Transcript – Episode 51
[Show music begins]
Michael Harle: This is Episode 51 of Alohomora! for October 5, 2013.
[Show music continues]
Kat Miller: Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Alohomora! I’m Kat Miller.
Rosie Morris: I’m Rosie Morris.
Laura Reilly: I’m Laura Reilly.
Michael: And I’m Michael Harle.
Kat: Thank you for joining us, Michael, by the way, filling in last minute. It’s very kind of you.
Michael: It’s my pleasure.
Kat: Just a quick reminder to fans that on this episode, we are going to be covering Chapter 13, which is “The Triwizard Tournament,” so be sure to read it for full listening enjoyment.
Rosie: And not Chapter 13, “The Unforgivable Curses,” which is what I did the summary for this week. So sorry about that, guys! [laughs] I got hit by a Confundus Charm. [laughs]
Kat: [laughs] I think they’ll forgive you. It’s okay.
Rosie: But we would like to take a quick moment to thank our sponsor, Audible. Exclusively for fans of Alohomora!, they are offering a free audio download. They have over 150,000 titles to chose from. So head over to audiblepodcast.com/open to get yours now.
Laura: Okay, so we’re going to launch right in into our comments from our discussion from the last week, which was Chapter 12. So this first comment comes from our forums, from Hufflepuffskein, and it says,
“I was wondering whether the homelands of the founders mentioned in the Sorting Hat song also reflected their character… or were meant to show the influence of an environment on the development of character.
It makes sense that Gryffindor is from wild moor, with his courageous and adventure spirit. I can imagine a young Godric wandering about in Dartmoor chasing adventures with the sort of untamed wildness that moors inspire.
I always thought it was funny that Hufflepuff was from valley broad because she’s meant to be a robust woman, I think, but it also makes sense with the hard-working and down-to-earth sort of characteristics. Valley regions are the most fertile agriculturally and are always in my mind associated with labor of the land and the “salt of the earth” type of people.
Slytherin from fen or the marshy areas of eastern England leads to connections with snakes and other creatures of darky, murky areas that I associated with marshes. In the extreme, you could extend a comparison to the everglades and marshes of the southeastern US with all sorts of crocodiles and scary creatures. In their negative connotation (which is not necessarily all they can be) I think marshes can be associated with the murkiness of morality and connected to a power hungry-type personality that is willing to reject morality while seeking power.
Ravenclaw from glen is a little less complete as a metaphor for me, but it may reflect the sort of freshness and briskness of a glen area and the freshness of a quick, logical mind. It might also be connected to quick wittedness characteristics of the Scots.”
Okay. That was [a] very involved, well-thought out comment.
Kat: Yeah, that is quite the comment.
Laura: [laughs] Someone did some research.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: A little bit.
Laura: So…
Rosie: To go with the Ravenclaw thing, I’ve often thought of lens as quite noble areas. There used to be a TV program called Monarch of the Glen and all that kind of thing. So you’ve got all of these – I don’t want to say tribe – clans. Scottish clans. That’s the one. Where you have this regal idea, and Ravenclaw has the crown as her symbol. So I think it does reflect well on Ravenclaw if you follow the metaphor through.
Kat: I agree. And it’s funny because when I read through this comment earlier, I was thinking about the trip that I had to the UK.
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: And I definitely felt like I was grounded when I was in Scotland. I know this sounds really weird, but I felt more myself. Something very odd happened to me when I was in Scotland.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: I don’t know what it was. I just felt more like me.
Laura: Had a spiritual moment.
Kat: And I bought four tartan things, which is so not me at all.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Kat: But I just couldn’t stop buying tartans. So it’s just funny. So “I agree with this comment” is my point.
Laura: Yeah, definitely very well thought out. Thinking outside the box. And that wasn’t the only metaphor thing about the Sorting Hat. This one comes from the main site from… I think it’s pronounced PRE-wit-tee?
Kat: PROO-it-tee?
Laura: Prewetty. Pra-ha! That makes more sense.
Kat: Yeah.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: All right. Anyway, it says,
“Rosie explaining the Sorting Hat’s new song – specifically the Glen up at Scotland, the valleys of Wales, the moors down here in tropical Devonshire and the Fens in the east – really rang a bell. The house colours are the same colours we use to represent the patron saints around the UK! Scotland is represented by St. Andrew/Ravenclaw, which both use blue, Wales has St. David/Hufflepuff, both yellow and black, England has St. George/Gryffindor, both red, and Ireland… doesn’t seem to feature but by process of elimination would have St. Patrick and Slytherin, both represented by green! (note: in legend, St. Patrick was responsible for driving the snakes out of Ireland…)”
Rosie: Yeah.
