. She lives in the UK, and she goes to Hogwarts.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Or she went to Hogwarts. [laughs]
Noah: I mean…
Rosie: I have sat in the Great Hall, so it’s… yeah, it’s cool. [laughs]
Noah: I grew up assuming all British people were witches and wizards.
Caleb: Of course you did.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Noah: But yeah, excellent comments here. I have a really cool question of the week coming up that is also about potion making, so we’ll get to that towards the end of the episode. Before we jump to the chapter discussion this week, I want to take a moment to talk about our sponsor, Audible. They are the Internet’s leading provider of audio entertainment with more than 100,000 downloadable titles to choose from. And not just books, but periodicals, magazines, even radio and TV programs. The great part is they get new releases the day that they are in bookstores, including one of our new favorites, The Casual Vacancy. The story represents JK Rowling’s first jaunt at writing fiction for grown-ups, and tracks the story of a multitude of characters who live in the quaint town of Pagford and what happens behind closed doors. After the death of the novel’s protagonist early on in the book, Barry Fairbrother, the ugly truth about relationships, governments, and families are exposed. But hey, we don’t want to spoil it for you, so go listen for free right now at the special link created just for our US and Canadian listeners, AudiblePodcast.com/Open. So, every one of our listeners should take a minute to visit the site and start downloading directly to their computer for easy listening on burned CDs, mp3 players, and even your iPad, iPhones, or Androids. Again, the website made just for you is Audible – A-U-D-I-B-L-E – Podcast – P-O-D-C-A-S-T – dot com slash open – O-P-E-N. So, visit AudiblePodcast.com/Open for your free download today.
Caleb: Awesome. We’re going to go ahead and jump right into our chapters for this week, Chapters 11 and 12 of Chamber of Secrets. So, we’ll kick that off now.
Rosie: Okay, so Chapter 11 is “The Dueling Club” and it picks up straight where it left off from Chapter 10. So, Harry is still in the hospital wing, still recovering from Lockhart’s kind of vanishing of his arm bones, but he has been through the night. He has listened to all of the goings on and he has regrown his arm. So, as soon as he is released he goes out to look for Ron and Hermione because they haven’t been to see him and see if his arm is back. And he’s feeling slightly hurt that they weren’t interested in whether or not he had his bones back, and this is the first time that Harry isn’t the main focus after a major incident. Do you think it’s kind of revealing a bit about his personality that he’s a bit hurt that they are not there to see him?
Noah: I thought it definitely was. I zeroed in on it and…
Caleb: Mhm.
Noah: Because I just hadn’t noticed it before, and I think it’s part of his hero complex. I think he likes to save the day when he can, but he also enjoys the aftermath of people kind of waiting hand and foot on him or being really conscious. But this time, markedly, Ron and Hermione are just off working because there are more pressing matters to attend to with everybody being petrified.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: Especially seeing as he’s been through the night and seen Colin has actually been petrified, and of course the school is going to know about it.
Noah: Right.
Rosie: So, why does he think that [laughs] he is more important than that happening? Yeah, that’s interesting.
Noah: He’s Harry Potter. [laughs]
Rosie: [laughs] He is Harry Potter.
Caleb: Harry Freaking Potter. Come on.
[Noah laughs]
Rosie: So, he goes searching for Ron and Hermione, and he, for some reason, doesn’t have any clue where they could be, so he walks towards the library and finds Percy Weasley who suggests that Ron shouldn’t be going in any more girls’ bathrooms, which of course means he has been. So, Harry heads off towards Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, and finds Ron and Hermione locked in a cubicle with a cauldron and a fire ready and making the Polyjuice Potion. And conjuring up portable, watertable fires – waterproof fires, even – was a speciality of Hermione’s.
[Noah laughs]
Rosie: And these small fires, as I think it was Noah has said in this document, are similar to the ones that she makes in Deathly Hallows. Noah, did you want to say more about this?
Noah: No, I actually didn’t put that comment in. That’s a mystery to me.
Rosie: Okay.
Noah: But we should read it.
Rosie: Caleb, was it you? Because it might have been Kat.
Jon: It was me.
Noah: Oh.
Rosie: Okay.
Noah: Nice.
Rosie: Then Jon, you go ahead. [laughs]
Jon: These small fires are similar to the ones she makes in Deathly Hallows. Hermione seems to use fire many times throughout the series. In Philosopher’s Stone/Sorcerer’s Stone she sets Snape on fire, scaring away the Devil’s Snare. And then in Goblet of Fire she helps Mrs. Weasley light matches. Why does Hermione use fire so much? Does it reflect her personality? Does it show that she really is a true Gryffindor because of fire being red? I just thought it was interesting how many times she uses fire in the series.
Rosie: Definitely.
Noah: That’s true.
Caleb: I didn’t really pick up on her ample use of fire before.
Rosie: Have you not?
Noah: But that does definitely repeat.
Caleb Yeah.
Rosie: Yeah, I definitely… you can see it even more in the movies. I mean, she’s always conjuring little fires. Doesn’t she have them in jars later on as well? Or is that…
Jon: Yeah, yeah, yeah. In Deathly Hallows: Part 1 she does.
Rosie: Yeah. I think fire is such an elemental force. I mean, it’s the whole big thing about man being the only animal that can control fire. To be able to conjure fire is kind of an evolution of that, so it kind of proves Hermione as an advanced being compared to everyone else, don’t you think?
Noah: Yeah, I agree with that so much so. That was exactly what I was going to point to because the fact is that it does reflect man’s earliest intelligence. So, the fact that she can do it proves that she is… it links her with this intelligence. So, I think that was definitely done intentionally.
Rosie: Okay, so when Harry tries to talk about everything that he’s heard throughout the night, Hermione interrupts and says, “We know. We heard Professor McGonagall telling Professor Flitwick this morning.”
[Caleb laughs]
Rosie: These teachers really aren’t very subtle in this school. [laughs] If this is kind of a private event and Colin has got the screens around him now so people can’t go and stare at him, why are the teachers gossiping in the earshot of children?
[Jon and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Yeah, it seems just so out of character for specifically McGonagall to be doing this. I don’t know, I was really surprised at that, reading back.
Rosie: And when did they hear it as well? Was it just at breakfast or was Hermione deliberately eavesdropping?
Caleb: Or maybe they really are in a more disclosed location, and Hermione and Ron are just nosing their way in.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: They don’t really make that clear. Hmm.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: It’s just one of those things that we’re supposed to just accept, but it’s just a bit…
[Caleb laughs]
Rosie: What is this school doing? [laughs]
Caleb: Yeah, it’s a little unnerving that they would be easy to hear that.
Noah: Well, I think it just goes to show that Professor McGonagall is very shaken up by what’s going on, such that she can’t… she’s not really in control of her faculties.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: So, maybe she just had to tell somebody. [as McGonagall] “Another student has been petrified!” [returns to normal voice] And Professor Flitwick just…
Caleb: And his squeaks carry across the whole Great Hall, so…
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Noah: Right. Right. I can totally imagine that.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Noah: The entire student body goes silent at Professor Flitwick’s jumping up and down. [laughs]
Rosie: [laughs] [in a squeaky voice] Not Colin Creevey! [returns to normal voice] Anyway…
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: And then he falls over.
[Noah laughs]
Jon: It almost reminds me of when Quirrell in Chamber of Secrets… I mean Philosopher’s Stone when he comes running through the Great Hall yelling that there’s a troll in the dungeon.
Rosie: [laughs] Yeah.
Jon: He’s not being very subtle either.
Noah: That was more on purpose.
Rosie: But that was on purpose, yeah.
Jon: Oh, okay. True, true, true. Yeah. Sorry.
Rosie: Maybe McGonagall wanted people to hear.
Jon: Yeah.
Rosie: Maybe it was a way of getting the information out there without having to acknowledge it properly.
Caleb: To specifically Ron and Hermione.
Noah: Maybe they just have good hearing.
Rosie: Maybe.
[Everyone laughs]
Rosie: Anyway, Harry is able to tell Ron and Hermione about Dobby’s visit which they didn’t know about. And they learn that the Chamber has been opened previously, fifty years ago. Would the trio have considered anyone else as the Heir of Slytherin, both now and back then, if they weren’t so fixed on Draco? They see it as proof that Draco is the Heir of Slytherin because fifty years ago it would have been Lucius Malfoy and now it’s obviously Draco. But could they not have worked out the dates slightly more? It’s unlikely to be Lucius.
Noah: I don’t know, I feel like they don’t know many people.
Rosie: This is true. [laughs]
Noah: Going to Draco immediately was kind of… even though it was very spot on, the way that they got there was kind of juvenile.
Rosie: I’m just wondering if they’d kind of been blinded by this and if they weren’t so fixed on Draco, would they have ever started investigating seventh year Slytherins? Or even the new ones – first year Slytherins – as it’s only happening this year and not last year. There’s kind of a lot of things they don’t think about.
Caleb: I definitely think they’re a little too blinded by it, as they often are with many things.
Noah: [laughs] Yes.
Caleb: Once they get fixated on something.
Noah: I mean, given that it’s all about this heir that has come to Hogwarts and the fact that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened, that should have told them that a freshman was involved, or a first year, rather. So, maybe they would have started interrogating little kids.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: Though I don’t really see that in them.
Rosie: No. Okay.
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: So, talking about being fixated on something, Ron immediately asks, “I want to know how come nobody has noticed it,” meaning the monster, “is sneaking around the school?” So, how… we were talking about this earlier, but how does a giant basilisk fit into the pipes? Surely the walls aren’t thick enough to have a however-many-foot snake sliding along them. Also, there is a little Ron and Hermione moment leaning towards the later romance as this is the one question that Hermione answers herself with the word “pipes” written on the page later on.