Laura: So there’s that. Once again…
Rosie: Genius.
Laura: … very creative thought process. [laughs] I’m very, very impressed by the comments this week on that because I did not know any of the above. So…
Kat: No, I didn’t either.
Laura: Except St. Patrick drove the snakes out. I know that one.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: Right. And see, I think that this comes from… I feel like Jo is really well-read. I feel like she’s one of those people [who] reads about this stuff. So I think that is conscious on her part. She knows these things, and I doubt that she’s saying, “Okay, well, Slytherin is going to be green because of St. Patrick, and Ravenclaw is going to be blue because of whomever.” But I think that it’s in her mind, and she’s thinking about that stuff when she’s forming the ideas.
Laura: Mhm. Yeah, I think something like this does seem – “contrived” isn’t the right word – purposeful.
Rosie: Yeah, it’s too correct to be coincidental almost.
Laura: Yeah, that’s what I mean. I doubt that it was just in the back of her head and just worked out conveniently. [It] probably was thought of.
Michael: Well, we pretty much got confirmation from that this past week on Pottermore when she released that information about the colors…
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: Right.
Michael: … and what colors represent in the magical world. And when I saw that that had come up I was like, “Oh, this is going to be more on the green and purple thing.”
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: But it ended up being a whole lengthy little manifesto on colors in the wizarding world and included the Hogwarts houses and how they’re related to the elements. So yeah, this is definitely… Kat, this may be one of those moments for the obligatory genius?
Kat: It might be.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: She is racking up quite a… what are those little tick charts? Whatever those things are called…
Rosie: Tallies.
Kat: … she’s got a lot of them. Tally. There you go. She’s got a lot of marks on her tally.
Laura: Okay, and this final comment comes from LumosNight3 on a different topic:
“I also appreciated Jacob’s…”
Who was our fan guest.
“… comment about being displeased with how Jo portrays Slytherin house in the series. Yes, we need an antagonist, but there comes a point where that has been set up enough in the series to carry through to the end without the continued stereotyping. We know that there are plenty of people out there who identify as Slytherin and do not fit the stereotypes Jo writes. So why not include a doubtful Slytherin in Book 5 who wants to hear more of what Harry has to say and therefore joins the DA (similar to what she did with our lone Ravenclaw friend Luna)? Or why not have more Slytherins fight in the final battle? There are other examples that could be mentioned, but the point I’d like to make is simply [is] why could Jo not have given them more of a reprieve? She certainly could have done so without destroying the antagonists she had set up, and it would have been another nice opportunity to highlight the idea of choices.”
I like that.
Kat: I think she didn’t do it purely because [of] the same reason she didn’t really do it for Hufflepuff. They just didn’t matter so much as far as the whole Harry’s journey goes.
Laura: I mean, I get what you’re saying as far as saying it not being necessarily relevant to the overarching plot, but I think – I personally have always thought something needed a reprieve because then other – it almost becomes too cartoonish to be like, “Yeah, everyone’s evil.”
Rosie: But we do see a few characters… well, I guess we only see really one have that change of heart. I mean, Narcissa is the key example I’m thinking of here. We see her choose Draco over evil and the battle and all of that kind of stuff. She’s more worried about family than she is about Slytherin and pride or whatever if that was the only thing that Slytherins care about.
Kat: Was she definitely a Slytherin?
Rosie: I doubt that Lucius would have married her if not.
Laura: Yeah.
Michael: Yes. I think “yes.”
[Laura and Michael laugh]
Kat: Yeah, that’s probably… no, I just wanted to confirm that. I was pretty sure, so…
Rosie: She’s a Black as well, so…
Laura: I mean, I doubt it’s been outright said, but if not then Malfoy has probably said something along the lines of like, “Everyone in my family has been in Slytherin since forever.”
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: Oh yeah, that’s probably true.
Laura: I also just want to give a quick shoutout. There’s [a] huge, slightly off topic discussion that’s going on in the forums that took up the majority of the discussion all on the whole Snape/Lily dynamic, [but] I didn’t want to include any of those comments because I’d be getting way too far ahead of ourselves, but good conversation. Good comments. We’ll get to them eventually.
Kat: That’s always happening on our forums, though. The people on uur forums rock. You guys are awesome. High five.
Rosie: You can still talk about it now, but make sure you talk about it again in the future.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Kat: Right. Exactly.
Michael: I think that conversation comes up no matter what you mention.
Rosie: Yeah.
Laura: Right, yeah. It comes up pretty much [unintelligible] per chapter.
Michael: Harry ate dinner in this chapter, and Snape was in the same room. “Snape is such a jerk” or “I love Snape so much.”
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Yeah. Pretty much.
Kat: Okay, That’s true.
Rosie: Ignoring Snape for now, we need to go back to our Podcast Question of the Week, which is all about Harry and whether he would have entered the Triwizard Tournament if the Age Line conundrum hadn’t actually applied. Okay, so you guys are really divided about this question. Some of you think he definitely would. Others think he definitely wouldn’t. And you’re having an argument on the boards, which we love. We like encouraging that kind of discussion. So I’ve tried to encompass everyone’s viewpoints through these chosen comments, so I hope you’ll be represented, but if not make sure you include your voice on our site. So our first comment comes from PhoenixFeathered1, and it says,
“I think Harry would’ve thought about entering but would’ve decided he didn’t want to (probably after a comment Hermione made). He wouldn’t want any more people staring at him and would enjoy watching for a change. Ron and the twins, however, would still be going on about how they all were going to enter. Harry wouldn’t be able to tell them he didn’t want to enter. Ron would be completely oblivious of course, but Hermione, being Hermione, would pick up on this and tell Harry to tell them “no.” Harry would say he couldn’t, and Hermione would say something about boys.”
[laughs] Do you guys agree with that one?
Michael: I do. Pretty much. I think that the Harry in the book by the point of the selection of the champions was… he was pretty much resigned to being just a viewer of the spectacle, so I think that he would have reached that point. He had already reached that point in the book, and then from there, yeah, that’s probably is what would have happened.
Laura: Yeah, I feel very strongly about the fact that he would not have. Just because of everything that happens afterward of him not wanting the fame and glory and such that… because he already has it. More the attention than fame and glory.
Michael: He only fantasizes about it when Cho is around anyway.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: True. Well, SassyHedwig, which is a brilliant username, agrees with you guys…
[Kat laughs]
Rosie: … and says,
“Also, unlike other students at Hogwarts, he has gone through many dangerous adventures. I would imagine that he wants one calm, laid-back year at Hogwarts and would not mind if someone else [were] the center of attention.”
Laura and Rosie: Yeah.
Laura: He never does get a calm, laid-back year at Hogwarts.
Rosie: No.
Laura: Arguably, Half-Blood Prince maybe but not really.
Rosie: Poor Harry. [laughs] On the flipside of that, we have a comment from Teyanna [Necole], and it says,
“Dreams show us the thoughts and feelings that we consciously and unconsciously hide from [our] conscious selves. The dream that Harry has at the end of this chapter illustrates that Harry has the deep rooted desire to enter and win the tournament, EARNING the eternal glory that has already be[en] cast upon him by being The Boy Who Lived. Harry battles with the feeling that he is popular for doing something he doesn’t even remember (Philosopher’s Stone), and he has a desire to create a name for himself. We see this in Sorcerer’s Stone when he wins his first quidditch match by catching the Snitch. Rowling writes, ìHe couldn’t ever remember feeling happier. He’d really done something to be proud of now ñ no one could say he was just a famous name anymore.î In the same book, the Sorting Hat also noted that Harry has ìa thirstî to prove himself. What better way to do so than by being The Boy Who Lived [who] wins the Triwizard Tournament.”
Kat: I totally agree with that comment. I think that as much… the other comments, I know, were saying that no, they don’t think he would go in. He wants to stay out of the limelight and stuff, but as much as Harry hates the attention that’s on him, I think a large part of him really likes it, too.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: So I agree with this comment. I do think that he feels he needs to prove himself and would most likely at least try to enter. Whether he was successful or not is another question.
Michael: Well, he definitely grapples with that issue of “does he enjoy his popularity, or does he resent it?” especially more in Book 5…
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: … when Ron suddenly becomes popular and gets accolades and things, and Harry is just kind of in the background, so there is that… I mean, if Ron had gone for it and entered and won – if there had been no age restriction – that might have brought up that feeling a lot earlier certainly, but I wonder, too, if Harry had that much interest in being famous and the glory of the Triwizard Tournament… that almost seems like the more Slytherin side that the Sorting Hat would have detected in him. “That was the Slytherin choice,” I suppose is what I’m saying.