Noah: It’s like they are speaking to each other across different worlds.
Rosie: It is.
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Noah: Maybe the snake was acting through Ginny. I will say it again: It’s kind of crazy, but how else is that snake slipping through without being seen? Then again, the fact that there is water on the floor means that the snake came out for a bit, right?
Rosie: Yeah. Where do most of these attacks take place? If they are all outside that bathroom, then it would be more obvious as it’s getting out through that particular pipe that they later go down. But if they are all on different floors then maybe it is only using bathrooms, and it has outlets that it can get through to go through corridors, and it just never happens to meet anyone apart from those that it petrifies.
Noah: That seems to be the idea that it’s connected through the bathrooms.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: But then again, why isn’t anyone seeing this? Especially if you’re sitting on that toilet at the unfortunate moment…
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: Yeah, that makes life really hard.
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Noah: I mean, can you imagine?
Caleb: I’d rather not!
Noah: [laughs] Okay.
[Caleb laughs]
Rosie: Maybe it’s one of those things where students tend to avoid public bathrooms, so they will use the ones in their houses but not necessarily the ones in the main corridors that everyone can use.
Noah: I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if the next year they’re a little bit more conscious about the school bathrooms.
Rosie: Okay, so we learn that Ginny has been distraught about what happened to Colin because she used to sit next to him in Charms, and obviously with our second reading of the books this allows us to know exactly why Ginny is so upset. And there are so many clues that we just don’t pick up on on the first read because we just assume that she’s young and afraid and quite upset about everything. But it’s got me wondering: Did she only write in the diary this time and only unleash the monster because of Dobby’s interference? She has written, “Dear Diary, Harry has been hurt in Quidditch. He’s in the hospital wing. Should I go and see him?” If Dobby hadn’t interfered, would she have ever gone into that diary to be brainwashed at this moment? How many of the attacks were caused by some other event that Ginny has felt the need to write about?
Caleb: Hmm.
Noah: Well, I think at this point she’s already taken part in some of these attacks, right? And does she know that she’s consciously taken part?
Rosie: I think later on we hear that she knows that it was her when she couldn’t remember what had happened, and she was covered in the red paint. So, I think that from that moment she’s more reticent to write. She doesn’t want to be as involved, and she is afraid. So yeah, she is aware that something is happening, and it probably involves her, but she doesn’t necessarily know that it’s the diary that’s causing it at this point, I guess.
Caleb: Well, going back to your original question, I think she’s just probably… I mean would be writing about almost anything at this point. It just seems like she’s putting everything into this diary.
Noah: “Her heart and soul,” one might say?
[Jon laughs]
Caleb: Right. So, if it wouldn’t have been about Harry getting hurt, poor little Ginny would have found something else to be aggrieved about and write about.
Rosie: I think that she would write mainly about Harry, though. I mean…
Caleb: Well, that’s true.
Rosie: Young girls who have crushes tend to write about them in their diaries quite a lot, and we hear Tom say that she’s written about Harry fairly often. So, to have him be hurt in this Quidditch match, it just seems like that’s kind of a trigger event that would make her write in the diary. To me, anyway.
Noah: No, that seems possible.
Caleb: You’re the resident expert on this, Rosie.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: I can’t say I wrote that much in a diary.
[Noah laughs]
Rosie: Moving on…
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Noah: Another thought, though, is, can you imagine Ginny’s torment, though? Being scared out of her wits by George and Fred around every corridor dressed up as monsters?
Rosie: Yeah. Poor Ginny.
Noah: She’s feeling bad, and then now that we’ve read it, we know how really bad she’s feeling.
Rosie: All she ever wanted to do in Philosopher’s Stone was to go to Hogwarts, and now when she’s actually there she’s being tormented all the time.
[Jon laughs]
Noah: She’s having a pretty bad time.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Geez, I wouldn’t go back. Over it.
Rosie: No. [laughs]
Noah: She kind of gets over it next year, as far as I can tell.
Caleb: Yeah, that’s true.
[Noah laughs]
Jon: Why does she go back?
Noah: It’s Hogwarts.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: It’s Hogwarts, and the…
Caleb: She doesn’t want to sit at home with her mom all day.
Rosie: No, yeah. [laughs]
Noah: Would you?
Jon: No.
Rosie: Perhaps it was a very specific thing that was happening, so once that’s solved then it’s safe again.
Jon: I would not want to go back after what happened.
[Rosie laughs]
Jon: If I were Ginny, I would not want to go back.
Noah: Back to Hogwarts?
Jon: Yeah, I would not.
Noah: All right…
Rosie: Well, we know that it does stay with her for a while because she talks about… what is it later on? Oh, it’s the potions book. She talks about not being able to… she talks about trusting a book when she shouldn’t have done.
Caleb: Oh, Advanced Potions Making. Yeah.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: In Half-Blood Prince. Yeah.
Noah: That’s true. But other than that, I don’t see many instances of psychological drama coming from this.
Rosie: No.
Caleb: No, I think if anything, it just… it eventually serves to strengthen her character.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: That’s right.
Rosie: I think it helps that she can’t remember anything while she was actually doing it. She just has these blackout moments rather than…
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: … being aware.
Noah: Right. I think we should try to watch her reactions, though, as we move through the books and see if anything harkens back to this instance, though.
Rosie: Yeah, and definitely look out for other attacks and what may have got her writing in the diary at that moment.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: But the attack has started a roaring trade in protective items around Hogwarts, and Jonathan, this is another one that you’ve posted. So, the quote is that, “Neville Longbottom bought a large, evil-smelling green onion, a pointed purple crystal, and a rotting newt tail before the other Gryffindor boys pointed out that he was in no danger; he was a pureblood, and therefore unlikely to be attacked.”
Jon: Well, I wasn’t sure about the evil-smelling green onion…
[Rosie laughs]
Jon: …but I did some research, and the purple crystal that they mentioned it could be a stone called fluorite. It’s believed to heal by releasing unwanted and negative energies, and it is used as a good luck charm. Or it could also be amethyst. It’s also a purple crystal that could be used by travelers for protection, and many cultures believed that putting the stone in their pocket would protect them while traveling, and brought emotional stability and inner strength which obviously Neville needs. So…
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Very true.
Noah: Good connection.
Caleb: Yeah, that’s awesome.
Rosie: I think it’s really interesting how she draws – how Jo draws – from actual superstition or magical theory, and juxtaposes it with other things like the evil-smelling green onion and a rotting newt tail. Whether it’s taking a dig at ideas of… a crystal is not going to help any more than an evil-smelling onion, or whether it is just putting down… these are people’s beliefs. I guess it’s no different than a rabbit’s foot either.
Jon: Yeah, that’s what I thought the newt’s tail was resembling.
Rosie: Yeah.
Jon: A rabbit’s foot.
Noah: It does kind of potentially put them down, though. I’m thinking back to the ghost nuns on the last episode or two episodes ago.
Rosie: Yeah. It’s interesting. But Neville turns around straight away and answers these boys by saying, “They went for Filch first. Everyone knows I’m almost a Squib,” so Neville… poor Neville is really afraid that he is actually… well, he kind of knows that he’s always the one that gets hurt. “Why is it always me?” [laughs] So, he is really afraid that he is next in line to be attacked.
Jon: Oh, I put that in. I just looked up the word “squib” and the idiom “a damp squib” came up, and… did you guys talk about that on the show?
Rosie: I don’t think we have talked about it.
Noah: No.
Rosie: But we should do now. [laughs]
Jon: Just the meaning of it. It’s used in British and Australian culture, and it means… you use it in a sentence when people think something is going to be exciting, and it turns out to be a disappointing. For example, “The party turned out to be a damp squib because half of the people who were invited didn’t turn up.” And then…
Rosie: Yeah.
Jon: …Kat at the bottom put, “A squib is an explosive, so a damp squib would not explode.” So, I don’t know…
Rosie: That one was actually me. [laughs]
Jon: …if you guys talked about that, but I thought I’d just add it.
Rosie: No, we haven’t talked about it before, but it is definitely interesting that… it’s actually one of the most misquoted things in the English langage, and it’s often misquoted as “a damp squid” with a D rather than a “squib” with a B. But yeah, the squib is a kind of explosive, and the term is actually still used for blood packs in movies. So, if you ever see someone being shot, and then they have a pooling of blood on their shirt, that’s actually a squib that’s been exploded.
Jon: Huh.
Rosie: And other kinds of explosives used in movie sets as well.
Jon: That’s cool.
Rosie: So yeah, a damp squib wouldn’t explode and wouldn’t be at all exciting. So, it’s quite interesting that that kind of idea is still present within the idea of magical worlds and the Squibs that can’t perform magic.
Noah: Yeah. I mean, the whole idea of producing magic as a young person is kind of explosive in nature because you just… everybody is waiting around this character to produce something, and in the case with Filch, I mean, he just… maybe he has the stuff, but it didn’t come out. Damp explosion.
Rosie: It would be interesting to hear more about Squibs on Pottermore, so again, please, Jo! [laughs]
Caleb: Yeah, no kidding. Maybe we’ll get something with these last few chapters. I was hoping that chapters would maybe come out before we recorded for the last Chamber of Secrets…
Noah: That would have been great.
Caleb: …but not yet. Not yet.
Rosie: Hopefully by next time.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: Yeah, we’ll have to do an analysis of the Pottermore content.
Rosie: Okay, so the trio decide that they are going to stay for Christmas because they hear that Draco is also staying over the holidays, which kind of struck me as odd. Why didn’t Draco want to go home? He seems to have a good family life back in his Malfoy Manor. He’s got his own little servant in the shape of Dobby. Why wouldn’t he want to go home for Christmas?
Jon: Well, I thought maybe because his parents didn’t want him to come back because their house was being searched.
Noah: It was, yeah.
Jon: I think they mentioned that.
Rosie: Oh, true. Yeah.
Jon: So, maybe they didn’t want him to come home because of that.
Noah: That might be loosely connected because we know that he tends to give away information anyway, especially if he’s very proud. We know what he said to… he’s going to end up telling Ron later where the secret dark stuff they actually hide… where it is.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: But yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s connected to that, but, again, it’s something that isn’t made clear.
Rosie: I was also wondering whether it could be that maybe Lucius has asked him to keep an eye on things. He wouldn’t have necessarily said that Ginny was the one controlling the monster, but he’s kind of his eyes inside Hogwarts to see what’s going on.
Noah: Ahh, good point.
Rosie: So, Lucius might want him there to keep an eye on any attacks that might happen over Christmas.
Noah: Good point.
Rosie: So, later we hear that Hermione needs to steal some supplies from Snape’s potions store for the Polyjuice Potion, and this is what I was talking about earlier. What has happened to Hermione? So far, she’s really changed from this anti-rule-breaking girl that we met last year. Instead she wants to steal, she says that she’ll be the one to do it, and the boys just need to make a distraction. Does she just really want to show off about this advanced potion so much that she wouldn’t mind stealing, or is she that invested in stopping the monster, or what do you guys think?
Noah: Well, just harkening back to our discussion before, I really think she’s coming out of a place of fear.
Rosie: It’s just there’s no real fear in her discussion here. I don’t think that she… there’s no description of her being afraid at this moment. I would have thought that even if she was afraid, she would still be afraid of being caught by Snape. It just… she seems to be so gung-ho about breaking into his store that she just doesn’t seem to care about anything else.
Caleb: Yeah, I think it’s just she’s so determined to get this done, and she knows this is the only place she can get the potion ingredients. She’s not going to take no for an answer because she didn’t take no for an answer from Harry and Ron, so she’s going to get it done, and she’s going to get it done herself.
Jon: Mhm.
Noah: I mean, she has this whole thing laid out. I mean, later in the chapter she drugs two cupcakes and tells Ron and Harry what to do with the bodies.
Rosie: [laughs] Yeah.
[Caleb and Noah laugh]
Caleb: Yeah. No is not an option for her right now. She will… the ends justify the means for her right now.
Rosie: Okay. So, to create this distraction, Harry lights a firework and kind of throws it into Goyle’s potion, which, going back to our potions discussion earlier, this one is a Swelling Solution. I mean, does this really sound like a real potion? Or is it just kind of a joke for this scene? It kind of seems like a useless idea. Why would you need a Swelling Solution?
Noah: Are there other instances in medicine where it helps to swell something?
Rosie: I don’t think so.
Jon: Well…
Caleb: I’m looking up to see where it was otherwise used, but no, doesn’t look like it’s been used in the series other than right now.
Jon: Why would you need to swell something?
Rosie: Exactly.
Noah: Maybe you’ve got to get some puss out or something… I don’t know.
[Jon laughs]
Caleb: Yeah, you have to get the inflammation gone and everything. I don’t know.
[Noah laughs]
Caleb: But either way, I love this scene because I’m just like, “Harry is a baller.” What a shot, [laughs] and then seeing it explode, and everyone’s got these huge body features going on. I thought it was pretty hilarious.
Noah: But the language is…
Rosie: And I think it is…
Noah: …”he lobs it.” What would he have done if it didn’t get into the cauldron?
Rosie: It would have exploded somewhere else, so it would have still been a distraction but not quite as hilarious.
Caleb: Maybe it would have blown someone’s arm off.
Noah: That would not have been fun.
[Caleb laughs]
Rosie: No. [laughs]
Noah: That would have been a big distraction.
Caleb: That would have been pretty funny.
Noah: You’d need Skele-Gro…
Rosie: But we now know Skele-Gro. [laughs] They would have been able to put it back.
Caleb: Exactly. Things are fine. Don’t even worry.
Noah: [laughs] Madam Pomfrey doesn’t ask questions.
Caleb: She doesn’t. She just gets the job done like a good nurse.
[Jon laughs]
Rosie: However, Snape does ask questions, and he immediately can…
[Caleb and Noah laugh]
Rosie: Once he’s solved the problems and given everyone else an antidote to make their swellings go down, he takes the firework out of the cauldron and says, “If I ever find out who threw this, I shall make sure that person is expelled,” and Snape is looking right at Harry at this moment.
Noah: Which is a great way to get people to come forward as well.
Rosie: Yeah. [laughs] But he never chases it up. I’m always kind of amazed that Snape makes all of these threats, and this is an actual… this is a moment where Harry is properly doing something wrong, not just Snape being mad about something that doesn’t really count. But it never actually gets chased up. He never even gets a detention for it.
Caleb: Yeah, because he’s totally using his mind reading skills right now, and he knows.
Jon: Do you think maybe he was… Dumbledore told him not to interfere with whatever Harry was doing? Do you think maybe Dumbledore knew what they were doing?
Caleb: Possibly.
Rosie: It would be interesting.
Caleb: Dumbledore… we’ve talked about this a lot, how Dumbledore just kind of knows everything that goes on.
Noah: Tends to follow them places.
Caleb: Yup.
Rosie: It does kind of beg the question: Does no one ever clean the toilets?
Caleb: [laughs] Oh, not this one because it’s out of order, and no one wants to mess with Myrtle, so…
Rosie: This is true.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: But it’s there for a whole month, and no one ever discovers it. It’s quite strange. Anyway, a week later the Dueling Club is announced, and it’s on a notice board, and it says that it will be… the first meeting of the club will be that night, and later that day they go down into the Great Hall and find a golden stage instead of the dining tables, and most of the school appear[s] to be there to watch. So, this dueling club is a real interesting thing to happen at Hogwarts. It doesn’t happen very often. And I think it’s Hermione that says that Flitwick was a dueling champion when he was young, and, again, this would be a really interesting story to read on Pottermore. Do you think we might get it when we get these chapters?
Caleb: I hope so. I would really like to hear about Flitwick’s… just overall his background but also this journey of being an awesome dueler.
Noah: Yeah. I mean, wasn’t he between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw?
Caleb: Yup. He was a Hatstall.
Noah: Yeah. I’m sure early in his youth, as a smaller person, he had to defend himself, and he grew, and I’m sure he has a great story.
Rosie: So, Harry says, “I don’t care who it is as long as it’s not -” and then, of course, it turns out to be Lockhart. Not only Lockhart, but Lockhart and Snape. Why would Snape help out instead of Flitwick if Flitwick is a dueling champion? Is it just a chance for Snape to take… to beat Gilderoy down and put him in his place?
Caleb: I think it’s partly that but also maybe, again, sort of Dumbledore wanting Snape to keep an eye on everything.
Noah: Yeah, I definitely agree with that.
Rosie: Then why would he use Snape and not McGonagall or someone? Surely she would be able to keep an eye on them as well.
Caleb: Because McGonagall has no time or patience to deal with Lockhart.
Rosie: That’s true. Okay. [laughs]
Caleb: And Snape probably, like you said in the beginning, would relish this opportunity to put Snape in his place – or put Lockhart in his place – while McGonagall is like, “Nuh-uh, I’m going to go read my books.”
Noah: Yup.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: Also, we know just Dumbledore has incredible faith in Snape to set things right, and he is an expert dueler, as we know, and in a way it sets up Snape to use the first combative spell in the series that will… that Harry will use.
Rosie: Of course. I read this somewhere else. I think it was either on the forums or the archives – or maybe even Twitter, I’m not entirely sure – but this wasn’t my point – I just wanted to point that out – that Snape is actually the first person to teach them Expelliarmus, Harry’s favourite spell, the one that will ultimately be the downfall of Voldemort so many times, and Snape is the one to teach them.
Caleb: That’s an awesome point. I never realized that, how profound that is. That’s great.
Rosie: It’s amazing.
Noah: It’s true. It’s kind of like Snape is handing it down, in a way.
Caleb: Man, I love Snape. He’s so great.
Rosie: [laughs] But if there was one thing… if his whole entire point in this book was to follow Lily’s son around and protect him, then to teach him Expelliarmus is that perfect moment, and it happens in this chapter. [laughs]
Caleb: Awesome.
Noah: Yup. And Rosie, I hope it’s okay, but there were a few more points in the chapter that I found that I was hoping we could touch on.
Rosie: Yeah, of course. Go ahead.
Noah: So, on page 192, there is a section where Draco and Harry start their duel, and Harry gets hit with a spell and he says that it felt like being “hit over the head with a saucepan.”
[Caleb and Noah laugh]
Noah: And remembering that, I was wondering, how does Harry know what it’s like to be hit with a saucepan?
Caleb: Because he’s abused.
[Everyone laughs]
Noah: Oh, wait a second. Child abuse! Petunia Dursley hit him over the head! [laughs] Or nearly did.
Caleb: Maybe a tie with her saucepan.
Noah: Yeah. So, I just wanted to bring this up as yet another… metaphoric language is always important, but when it comes through Harry’s consciousness we have to assume he has some association with saucepans to make this connection.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: I know.
Rosie: I’ve said before that I didn’t really believe that the Dursleys were that violent against him, but I think this is kind of the first proof that we’ve seen that maybe they actually were and we just didn’t see it.
Noah: Yeah.
Rosie: Poor Harry.