Rosie: Interesting that you should bring that up because our next comment from Leslie[Lovegood] talks about the Gryffindor side of it. It says,
“As much as Harry likes to stay out of the limelight, I really do think he would have entered the tournament. At first he’d think about not entering because he really doesn’t need the drama in his life. However, his true Gryffindor would start to show. As the sorting hat said in GoF, Gryffindors have daring and nerve. As Harry saw others entering, both those younger and older than himself, I think that side of him would make him enter. He’s not the one to sit there and let others have all the fun. And fun is what he would think of it as prior to entering.”
Rosie:
“Think about how upset he is when he feels left out because he can’t go to Hogsmeade with the others. That’s also how this would play out. At the point when he sees Neville enter (as Neville said he would, just because his gran would want him to) Harry would have to enter because Harry knows that he has superior skills to many who are entering.”
Is he that much of a show-off, really, though?
Kat: Yeah.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: I mean, I think he is in a lot of ways, but I think – Gryffindors are going to hate me for saying this – that that’s a big Gryffindor trait is being…
Laura: What trait?
Kat: … a show-off, showboaty.
Michael: Rowling has even admitted that. She’s said that before, so…
Kat: Yeah. Exactly.
Michael: [laughs] It’s true, I believe. I’m just thinking the only thing I can latch onto that comment that is lingering in my mind is the horrible thought that Neville would have actually entered the tournament. [laughs]
Kat and Rosie: Poor Neville.
Michael: This poor thing. [laughs]
Rosie: But maybe he would have come into his own earlier as well.
Kat and Michael: Maybe.
Kat: We can only hope that the Goblet wouldn’t have chosen him.
[Michael laughs]
Rosie: He would have at least thought of Gillyweed first.
Kat: That’s very true. He would have.
Michael: Yes.
Rosie: [laughs] Okay, well, Walpurgis says that Harry would not have entered, but they are certain that Ron would have.
“Ron, as has been recently discussed on the show and in the forums, is driven, during most of his young life, by a thirst for attention and status. He doesn’t often let it get the better of him, but that is because of the influence of his good friends and parents who force him to second-guess himself when the consequences of his original plans might be the most severe. Just because Harry thought about it does not mean he would actually enter the competition in real life. I’m sure that Hermione also would have considered it for a few minutes, possibly gone back and forth on the idea as she considered the pros and cons… but she and Harry are both quite practical and very self-aware… they do not need the praise of others nearly as much as their long-nosed, ginger-haired friend.”
Kat: Okay, now I have to completely disagree with that comment…
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: … on everything about Hermione. One, I don’t think she would enter. She is very booksmart, but I don’t think that she has the real-world skills that would be needed, and where… ? What Hermione are you reading? And I’m sorry…
[Laura, Michael, and Rosie laugh]
Kat: … but she needs more approval than any person I’ve ever met.
Laura: Yeah, that’s… I think just even a quality of someone [who]’s been bullied, no matter how skilled they may be, is not wanting to be centerstage and display yourself for judgment.
Kat: Yeah.
Rosie: She’s not very good under pressure as well.
Kat: No.
Rosie: The whole thing with the Devil’s Snare in the first book, and she forgets that she can use fire and magic.
Laura: That’s very true.
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: Well, amd Hermione wouldn’t really… I don’t think Hermione would have… she wouldn’t get anything out of the Triwizard Tournament.
Rosie: None.
Kat: No.
Michael: Study-wise. There’s nothing educational that comes out of it for her, and if there’s no benefit for her as far as education is concerned she wouldn’t do it.
Kat: Now if the prize were to free all the house-elves…
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: Maybe, yeah. Maybe she could’ve…
Kat: Then she would enter.
Michael: Yeah.
Laura: And for that matter she gets more education out of it than Harry does. She’s doing all the research about it.
Kat: Totally.
Rosie: That’s true.
Laura: She does get stuff out of this.
Rosie: [laughs] Well, this question was actually given to use from Jake, who was our guest last week, and he very kindly entered his own comments on our archive, and this is a very interesting idea, which is, I think, Point 2 of the three that he made, and it says,
“Jo also could have written a very different novel in this way; Harry is reluctant to enter, but pressure from Ron (who enters as well) and Draco (who taunts him incessantly) convince him to do it. More pressure could come from Dumbledore as well. With no age restriction, Dumbledore could see this as a great opportunity for Harry to prove himself as a great wizard, and while I don’t think he would directly try to convince Harry to enter, it is to Harry’s awareness that Dumbledore does see great potential in him, and Harry might feel like this would be a wasted opportunity to make the headmaster proud. Harry’s mark as “Dumbledore’s man, through and through” could have started 2 books earlier. So it comes down to whether or not you think Jo could have written the Goblet of Fire WITHOUT this mystery. Of course, Barty Crouch, Jr. still would have had the job of guiding Harry through the tasks.”