Noah: So, I just thought I’d bring it up. But you know what? He’s not dwelling on it, he’s just making the connections. [laughs]
Rosie: Yeah. [laughs]
Noah: And then we went into the duel, and you have Draco and Harry finally in front of the entire student body, and there’s a section on page 193 where Snape comes over “like a large and malevolent bat.” And I was wondering… I know before the seventh book came out, there were a lot of theories out there that Snape was an Animagus bat of some kind. But there are so many different connections to him as a bat in the series anyway, even if he might not actually be one. So, why do you think that metaphor exists? Why does Jo beat this through to us? Why is he bat-like?
Rosie: I think bats have just this association of being quite creepy. They’ve always… they’re a Halloween staple. They’re associated with vampires, they’re associated with creepy caves and nighttime obviously. Also, because Snape is quite a dark, looming figure, it kind of works with his capes and everything that… he sweeps around like a bat, so why not make a connection to it? It’s quite a good description of someone you want to be a dark, creepy character.
Noah: Right.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: And he’s got his big cloak. And I’m just thinking about the way that bats communicate with each other. It’s almost like… not Occlumency. What am I thinking of?
Rosie: Legilimency.
Noah: But something like that… Legilimens, they can sense each other’s thoughts, so it makes sense that he would have a special ability for that, maybe due to this connection. And doesn’t he, in the seventh book, jump out of the castle like a bat?
Rosie: Yeah, he jumps out through the window.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: Whether that’s in the book or not. It’s definitely in the movie, but yeah.
Caleb: Right.
Jon: I wonder why she didn’t make him a bat? Because I think that would be really cool. She should have made him one.
Noah: Maybe she didn’t want to overuse the…
Jon: Animagus?
Rosie: Illegal Animagus, yeah.
Noah: Form, yeah.
Caleb: Yeah, he’s already got Legilimecy and Occlumency is a pretty difficult gift to grasp, so I think she wanted to make sure it wasn’t too unbelievable.
Rosie: Maybe before he fell in love with Lily… well, he fell in love with her quite early, but maybe if he hadn’t fallen in love with Lily, his Patronus would have been a bat.
Caleb: Yeah.
Jon: Oh.
Caleb: Well, I mean, it’s a doe because… oh, I see what you’re… right, I got you.
Rosie: It’s a doe because of Lily. [laughs]
Caleb: Right. Yeah, probably so. That would make sense.
Noah: I agree, of course. I mean, we really can’t know what it would be before the doe, but because all of these connections it makes sense.
Caleb: Mhm.
Noah: So, then Harry and Draco continue to fight. He uses Serpensortia and the snake comes out and begins to attack Justin Finch-Fletchley. And then Harry, of course, calls it back using his Parseltongue. But now I’m just thinking back to the fact that after it all happens, he talks to Ron about how he had freed the boa constrictor from its constraints at the zoo. And totally getting away from the Parselmouth questions, if you guys want to talk about that, Harry frees that snake from captivity. Is Harry some kind of environmentalist?
[Caleb groans]
Noah: As far as Voldemort is attacking pets, he has this history. Is Harry for animals?
Caleb: No.
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: The answer is no. [laughs]
Noah: Okay. I kind of in part just wanted to throw it in there because of the fact that I have been associated with the environmentalist trend.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: I don’t even know how that happens.
Rosie: He keeps Hedwig in a cage.
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: No, I like animals and I like the environment, but I’m definitely not as supportive of it as I am…
Caleb: You’re going to start getting emails…
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: …from environmentalist groups wanting you to come speak at their events.
[Jon laughs]
Noah: And Harry Potter?
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: I would do it. [laughs]
Caleb: Use your knowledge and your fierce defense of the animal rights campaign.
Noah: Somebody friended me on Facebook from Greenpeace or something like that.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Noah: But yeah. Rosie, any other thoughts on this part of the chapter towards the end?
Rosie: Not really. Just the whole Parselmouth thing and the fact that how do you not realize that you’re hissing rather than speaking? Surely, I mean…
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: …when you speak you hear your words. So, is it like… I don’t know. Do you guys watch Doctor Who at all? It’s the kind of TARDIS translation matrix that you think you’re saying one thing when in fact you’re actually saying something else.
Jon: I watch Doctor Who. [laughs]
Rosie: Good. [laughs]
Noah: I have not. I hear it is a great show. A lot of Harry Potter fans like it.
Rosie: Yeah. So, hopefully at least most of our listeners will know about it. It’s all right. [laughs]
Noah: They’ll make that connection? Yeah, it’s just really fascinating. And then towards the end of the chapter Harry is really upset about everything, the fact that the school is now viewing him as the Heir of Slytherin, and he hears a little voice in his head telling him about how “Didn’t the Sorting Hat nearly put you in Slytherin?” At first I took that little voice to be just Harry’s angry at himself and that little voice is just his own consciousness, but is Harry actually hearing voices? I know it’s a stretch, but there’s another scene that I was thinking of in Half-Blood Prince where Harry keeps talking about the monster inside of him in regards to his love for Ginny. So, he’s got all this stuff inside of him. Is Harry actually crazy? Does he hear voices in his head?
[Jon and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: Well, not necessarily the monster thing but maybe could it be the Horcrux in his head as well?
Jon: That’s what I was thinking.
Caleb: Yeah, definitely possible.
Noah: Ooh, I didn’t even consider that, but that is an excellent connection.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: And that would make total sense because you know that the Horcrux… the locket, at least, does that. It makes him think negative thoughts.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: So, this one actually being inside him can become a little voice. Wow.
Rosie: Highlighting all of his negative moments.
Noah: Yeah. I feel like this repeats, so I’m going to keep looking for this little voice. Maybe it’s the Horcrux inside his head speaking.
Rosie: Interesting.
Noah: All right, so now, Chapter 12: “The Polyjuice Potion.” And I was really excited about this because we’ve been talking about potions so much, it just makes sense that we should get into the proper form of it. So… oh, we didn’t talk about the end of the last chapter, what happens, which is that Harry has an unfortunate run-in with the Hufflepuffs who believe he is the Heir of Slytherin. He actually is hiding in the Invisibility Section of the library, which I thought was pretty funny.
Caleb: Yeah, it was really clever.
Noah: Yeah. [laughs] As Ernie Macmillan and these other Hufflepuffs plot about how he is definitely the Heir of Slytherin because…
Caleb: Yeah, Ernie is a d-bag here.
[Jon and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: He’s really annoying.
Noah: He is. He’s not properly representing Hufflepuff.
Caleb: Exactly. This is why I didn’t like Hufflepuff for a long time. We have all these idiots saying the dumb things, so…
Noah: Yeah, but then again I see him still coming out of concern for Justin. I just… you’re right, though. This is where we first get our Hufflepuff view and that kind of gives us a prejudice throughout the series.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: But anyway, Harry, flustered, runs out from behind the books and just kind of accosts them. And the Hufflepuffs are just like… [laughs]
Caleb: “Oh no, he’s going to kill us all!” [laughs]
Noah: [laughs] Yeah. And Ernie just kind of steps up and he’s just like, “You can trace my family lineage back to…”
[Caleb laughs]
Noah: …ages of pureblood.” “I don’t care about your blood status. I just want to see Justin.” [laughs] And then they try to block him and say, “You’re not going to see him,” but then, of course, he runs off and he does find Justin [laughs] in a very unfortunate circumstance between… he’s petrified and so is Nearly Headless Nick.
Caleb: Yup.
Noah: And then Peeves just comes – terrible, terrible timing – and just alerts the entire school and they find Harry there. And again, we get these characters like Ginny before who was so upset and then Fred and George scaring her. We have Harry in this terrible situation that gets even worse and worse. So, I just thought the way that Jo manipulates drama, it was just classic.
Rosie: Yes, exactly.
Caleb: Yeah.
Jon: Can I read Peeves’s little song? I just thought it was really funny.
Noah: Yeah.
Jon: [laughs] Okay. “Oh Potter, you rotter, oh what have you done? You’re killing off students, you think it’s good fun.” I just think… I think they really missed out on not including Peeves in the movies.
Rosie: Mhm.
Jon: I think that would have been a good addition to the movies.
Rosie: Especially seeing he was cast in the first one and they filmed some things…
Jon: Yeah, yeah.
Rosie: …and they just never put them in.
Jon: I know.
Rosie: I mean, Rik Mayall would have been amazing and it’s such a shame that that character is lost from all the movies.
Jon: Mhm.
Noah: I know. I see it, though. He’s kind of this… in a way he is just reiterating stuff that we can already get…
Rosie Yeah.
Noah: …from the main characters. And they probably would have had to spend a lot of money making him.
Rosie Well, just consider him a book extra for fans.
[Jon and Rosie laugh]
Noah: He sure is, but he pops up in these certainly chaotic moments.
Rosie Yeah.
Noah: Just real quick, what do you think of Nearly Headless Nick being able to be petrified? That seems incredible to me.
Caleb: Yeah. Did we briefly talk about this last episode?
Noah: We did, yeah.
Caleb: Yeah, there were a lot of comments in the forums that I was reading through. Some people were suggesting it just works because Myrtle is able to splash water on them, just like sort of… oh, I guess this was more about the Mandrakes working on the ghosts, not about the ghosts actually being petrified.
Jon: Yeah, you guys talked about them being petrified and how they gave them the Mandrake solution.
Noah: Well, I think… it’s really kind of funny, actually, because at the end of Chapter 11 the students become horrified by the fact that not only are the living endangered, but also are the dead.
Caleb: Yeah. Because what kind of monster could be able to do that? It must be pretty horrible.
Rosie: No one is safe.