But Jake says,
“I don’t think I would love it as much without this amazing mystery that is developed throughout. So I am very glad everything went the way it did!”
Rosie: Do you guys think that Dumbledore would have ever pressured anyone to enter? I don’t think he would. Not book Dumbledore at least.
Laura: No. Not at all. Not at all.
Michael: Not directly. He might have just done it passively like he does everything.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Laura: No, I think just for safety reasons he wouldn’t because of the lengths he goes to… I don’t know. I guess I’m thinking about Order and how that whole thing was stupid of him, avoiding him…
Rosie: Yeah.
Laura: … to let him have a normal year. That was stupid. So I don’t think he would do this.
Rosie: I think he would have wanted a quiet year for Harry.
Laura: Mhm.
Kat: I don’t think that he would have directly pressured him. He may have… if Harry had come to him or mentioned it in passing, I think Dumbledore would have encouraged him, because Dumbledore definitely encourages Harry to learn things and do things and have experiences on his own, even though Dumbledore is the puppet master, as we know.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: So I think that there would have been positive reinforcement, definitely.
Rosie: Hmm. Maybe.
Michael: Well, because we’re also assuming that Dumbledore has no idea of what the mystery in the background is…
Kat: Hmm.
Michael: … that was… that Jake refers to, but of course it would be very hard to shape that mystery had this minor detail been changed.
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: That’s true.
Michael: So you’re basically just completely destroying Goblet of Fire [laughs]…
[Everyone laughs]
Michael: … with this.
Rosie: It’s amazing how many moments there are in Goblet of Fire that are reliant…
Michael: Mhm.
Rosie: … on it happening to change the entire plot. It would be a completely different book if tiny details were changed.
Michael: Yeah, I know there’s a lot of people in the fandom who grumble about the mystery in Goblet of Fire just because they mention that there were a lot of [laughs] perhaps easier ways for Crouch Jr. to take Harry away from Hogwarts. A lot of people are like, “Why didn’t he just enchant his pillow into a Portkey?”
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: But then the book would be boring…
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: … but this is a very carefully constructed mystery on Rowling’s part. She is… and I know they’ve talked about this on Academia before, kind of, her inspiration for where she pulls from mystery novels. She really does pull from the greats.
Kat: Well, she’s a big Agatha Christie fan, right?
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah, she is. Yeah.
Laura: Yeah. Agatha Christie is my favorite.
Michael: Mine, too.
Laura: Mhm.
Rosie: And I think she does this mystery just as well as any Agatha Christie novel.
Kat: Oh, yeah. This is one of those things that you would never-in-a-million-years guess. I’m also really bad at guessing stuff like that.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: But I’d never… Yeah. It’s great. I never would have guessed.
Rosie: No. Well to round off this discussion, we have a final comment from Cassandra Vablatsky and it’s taking it straight from the book, and we have our very clear answer here, so,
“For me, the answer comes a bit later in the book when Harry discovers that he has been entered against his will. He asks himself, ‘Would they all think he’d put himself in for the Tournament? Yet how could anyone think that, when he was facing competitors who’d had three years more magical education than he had – when he was now facing tasks which not only sounded very dangerous, but which were to be performed in front of hundreds of people? Yes, he’d thought about it… he’d fantasized about it… but it had been a joke, really, an idle sort of dream… he’d never really, seriously considered entering…’ (GOF17)”
Laura: There you go.
Kat: Yeah, but…
[Michael laughs]
Kat: … I think that that’s Harry’s fear at that moment speaking.
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: I don’t think that that’s necessarily his true feelings on the matter.
Rosie: No.
Kat: I think he’s going, “Oh my God. I’m the fourth school. What happened here? Somebody put my name in. I didn’t do it. What is going on? Something is wrong.” I think that’s his fear kicking in.
Rosie: So the argument continues. [laughs]
Kat: It does. For me, anyway.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Laura: Pretty wrapped up to me.
Michael: Yeah. I’m with Laura on this one, I think. I think Cassandra Vablatsky’s comment there cements it.
Kat: Well, I like to broaden my mind.
Michael: Oh, well. [laughs]
Kat: And – I don’t know – to discover new meaning.
Laura: [laughs] We’re just narrow minded over here.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: Whatever.
Michael: Before we move on we want to mention that this year marks the ninth annual people’s podcast awards and this year MuggleNet’s whole podcast family needs your nominations. But we need your votes to make that a reality. Head to podcastawards.com to nominate MuggleNet Academia in Education, Hogwarts Radio in Best Produced, AudioFictions in Cultural and Arts, and of course, Alohomora! in Entertainment and People’s Choice. Nominations end on October 15, so head to podcastawards.com and place your nominations. Make sure you use a valid email, as you only get one vote per category, and you can check out the show notes for the links.
Kat: And thank you, everybody. We really hope that you’ll go out and vote for us, because it’s really important to us in some odd way… at least me.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: You know, I would like to win.
[Laura and Rosie laugh]
Kat: Well, we put a lot of hard work into the show…
Laura: We’re very competitive.
Michael: It’s like the House Cup for podcasting.
Kat: Yes. I mean, that’s true. It is.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: So while we are in the business of advertising, guys, have you seen the news that The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is being made into a movie? It’s on my “To Read” list. It’s my next title up. Have you guys read it?
Rosie: Yes, it’s amazing. [laughs] I’m a massive fan of John Green and I have been for ages. I’ve watched him and his brother on YouTube for about five, six years now, and The Fault in Our Stars is honestly one of the best books I have ever read. But make sure you read it with a packet of tissues because it will make you cry.
Kat: [laughs] I’ve heard that.
Rosie: It will make you cry, definitely. Emma Watson actually tweeted about it just the other day, so you really should buy it.
Kat: Honestly I don’t buy a lot of books, hard copies anyway. I just don’t have the space, but I will probably get it on Audible. Because after all, Audible is the best place for all your and my audio downloading needs. And right now Audible has a really great special offer for our US and Canadian listeners. They can visit our unique link created specifically for them and get a free audio download. Today. Right now. All they have to do is head over to audiblepodcast.com/open.
Laura: You can also download it using Audible’s Listener program. Basically you purchase book credit at a super low monthly rate and you can use it any time for any product that Audible offers.
Kat: And with over 150,000 titles to choose from, there are a lot of options. So head over to audiblepodcast.com/open and start downloading directly to your computer for easy listening on burned CDs, MP3 players, and even your iPad, iPhones, or Androids. Again, the website made just for you is audiblepodcast.com/open. So visit audiblepodcast.com/open for your free download today.
[Goblet of Fire Chapter 13 intro begins]
Mad-Eye Moody: Oh no you don’t, laddie! Chapter 13.
[Sound of a ferret shrieking]
Mad-Eye Moody: “Mad-Eye Moody.”
[Goblet of Fire Chapter 13 intro ends]
Kat: Okay, so here we go, unlucky Chapter 13. So here we are, it’s the next day. It’s the first day of classes at Hogwarts. They’ve got their schedules, and Ron is looking at it, and he’s like, “Oh, not a bad day.” He said that they’re outside all day. They’ve got Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and Care of Magical Creatures and they’re still with the Slytherins. Anyway, and then Harry groans and says, “Ugh, Double Divination.” And Hermione says, “Well, you should have given it up,” like she did, and I began to wonder why didn’t they give it up, if they hated it that much? Because we know they hated it.
Laura: Because the other subject is harder. As stupid as it is, they can get away with BS-ing pretty much everything versus whatever this one she takes, Arithman… Ari… I never know to pronounce it…
Kat and Michael Arithmancy.
Laura: Arithmancy. Yeah, that has numbers in it. [laughs]
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Laura: … so…
Rosie: Yeah. I would pick Divination too. [laughs]
Laura: So yeah.
Michael: It’s like avoiding the math class, right? [laughs]
Rosie: Pretty much.
Kat: Aww, see, math was my best subject so I totally probably would have taken Arithmancy.
[Rosie laughs]
Laura: No, never would have taken it.
Kat: I mean it’s probably just a plot device too, that they never gave it up.
Rosie: Yeah. We need to be there for more premonitions and things.
Laura: Has anything… does anything really ever come again?
Kat: Yeah. In this chapter, actually.
Laura: Like significant? To the point of Prisoner?
Kat: Yes, in this chapter.