Noah: It’s kind of ridiculous, too. It’s crazy, just the idea that something could be so powerful that it taps into both worlds, that your own soul isn’t safe. It reminded me of the Dementors and the fact that they can steal your soul so that not only is… your normal life, you die but also your afterlife is just non-existent because you’re absorbed. So, that seems to be the most horrible thing in the series, is when something can touch you in death.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: But anyway, moving on to Chapter 12: “The Polyjuice Potion.” It begins right off the bat with Harry being escorted by Professor McGonagall to Dumbledore’s office because he was discovered at the scene of the crime.
Rosie: Again.
Noah: [laughs] Yeah. Very unfortunately. And he just has to speak to Dumbledore. So, he gets in… this is the first time we’re in Dumbledore’s office and he loves the fact that there are sounds everywhere, there are the silver instruments. It’s the most interesting office he’s ever seen, he pretty much says. And then he finds the Sorting Hat, and he just kind of boldly goes over because he’s worried about this, about if he is the Heir of Slytherin or if he is connected to it. He puts it on and he has a conversation with the Hat. And the Hat basically reiterates, “Yes, you would have done well in Slytherin.” But… and then it falls limp in his hands. But now I’m wondering, could he have had a longer conversation with the Hat about maybe the weather? [laughs] Or does the Hat maybe… it can only talk within a constraint of Sorting stuff?
Jon: I think he could actually have a conversation with him for a long time. I think it’s almost like the portraits, how you can talk to the portraits.
Noah: Yeah.
Jon: The portraits can have conversations with you, so I don’t know why the Hat wouldn’t be able to. So, I think he would.
Noah: Well, I think we’ve talked about the fact that the Hat is actually a manifestation of the founders’ brains…
Jon: Mhm.
Noah: …as it says. So, it almost has more of a physical conscience than the portraits do because they’re almost like programs. I think we’ve talked about this. So, they can only talk about certain stuff.
Rosie: And we know that the Hat is aware as well. When it’s creating its songs, it talks about what’s going on in the outside world as well. So, it listens when Dumbledore is talking in his office.
Noah: Yeah.
Rosie: So yeah, I think Harry would definitely have been able to have a longer conversation with the Hat.
Noah: Yeah, and we know of course that it gets all its knowledge from basically sitting on everyone’s heads. I don’t think it reads the newspaper.
Rosie: No. [laughs]
Noah: Or maybe Dumbledore talks to it in private. But basically what the Hat said about Harry being in Slytherin brought up… I kind of want to talk about the old question again. Was Harry potentially in Slytherin because the Hat sensed Voldemort’s soul in him – it didn’t really know what to make of it – or because of Harry’s natural character, he would have done well in Slytherin?
Caleb: I still very much think it’s detecting Voldemort’s soul in Harry.
Noah: You don’t think he’s crafty?
Rosie: I still think that… I think he could have done well in Slytherin, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he would have been evil if he had been in Slytherin. But Harry is so much a part of his friendships and his relationships with everyone in Gryffindor that if Harry had been in Slytherin, he would have been a very different person.
Noah: What do you think, Jon? As a Slytherin?
Jon: Does Voldemort’s… well, hold on. Does Voldemort’s soul give him Slytherin qualities, or does he just naturally have it?
Noah: Well, I remember a line. I don’t know if it’s necessarily from the movie. I might be just quoting movie canon, but maybe it’s in the book as well. At the end of Chamber of Secrets, doesn’t Dumbledore say, “You have a lot of qualities like Lord Voldemort: a certain disregard for the school rules, cunning, and quickness”?
Rosie: Yeah, I think that’s definitely in the book.
Jon: Okay, so…
Rosie: So, the links are always meant to be there.
Jon: So yeah, I think he definitely has Slytherin qualities. I think he would have done well in Slytherin if he was picked, and if the Hat wasn’t detecting Voldemort’s soul.
Noah: Right. And if he had friends… if he had better friend relationships in Slytherin, it’s possible he would have gone there because it seems like the whole reason he went for Gryffindor was because he had this good relationship with Ron and a bad one with Draco going in.
Rosie: Yeah. He’s been warned against Slytherin House, so maybe if he had gone to Hogwarts and not known anything – even though his knowledge is very limited – if he hadn’t known anything, maybe he would have still gone and chosen Slytherin.
Noah: Yeah, I agree. And I think the ethical questions of this book – kind of, choice over nature – is stronger if we consider Harry like Voldemort because then we know that “it’s really our choices, Harry, that make us who we are.” But if his nature is inherently better for Gryffindor, then we can’t make that argument as much because then we can say, oh, his choice was informed by a better nature.
Rosie: Mhm.
Noah: Anyway, going on to something else, he’s kind of waiting around in the office and he sees Fawkes for the first time, a decrepit-looking bird. And he starts to think, “Oh, the worst thing that could possibly happen would be for the bird to just die while I’m here.” And then it does.
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Noah: It bursts into flames, in fact, which is pretty terrible. And Harry is just trying… he’s looking for some water to do something to save it.
Caleb: [laughs] I think it’s so funny that he looks for some water, like that’s going to solve the problem.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Noah: Oh, yeah. And then Dumbledore walks in – perfect timing – and Harry is just… at this point he’s devastated, there’s nothing he can do. But then Dumbledore comes in and pretty much solves the riddle and says, “Oh, you’ve seen him on a Burning Day.” And then Fawkes beautifully rises from the ashes.
Rosie: But at the same time, Harry’s wand has a phoenix feather in it. Surely he would know what a phoenix is and that they occasionally burst into flame. Surely he should have known and not been too worried about what was going on.
Noah: Would he, though? I guess not.
Rosie: Well, I knew what a phoenix was before I read Harry Potter and I would have known that. [laughs]
Noah: Well, if Harry had known, he probably would have been less horrified.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: But how do you think that life works with the phoenix once it dies? Is it the same phoenix that just… does it keep the memories of the past life? Or does it restart each one with a new memory, a new being? And then if Fawkes is such a loyal creature to Dumbledore, does Dumbledore have to consistently get the bird’s loyalty? Or does it have a… does it remember Dumbledore from past lives?
Rosie: I think it would remember.
Jon: Yeah, I think too.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: Kind of general accepted phoenix lore, I guess, has always depicted a phoenix as having a continuous life. So, it may be reborn, but it’s still the same phoenix and it still has the same knowledge and personality and everything that it had before.
Caleb: Yeah, it’s just kind of part of its individual life cycle…
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: …but it’s still the same Fawkes and everything.
Noah: That’s cool. It’s kind of a technical question, and I’m sure it might even be in [Fantastic] Beasts and Where to Find Them, but…
Rosie: Yeah, maybe.
Noah: Yeah, I just wasn’t sure.
Caleb: I don’t think it addressed that in Fantastic Beasts, but…
Noah: No. Then after Harry goes to Dumbledore’s office, and he tells Dumbledore pretty famously… well, actually, Dumbledore asks him, “Do you have anything to tell me?” “No, professor. Nothing at all.” And then he goes to bed that night and he wakes up the next morning, and Hermione actually wakes them up. And I just thought this was so unfair. Girls can go in boys’ dormitories, but boys can’t go in the girls’ ones?
[Jon and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Yeah, no kidding. What’s up with that?
[Noah laughs]
Rosie: We’re just more trustworthy. [laughs]
Caleb: Well, that’s probably fair.
Noah: Oh, it’s completely fair, and I definitely get it, but it just has certain implications because it just kind of sets up this standard that girls are more mature than boys. And that’s just… that seems to be the case at Hogwarts, or that at least seems to be what’s being propagated. And what about boys who are just scared of girls?
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: They can come in at any moment.
Rosie: Well, my experience in an English primary school was that the boys loved trying to push other boys into girls’ changing rooms, whereas the girls would be perfectly happy to stay away as far as they could from the boys.
[Caleb and Noah laugh]
Rosie: So there’s that whole thing there, which is actually coming from truth, so…
Noah: Yeah, that makes sense. I wouldn’t trust guys. But doesn’t Ron or someone try to get into the girls’ dormitory at one point…
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: …and the stairs just become a slide?
Rosie: A slide, yeah.
Caleb: Yeah, the Glisseo Spell. Yeah.
Noah: That’s really cool. I can’t wait for that. But anyway, this sends up dissent to create a gender hierarchy, and I don’t know how I feel about it. But, nonetheless, it’s there. Hedwig swoops in with a gift for Harry, and Harry is just like, “Oh, you forgive me now?” And I was just thinking, Hedwig, get over yourself. It’s been months. Harry couldn’t control what happened.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: She has a lot of attitude.
Caleb: She’s a drama queen.
Noah: She is. And she has in her beak a gift from the Dursleys, who I guess were instructed by Dumbledore to give a Christmas gift because I don’t see why they would otherwise.
Caleb: Right.
Noah: And I believe it’s just a toothpick and a note asking Harry if he could figure out if he could just stay for the summer vacation as well.
Caleb: Which I’m sure he would be happy to do, but…
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: Yeah. So would have Voldemort.
Caleb: Right.
Rosie: That’s another connection they have.
Caleb: Mhm.
Noah: But, back to my questions, at what point did the Muggle post cross over to the owl post?
Caleb: Hmm.
Noah: Does Hedwig pick this up at the Muggle post office that’s closest to Hogwarts, if they are in fact addressing it to Hogwarts? Which is probably a weird experience.
Caleb: Or do you think Hedwig… well, I guess the Dursleys would not really welcome Hedwig, so… [laughs]
Rosie: I always assumed that that was why they actually got a present, though, was that Hedwig had gone to Privet Drive, and in order for the Dursleys to seem inconspicuous, they would have tried to get rid of her as soon as possible so they gave her what they got nearest.
Caleb: Yeah, just give her something. Right, that makes sense.
Noah: That seems most likely.
Rosie: But I think… doesn’t Hogsmeade have a post office that would… you could address something to Hogsmeade post office through Muggle post, maybe, or to the nearest post office and then it kind of gets transferred over there.