Laura: Oh. Okay.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: I mean, she doesn’t make a prediction, but it’s a very signicant point.
Michael: Well, no, but Rosie said it. It’s good to keep Trelawney around pretty prominantly.
Laura: Right. Yeah. She’s a good character.
Michael: Well, and if she was in the background as much as she would be if Harry and Ron weren’t in her class then it would kind of be like her popping up in the movies [laughs] whenever she’s just needed.
Laura: Oh, that’s true. Oh yeah, for how significant she becomes…
Michael: Yeah.
Laura: … not actually in the present, but in backstory.
Rosie: Mhm.
Laura: Yeah, it makes sense to keep her around.
Kat: Okay so they’re all sitting in the Great Hall and the mail comes, and Harry is all sad – boo hoo, he’s crying – because he didn’t get anything. I thought this was a funny little mention about how Draco’s eagle owl had landed on his shoulder carrying his usual supply of sweets and cakes from home. It just… I pictured Narcissa in their kitchen with a little pink frilly apron on or something making him cookies and I just laughed.
Rosie: Oh no, these are going to be shop bought. I doubt Narcissa cooks.
Michael: Yeah, I was going to say she goes to Diagon Alley and buys that. [laughs]
Kat: Yeah, but still… okay, that was the first thing that popped into my mind and it made me laugh.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Kat: That was all. Okay, so they head out to Herbology, and Professor Sprout tells them that they’re working on [attemps to pronounce “Bubotubers”] Bubotubers. Did I say that right?
Michael: I never know how to pronounce that.
Kat: How do you guys say it?
Rosie: Yeah. [pronounces as “booba-tubers”] Bubotubers. [pronounces as “buhba-tubers”] Bubotubers. Don’t know.
Michael: [prounces as “byooba-tuber”] Bubotubers. [pronounces as “byoober-tubers”] Bubotubers.
Kat: [pronounces as “boobo-tubers”] Bubotubers. [pronounces as “boober-tubers”] Bubotubers.
[Kat and Michael laughs]
Kat: It’s a fun word to say.
Rosie: Maybe it is “buboe” like bubonic plague. [laughs]
Kat: Oh my God.
Michael: That would make sense with the imagery, yeah.
Kat: That’s… wow. Gross.
Laura: [laughs] Took that to a whole new place.
Rosie: [laughs] Sorry.
Kat: [laughs] It’s okay. And so I thought it was funny that she’s like, “You have to squeeze the pus out of it.”
Laura: Eww.
Kat: And Harry comments that it’s oddly satisfying.
[Rosie laughs]
Laura: Eww.
Kat: And then it’s funny because it made me think of… and I’m not saying that I do this, I just know that it happens…
[Laura laughs]
Kat: … the people who are like, “Oh, I really like popping my zits because it’s oddly sastisfing.”
Laura: Eww.
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Rosie: Don’t squeeze your spots, people.
Kat: And then it made me laugh, because then she’s talking about how how it’s an excellent remedy for stubborn forms of acne.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: So it’s just this whole circle of giggles…
Laura: Poor Eloise.
[Michael and Laura laugh]
Laura: Her only character… defining character point…
Michael: Is her acne. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah.
Kat: Aww.
Laura: It’s a plot device.
Kat: Yeah, she’s the one that they all make fun of. She’s a Gryffindor, right?
Laura: No…
Rosie: No, I think she’s a Slytherin.
Michael: Is her house ever mentioned, or is it…
Kat: Well, she’s in the dancing class with them in the movie.
Michael: Mhm.
Kat: I know that that’s movie canon but…
Michael: Mhm.
Laura: No… yeah… that’s definitely in the movie.
Rosie: I’m fairly sure Hermione says she’s Slytherin at some point. I don’t know for sure.
Kat: Is that who Hermione gets the hair off of?
Laura: No, no, no, that’s Millicent Bulstrode.
Kat: Millicent Bulstrode.
Rosie: Oh, maybe I’m confusing those two.
Laura: All right, I’m looking it up.
Rosie: I don’t know.
Kat: Okay.
[Kat, Laura, and Rosie laugh]
Kat: But anyway, I had this vicious cycle of giggles when I read over those three paragraphs. I had to read them three times because I couldn’t…
Laura: Oh, she is Gryffindor.
Michael: “Eloise’s House is never mentioned in the books… “
Laura: Oh.
Michael: “… although presented as a Gryffindor in the films, she is widely believed by fans to be a Hufflepuff, due to her familiarity with Hannah Abbot.”