Noah: Is that true?
Caleb: It seems like they would need some system set up for that.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: Because Hogsmeade is a wizard and Muggle village? Or…
Rosie: Yeah. No, Hogsmeade is meant to be the only pure wizard village, isn’t it? So, maybe it would go from – I don’t know – maybe Diagon Alley or something in London. Maybe there’s some kind of base. There will be some kind of Muggle/wizard sorting office somewhere. [laughs]
Caleb: Right.
Noah: Or maybe there’s a wizard working in every Muggle post office…
Jon: Yeah.
Noah: …and they can just tell when it’s…
Caleb: Oh my God.
Jon: I was just about to say that.
Caleb: It’s like in Men in Black where they have aliens working in all of the post offices.
[Rosie laughs]
Jon: Yeah.
Noah: Right behind the scenes.
Caleb: [laughs] Yeah.
Noah: Except you have owls in little mail hats just telling off the other owls to work faster.
[Everyone laughs]
Noah: Oh, man. So, after this morning, they go over to the Christmas feast and it’s just beautiful. Hagrid is, once again, drinking a little bit too much than he should. [laughs] Getting a little bit merrier and merrier every goblet he drinks. I believe the line is, “Draco is very happy with the gift he has at his table.” Just trying to be rude. But Harry, Hermione, and Ron aren’t listening. They’re focused on the plan. And Hermione basically gives Ron and Harry two cupcakes, which she’s filled with Sleeping Potion, and just tells them to leave them for Crabbe and Goyle and just take their shoes after they’ve fallen off… or I don’t know if she said specifically to take the shoes, but basically lays out the plan for them. And they’re just stunned because they didn’t realize how much she had thought it through and that there were still so many things that could go wrong with it. But Hermione is pretty clear-headed throughout the whole thing.
Caleb: Mhm.
Noah: But the fact of the matter is she did drug these cupcakes and did tell them to basically take Crabbe and Goyle out, take a bit of their hair, and just stuff them in the closet.
Rosie: Yeah. What has happened to Hermione? [laughs]
Noah: What’s going on with her?
Caleb: I love it. I mean…
[Noah laughs]
Rosie: Such a bad influence. [laughs]
Caleb: Exactly.
Noah: Mhm.
Caleb: She gets it done though.
Rosie: She does.
Caleb: That’s kind of the irony, right? That she does the whole planning. She does everything. She gets the ingredients. She works it all out. She does the potion. She sets up how to get rid of Crabbe and Goyle. And she’s the only one it doesn’t end up working correctly on.
[Jon laughs]
Rosie: Mhm.
Caleb: She does all the work, but it’s Harry and Ron are the only ones that end up going to… I mean, we’ll talk about that next episode, but…
Noah: I didn’t think about it until you kind of started talking about it, Caleb, but I feel like if Kat was here, she would be going… she would be talking about how this is kind of setting up the gender stereotype of women know how to get stuff done, but sometimes the guys just kind of mosey along and get stuff done for them.
Caleb: Yeah. I mean, that’s definitely a point to be made.
Noah: That seems to at least be the effect with Ron and Harry. They just kind of… even though they end up infiltrating Slytherin house, for the most part they just kind of leave it up to Hermione and she gets it done.
Caleb: Right. But then again, there’s obviously a point in Prisoner of Azkaban where Ron is the one that’s stuck in the hospital wing, and it’s Harry and Hermione that go off and handle it.
Rosie: They each have their moments throughout the series.
Caleb: Right.
Noah: That’s true.
Rosie: And they also each have their failures throughout the series, so…
Noah: Yeah, but Hermione has really gone through a transition through these books. In the first book…
Caleb: Definitely.
Noah: …she feels like no one likes her. In the second, she’s really taking initiative with things. And we know in the third, she’s going to go through major changes, might even get a little angry [laughs] towards the end.
Rosie: Mhm.
Noah: But in any case, Ron and Harry follow along with her plan. Hermione heads up to the bathroom to put in some of the last lacewing flies to get the potion ready. But everything goes to plan. Harry and Ron successfully knock out Crabbe and Goyle, take some of their hairs, take their shoes, put them in the closet. It’s interesting that they didn’t think to take Crabbe and Goyle’s robes as well. And yet, they didn’t know that Hermione was going to take them. But it would have been a pretty awkward situation if they had to consider taking all their clothes.
Caleb: Right.
Noah: So, luckily we didn’t get any of that. Hermione just happened to have some old Slytherin robes in the bathroom.
Caleb: [laughs] How convenient.
Noah: Which I thought was very convenient. I think we can say about this whole chapter, there were many little convenient things. Like the Swelling Potion…
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: …that just kind of helped the narrative along, let’s say.
Caleb: Right.
Noah: But anyway, they get in there and they brew the Polyjuice. They put a little bit of each of the hairs that they find in each other’s glasses. We know it’s not going to work out so well with Hermione. But then the Polyjuice changes color every time a certain bit of essence goes in, and I can only assume that’s based on the character of the person. So, I wanted to ask all of you, what color would your Polyjuice turn into?
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: I think mine would be a shiny, cool blue.
Caleb: Hmm.
Rosie: I have no idea. [laughs]
Jon: Yeah, neither do I. [laughs]
Noah: It’s got to be… maybe it’s your favorite color. It’s a color that best matches your essence, I would suppose.
Jon: My favorite color is green, but I don’t know whether that would be too good.
Rosie: I guess mine would be purple, looking around my room and seeing how much purple is around here. [laughs] So, I don’t know.
Caleb: I don’t really have a favorite color, so…
Noah: I see you as red or orange. Maybe just because you have an orange icon on my Skype. But that really works for you.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: I think like a darkish… yeah, darkish red or orange. Yeah.
Noah: Well, in any case, Crabbe and Goyle’s, one is colored like a booger and the other one is a dark murky brown, so…
Caleb: Ugly!
Noah: Yeah. So, if we didn’t know that they were ugly enough on the outside, JK Rowling has confirmed that they are also ugly on the inside.
[Caleb and Jon laugh]
Noah: Which is really stereotyping Slytherins here.
Caleb: Right.
Noah: But this is yet again another way that she kind of builds that prejudice in the reader of hating Slytherins because they are rotten to the core, as you can see by their Polyjuice Potions. In any case, they each drink their potion – they go into separate stalls, of course, because they realize, “If we’re in the same stall, it’s going to get really crowded in here because Milicent Bulstrode is no pixie,” [laughs] I think the line is.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: But then they change, and their entire body changes except for… even their vocal chords change, so it’s got to be the only thing that remains constant is their brain or maybe their spiritual essence. But it’s really just so fascinating because I assume with all potions… this one was created over time, figuring out everything getting changed but your brain. So, what do you guys think of that, of the spirit continuing? Does the fact that taking this potion not changing some essential spirit speak to some sort of spiritual belief of the series or some sort of spiritual truth?
Rosie: I don’t think so. I think it’s just that it changes your appearance and your vocal chords would change accordingly because if your throat and your chest area expands then so would your vocal chords. I think it’s just… yeah, it’s physical changes based on appearance rather than mind and personality.
Noah: It’s just… I say it like this because it sounds like your insides change, so I can only assume that Harry’s brain changes size to the size of Crabbe’s brain, right? So, shouldn’t he be thinking differently? Or is there some sort of spirit that remains that is not physical?
Rosie: I don’t know…
Noah: It’s not an easy question.
Rosie: [laughs] I don’t think the brain would change.
Noah: You think the brain would be the thing that remains.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: That’s also possible. And then I’m thinking whoever brewed this potion went through many, many different trials in which only the brain was left unchanged.
Caleb: Hmm.
Rosie: Do you think that they could have made a cloning potion then, where you would take this potion and become the other person?
Noah: I don’t see why not. It seems like all it would take would be changing of the brain chemistry. Or to match everything, you know?
Rosie: But presumedly that would wear off after time as well. So yeah, weird.
Noah: Right.
Rosie: Magic is a complex thing.
Noah: It’s all science. We pretty much just figured out science, Rosie. [laughs]
Rosie: Yeah. [laughs]
Noah: Maybe not. But anyway, so they transform into their respective people. Hermione does not come out of her stall for some reason, but Harry and Ron are just, “Okay, we’ll go on ahead of you.” So, they try in vain to find the Slytherin common room. They head over towards the dungeons, and they see a Ravenclaw come up and just ask her, “Oh, do you know where the Slytherin common room is?” But she’s a Ravenclaw and I feel like they should have noticed that, too.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: Yet they didn’t. But then we see Percy down there, so I’m willing to… wait, that’s weird. We know that the Ravenclaw Tower is somewhere completely up, it’s higher up in the castle, right? Or is it near the dungeons?
Caleb: The Ravenclaw common room? It’s in a tower.
Noah: It’s in a tower.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: Okay. Because I was seeing that Ravenclaw student come up, and my thoughts immediately went to Penelope Clearwater. I was wondering if the fact that Percy was down in the dungeons was because he was with Penelope, not quite why… not that he was actually looking for the heir of Slytherin, which is what Draco says he was doing.
Caleb: They’re being sneaky in the dungeons, is that what you’re trying to say?
Noah: Yes.
[Rosie laughs]
Jon: Who does Percy end up with? Who does he…
Caleb: Probably someone boring.
Noah: But isn’t he hooking up with Penelope Clearwater all throughout this book? I feel like we heard that.
Rosie: Yeah. I don’t know if he ends up with her, though.
Noah: That might be why he’s sneaking around.
Rosie: I always assumed… are they actually down in the dungeons by this point? I always assumed that the Ravenclaw was just coming up from the feast.
Noah: Well, she was coming out of the dungeon, and then they went down in.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: Okay.
Noah: But anyway, if Ravenclaw Tower is somewhere else, then maybe I’m wrong. Or maybe Jo hadn’t fleshed out where Ravenclaw Tower was yet, and I’m right.
Caleb: To answer your question though, Jon, the chick that Percy ends up marrying’s name is Audrey.
Jon: Oh. [laughs] Wow.
Caleb: So, just some random character we never know anything about.
Rosie: So, it’s not true love from this point.
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Sadly, no.
Noah: So, they finally manage to get in the Slytherin common room thanks to Draco. The password happens to be pureblood. Very timely, given the fact that students are being attacked all over the school, so I wonder who makes up the passwords because if it is indeed the Head of House, such as Snape, he’s really not being considerate at all…
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: …to what’s going on.
Caleb: It would make sense for it to be the Head of House.
Rosie: I thought it was the prefects.
Caleb: I thought the prefects issued the passwords to the students, but does it ever actually say the prefects do?
Rosie: Well, I thought when the password changes to Mimbulus Mimbletonia for Neville, it’s because Ron and Hermione are the prefects and they’re being nice to him.
Caleb: Hmm.
Noah: Hmm.
Rosie: I might be wrong. I don’t know.
Noah: Well, if it is indeed the Head of House, then we might have to reconsider what we think about Snape because it seems particularly un-Snape-ish.
Rosie: He is still a Slytherin and he still did fall in with that crowd, so you have to… but then he is half-blood, so I don’t know. I always assumed it was the prefects.
Noah: We can see from that one word, though, that basically where the Slytherin house aligns themselves with this whole tragedy.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: So, how could Harry have done well in Slytherin? It just doesn’t seem to make sense. But anyway, they get in the house – or the common room, rather – and Draco begins to go on and on about how there was an issue at the Ministry with Ron’s dad and hands the newspaper to Ron and then Harry. And then we quickly learn that Draco actually isn’t involved, but that Lucius Malfoy has been hiding Dark stuff in his house and Ron was going to use this information to help. But then they’re slowly transforming faster than they realize because it took them so long to find the common room, and then they run out in a flash. Presumably Draco never realizes, though. Though Harry and Ron hear Crabbe and Goyle banging on the door as they run up, so they’re clearly trapped. I hope they figure out how to get out, even though they’re not really the smartest. But then they come upon… back to the bathroom, they come upon Hermione as a cat because Millicent Bulstrode loves cats, and the transformation went horribly wrong. And they’re going to decide to go to Madam Pomfrey, who luckily doesn’t ask enough questions.
[Jon and Rosie laugh]
Noah: Any thoughts on that end to the chapter? Did anything in the Slytherin common room strike you guys?
Caleb: Not really.
Jon: I like how it’s under the lake, though.
Rosie: Yeah, it’s kind of exactly what I expected it to be. So, it’s really good.
Caleb: Yeah, same. Very cold and…
Noah: It’s kind of the opposite of the Hufflepuff common room, which is also underground but it’s got warm colors…
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: …and lots of fluff, and this one seems very bare.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: I think the difference is meant to be the Slytherin one is kind of like a vault. It’s like a dungeon… well, it is a dungeon, but it’s meant to be castle and meant to be very cold and not a nice place, whereas the Hufflepuff one is meant to be more like a badger’s set, so it’s a warm, earthy place.
Caleb: Well, also think about the way Rowling is writing. She’s casting Gryffindor and Slytherin against one another and especially here with… obviously, Harry representing Gryffindor, and Slytherin is submerged. It’s beneath the castle. It’s underneath. And she puts Gryffindor in a very high place…
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: …up above the castle. There’s a lot of… where she chooses those common rooms, I think, is very intentional.
Rosie: Mhm.
Noah: Well, it kind of makes Gryffindor mirror Ravenclaw a little bit, to the intelligence thing I was talking about before. We get these two different intelligences, wit versus instinct, raised above. And Hufflepuff and Slytherin seem to be below because… I’m not really sure why they’re there, but maybe just because their houses aren’t necessarily rooted in a kind of intelligence, but in kind of a way of being, maybe.
Caleb: Hmm. Yeah.
Noah: I can’t… I don’t know exactly what the connection between those two is, to follow through with that theory.
Rosie: I think it’s just more like it’s four points on a square. There’s two up high and two down low just because that’s…
Caleb: The way it is.
Rosie: …neater.
Noah: Symmetrical. All right, so there ends our chapter discussion for this week. It’s a pretty hefty discussion, we have a lot of content. So, if anything interested you of either those chapter discussions, head over to the forums and we’ll read your comments on the next episode.
[“What If?” intro begins]
Announcer: What If?
Harry: But, Professor Dumbledore, what if the Sorting Hat had put me in Slytherin?
Dumbledore: It is our choices, Harry, that show who we truly are.
[“What If?” intro ends]
Caleb: So, we’re going to go ahead and move into our special feature for this week. So, this is where we take a look at a couple of questions – and we’ll eventually throw it out to you guys – think about what if something would have gone a little differently than the way it actually did in the book. So, the first What If? question that we’re taking a look at is, what if Harry was indeed the heir to Slytherin and he just didn’t know it? What would that have meant for the story as a whole? Other things that go along with the possibility of Harry being that Heir of Slytherin. So, the first thing I was thinking of is, how would this have first changed Riddle’s dynamic and the way he was going about doing things? Because, obviously, Riddle is the Heir of Slytherin and not Harry, so if indeed Harry would have been the Heir of Slytherin, how would that have changed what Riddle was doing, the way he would have done it? Would he have wanted Harry to join him even more? What do you guys think?
Rosie: Well, if you think about it, technically Harry is the Heir of Slytherin because he’s got a part of Riddle in him.
Caleb: Well, that’s very true.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: I’ve never thought about it that way.
Noah: That’s awesome. They’re both the heir.
Rosie: Yeah. But Riddle obviously… we’ve talked about whether the Horcruxes can sense each other before, but at this point, obviously, they don’t, and Riddle would never have planned to have the extra Horcrux within Harry. So, I think that’s obviously why that dynamic hasn’t changed. But yeah, if Riddle knew Harry himself was evil and the Heir of Slytherin in the same way that Draco was kind of seeking him out at the beginning and wanting to seek out the higher power, yeah, I think he would have been more interested in getting Harry to join him.
Caleb: Mhm.
Noah: Don’t you think the Heir of Slytherin also refers not only to being in the line of Salazar Slytherin but also having his beliefs?
Caleb: Right.
Rosie: Yeah.
Jon: I don’t think Harry would have his beliefs, though, because I just don’t think that’s Harry’s character. I don’t…
Rosie: No.
Caleb: That was one of my questions, is if he would have, and Harry would have eventually found out that he was the Heir of Slytherin. Would it have made him go back and want to find out more about Salazar Slytherin? And then in doing so, read more about Salazar’s ideas, his dogmas, and maybe that would have led him to soften a little bit to Salazar’s ideas.
Noah: I don’t really see Harry as doing that because I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like to read.
[Everyone laughs]
Noah: I don’t even know if he knows how. He might, but…
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: I’m pretty sure he knows how to read.
Noah: But in any case, he doesn’t seem like… he… as we’ve been talking about, he’s so indebted to these relationships that he has…
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: …and he just hates Slytherin so much, even if he found out that he was related to Salazar Slytherin, I think he’d just be more concerned at that point that he was of some danger to the student body. And, being the noble person he is, I think he’d just go into the Forbidden Forest or hang out with Hagrid for life or something, but I don’t…
Caleb: Hmm.
Noah: Or at least talk to Dumbledore…
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: …for real.
Rosie: I don’t think he would ever soften to the ideas, no.
Jon: I think he would want to push himself even more away from the ideas because if he was the Heir of Slytherin, everyone knew it, he’d… everyone would think he would have Salazar’s ideas. So, he’d want to push them away even more.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: Yeah, exactly.
Caleb: We think it would have possibly changed his relationships with people, specifically with Ron and Hermione. I would… I guess I would start to… by thinking that they would still defend him and convince him that it doesn’t mean that he has to be like them. But how would Harry have been able to interact with other people, if he was indeed the Heir of Slytherin?
Noah: Well, remember when… after that Dueling Club, and Ron and Hermione just kind of think about the fact that he can speak Parseltongue? The line is that, “It was as if someone had died.” And I think if Harry had continued to have Slytherin connections… it seems like Ron is almost disgusted, a little bit. I feel like it would have kind of changed their relationship, potentially, because Ron is associated so much with what Gryffindor is.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: You know?
Rosie: I think Ron would always struggle with mistrust. Yeah, I think it would have changed his relationship with Ron, but probably not Hermione. I think Hermione is too intelligent and aware of people who have individual personalities that aren’t affected by their ancestry, so I think she would have stuck by him.
Caleb: That makes me think that eventually, it would drive them all apart because Ron would slowly, in his true fashion, be really… I don’t know how to put it into words. He would have just pushed himself away from Harry slightly and that would have upset Hermione because she would have tried to defend Harry, and then Ron would get pissed because Hermione is defending Harry.
Noah: Yeah.
Caleb: Like what happens in Deathly Hallows, when they all fight, you know?
Rosie: Yeah. Mhm.
Caleb: And then eventually everyone is unhappy with everyone. Because we all know how immature Ron can be when it comes to the arguments that they have, so…
Rosie: We see this a lot in Prisoner of Azkaban, with all of the fighting that goes on between them all.
Caleb: Yeah. And in Goblet of Fire.
Rosie: When Scabbers died and all that kind of stuff.
Noah: Yeah, I think it’s because Ron has a certain set of essential values, and if anything, questions those values. He’s just going to… he has a certain way he’s going to react, and I think this would certainly happen in this case. He might love Harry, but the fact that Harry is part Slytherin would just really get in the way.
Rosie: Yeah. Actually, Goblet of Fire is a brilliant way of seeing that, when Ron completely turns against him.
Caleb: Yup.
Rosie: When they think that he put his name in the Goblet and all that kind of stuff.
Caleb: Mhm.
Rosie: There are so many incidences where Ron is a bit fickle and will turn against them just for something that he doesn’t properly understand.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: Then again, I could also see it the other way. Maybe they come to Harry’s aid, and after a while… there is that initial weirdness, but then Ron realizes that Harry is still a good person and where he comes from doesn’t necessarily matter. But… I don’t know, they have this such strong prejudice against Slytherins, it would be a hard bridge to get there.
Jon: Yeah, because they didn’t stop talking to him after they found out he was a Parseltongue. So, maybe it would just be tough to get over, but I think eventually they would just continue being friends.
Noah: Yeah. I mean, they’re Ron, Harry, and Hermione.
[Jon laughs]
Noah: They’re going to be friends forever.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Well, that… we want to toss that What If? question to you guys, also, so let us know what you think would happen if Harry had indeed been the Heir of Slytherin. But another one that I was thinking about is, what if Justin Finch-Fletchley had died? What if… he would not have been Petrified, but he would have looked at the Basilisk directly and died as a result, like Myrtle did.
Rosie: Well, the school would have closed straight away.
Caleb: Well… you think so, straight away?
Rosie: Yeah, I think so. As soon as anything that bad happened, they would have to close it until they could figure out why. I mean, the only reason why it stopped being closed in the “fifty years previously” thing was because Hagrid was caught.
Caleb: I guess I was more thinking about… Harry would obviously be immediately blamed by most people.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: He would be, and…
Rosie: So yeah, either the Minister would start investigating Harry because…
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: …so many people would complain.
Caleb: Definitely.
Rosie: Or Harry would be left with the Dursleys again.
Noah: That would have been terrible. And remember that Hogwarts and Dumbledore are under so much political pressure…
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: …especially by Lucius Malfoy, he’s pushing that, so he would have jumped on it and called for Dumbledore’s resignation. And the school would certainly close, I think.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: It would have been a very different future if Justin had died.
Caleb: Yeah, Justin, particularly, instead of someone else like Penelope or…
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: …Colin because of the incident with Harry and the snake at the Dueling Club.
Rosie: Yeah, definitely.
Noah: So, Harry would have been immediately demonized.
Caleb: Yeah, I do think he would have been investigated by the Ministry, and we would have seen Hagrid trying to defend him like he does when he bursts into Dumbledore’s office.
Rosie: Mhm.
Caleb: Though I don’t think having Hagrid defend you in a political atmosphere is really that helpful because I don’t think he…
Rosie: Especially when he was expelled fifty years previously for the same offense.
Caleb: Right.
Noah: I mean, when Hermione gets Petrified, they’re going to immediately go to Hagrid’s so we’ve got to remember him, too. If someone had actually died, Hagrid would have gone straight to Azkaban again.
Jon: Well, I was thinking that if Justin died, how would they even accuse Harry? Because he’s only a second year and they haven’t even learned about the Unforgivable Curses, so how could they even accuse him?
Caleb: Yeah. Little… well, rarely do we see that logical… that logic used by the Ministry of Magic, so…
[Everyone laughs]
Rosie: But they also still believe in the monster, so they’re not saying that Harry can perform all of these things, but they know that he speaks Parseltongue.
Jon: Oh, true.
Rosie: So, if they could work out the Basilisk thing by themselves, they could just say that Harry was controlling the Basilisk.
Jon: Mmm.
Noah: And yet, I’ve got to say that Dumbledore would still be on his side, but maybe to Dumbledore’s own peril because so many people would be against them.
Jon: Yeah.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: But yes, what if?
Caleb: Yeah, also on that one, fans, let us know what you think.
Noah: And there ends our What If? section, and now we’re going to jump right into the Podcast Question of the Week, and I think I have a pretty good one. So, we’ve been talking so much about potions and their effects and the way certain ingredients come together to produce an effect in the body, and it got me thinking a lot about spells and magic. And the truth of the matter is a lot of spells have their roots in Latin language, and when you put these elements of the language together and you say that word, that produces a certain magical effect. It’s kind of like with potion making. You have a certain amount of ingredients that come together that produces an effect. So, our question that we’re putting out to everybody for the next episode is: Like there’s a language of spell making, do you think there’s a language of potion making, of certain ingredients and each one of those ingredients has a kind of connection that when put together produces different effects, and what does that mean for magic at large? And, does that mean that spells and potions are inherently connected? Does that tell us something more about their connection if there is this unspoken language of ingredients, like there is a language of spells? That’s the question. If you have any comments about it, just put them right on the Alohomora! main page under the question itself, and we’ll read your responses on the next episode.
Rosie: Well, great. Thank you very much, Jon, for joining us. I hope you’ve enjoyed the show.
Jon: Yeah, it was fun. Thank you.
Noah: It was great. You were a good host.
[Jon laughs]
Caleb: Yeah, we really enjoyed having a Slytherin, especially since we’re obviously talking about so much Slytherin right now.
Rosie: Definitely.
Caleb: So, that was great. And if any of you guys would like to join the show or be on like Jon was, there’s a couple of ways that you can be featured on the Alohomora! podcast. You can email a clip to us at alohomorapodcast at gmail dot com if you’re interested in being a guest host. It’s really important that you have appropriate audio and recording equipment because that’s really important for the quality of our show. Or, if you want to submit content either on our main site or our forums, like we always read throughout the show, feel free to do that. We love reading what you guys have to say, and we love being able to feature your thoughts on the show.
Rosie: Definitely. You can also contact us in all of the normal social media ways. So, we have our Twitter, @AlohomoraMN. We have Facebook at Facebook.com/OpenTheDumbldore. We have our Tumblr page, which is MNAlohomora.Tumblr.com. You can also phone us on Skype and leave a message, which is 206-GO-ALBUS or 206-462-5287. And, of course, you can contact us through our website, Alohomora.MuggleNet.com, and our email, alohomorapodcast at gmail dot com. And we actually do still have one or two small T-shirts still left for European listeners. So, if you’d like one of them, please email us and we’ll make sure to get one of those to you.
Noah: And you can also download our app where you can stream our episodes and we have one for the iPhone and the Android. The app is available in the UK and the United States, and you can buy it for $1.99 or 99 pence. We have a whole bunch of interviews on there that we got when we were at LeakyCon a few months ago from Mark Oshiro, Hank Green, Lev Grossman, and MinaLima. And we’ve got tons of other extra content there. We have video logs, alternate endings, bloopers, transcripts, and the app video itself is really cool and we’ll have a link to it in the show notes. If you haven’t seen it already, it’s really funny. My girlfriend even makes a surprise visit.
[Everyone laughs]
Noah: She’s Princess Leia, who also listens to Alohomora!.
[Caleb laughs]
Rosie: Don’t forget you can also subscribe to us via iTunes feed.
Caleb: And we also are now offering a low bandwidth version of the show which is exclusively on our archives on the Alohomora! website, and it starts with our first Chamber of Secrets episode, Episode 10. They’re not available right now on iTunes, so head over to the website to download them directly to your computer.
Noah: We also, a couple of weeks ago, launched our worldwide deskpig competition. You know how much I love the deskpig.
[Everyone laughs]
Noah: We’re really looking for… we want to keep the magic going, so we’re looking for a fan to try and draw the deskpig for us that we can use for merchandise, put on an Alohomora! T-shirt, and then if you draw that deskpig for us, we can’t offer you necessarily monetary compensation for all sold but we’ll send you free stuff with your deskpig on it…
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: …and that’s pretty cool. So, if you’d like to do that, we’ve extended the contest to November 10th, so just get your entries into us in an email attachment to alohomorapodcast at gmail dot com. Okay, that’s the end of Episode 15. It was a long one, but it was a lot of fun.
[Show music begins]
Noah: I’m Noah Fried.
Caleb: I’m Caleb Graves.
Rosie: And I’m Rosie Morris. Thank you for listening to Episode 15 of Alohomora!.
Noah: Open the Dumbledore!
[Show music continues]
Noah: Hmm. Oh bye, Caleb!
[Jon and Rosie laugh]
Noah: Wait, if he’s going to do it, I’m going to do it, too. Guys, mutual bathroom break.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: You can either go to the bathroom, or you can just stay where you are. But if you do stay where you are, don’t go to the bathroom.
[Jon and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: I feel like it’s not as funny as it usually is.
Rosie: I guess there’s just not that much funny about people being attacked. [laughs]
Noah: Apparently last night my roommate… there was this zombie apocalypse on campus, and he was a human and he was fighting off zombies, and he was just telling me about it, and it sounded really cool.
[Jon laughs]
Noah: Let me just finish chewing this candy corn. Sorry.
Caleb: Oh my God, I was eating candy corn earlier.
Noah: Really? I love it, man.
Rosie: Okay, you guys have to tell me, what is candy corn compared to popcorn? Is it anything different, or is it…
Noah: Oh, it’s completely different.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: Okay.
Caleb: It’s not really like popcorn at all. It’s just…
Rosie: Then I don’t know what candy corn is. No. Sorry. We don’t have it in England.
Noah: Well, popcorn is like corn. Candy corn is like candy.
Caleb: Yeah, it’s candy. It’s all sugar.
Noah: It’s delicious.
Jon: It gets sickening after a while, though.
Caleb: Yeah, it does, but I just keep eating it.
Noah: [laughs] Gryffindor.