Kat: Okay.
Laura: That’s what I thought, was Hufflepuff, but no one was saying it, so I didn’t.
[Michael laughs]
Rosie: I thought Laura was going to say, “Because she’s ugly…” then I was like no.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: But wouldn’t Eloise be in this class if she were a Hufflepuff or a Gryffindor?
Rosie: That’s true.
Michael: Yup.
Laura: Well, that’s how they all know so much about her.
Michael: Yeah, because there’s only Hufflepuff…
Kat: Not necessarily.
Michael: Oh, that’s true.
Kat: Maybe she’s older or younger. Because this is only the fourth years, right?
Michael: Yeah. She’s just so infamous for her acne around school, that everybody knows her.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: And that’s the Podcast Question of the Week. It’s hard hitting.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: This is the most we’ve ever and are ever going to talk about Eloise Midgen.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: Anyway, so they leave Herbology, and they head over to Hagrid’s Care of Magical Creatures, which is their first lesson, of course. And Hagrid says that he has this awesome thing that they just don’t want to miss. They’re called Blast-Ended Skrewts. And so when I was reading this, I thought, “Okay. Skrewts, skrewt, skrewt.” I was like, “I wonder what that means?” Because, you know Jo sometimes takes a couple words and puts them together to come up with a cool new word. Not this time.
[Kat and Rosie laugh]
Kat: I looked for ten minutes to see if I could find any sort of variation on what it might possibly mean. It means literally nothing. Nothing.
Rosie: You have to remember that Hagrid named these things. [laughs]
Laura: Is it as simple as… they do nothing, they’re pretty much just screwing with people the whole time? They’re literally just trolling them pretty much the whole semester, and it’s like the Blast-Ended Skrewts. That’s as simple as I got out of that.
Kat: And it’s funny you say that, because Draco asks him. He’s like, “What is the point of these? What do they do?” And I was wondering… I was trying to think, and I don’t think we ever actually learn the answer.
Rosie: There is none.
Michael: The reason Hagrid can’t answer is because he’s breeding them for the Triwizard Tournament. They’re meant to be used in the maze.
Kat: But do you…
Rosie: I don’t think he’s breeding them for that. I think he’s breeding them and then he just happened to have them around when they get to the third task so he uses them.
Laura: He finally found a purpose for them.
Rosie: Yeah.
[Kat, Michael, and Rosie laugh]
Michael: See, I’d agree with that if it weren’t for the fact that… it’s very strictly against Ministry policy to breed things like that and the Tournament is Ministry run.
Rosie: Yeah, but this is Hagrid.
Michael: Yeah, but I would be surprised if the Ministry didn’t get on him for that seeing as they used it in the Tournament. So I thought that it was meant to be foreshadowing for… that they would appear again, as actually somewhat useful later and that’s why he couldn’t say anything. Although yes, it could just be that Hagrid is like, [as Hagrid] “I don’t know, I don’t even know what they do.”
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: I mean, that is legitimate, it is Hagrid after all. How… what do you think he bred to get these?
Laura: Probably…
Kat: Because it says that they look like “deformed, shell-less lobsters, horribly pale and slimy looking with legs sticking out in very odd places and no visible heads.”
Laura: Nightmares.
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Kat: Nightmares.
Rosie: I thought someone somewhere mentions Flobberworms, or something, and then they’re crossbred with something else, but I can’t remember what they were. I think it was Flobberworms and Fire Crabs. But Fire Crabs might have just been a video game thing, I can’t remember.
Michael: No, Fire Crabs are real in the Harry Potter world.
Rosie: Okay, good.
Michael: They’re…
[Rosie laughs]
Laura: Yeah, that sounds legit actually.
Kat: Okay, well, I mean, I guess we’ll go with that then.
Michael: Fire Crabs make sense because you have Blast-Ended Skrewts.
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: They have blasted ends and that’s exactly what Fire Crabs do. So…
Kat: Oh, cool. And it was funny that you mentioned the… Michael, that you thought it might be a little bit of foreshadowing because here we get a mention of dragons again, which, obviously, we haven’t seen since the first book, right?
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah.
Kat: Right.
Michael: Yeah, no I think that, again, it’s just very… there’s a lot of obligatory genius moments I guess in this chapter. [laughs]
Kat: There are! Lot of foreshadowing in this chapter. That seems to be the underlying theme of this book.
Rosie: Well, if we were talking about it being a mystery, I mean, all great mysteries have the clues written there, you just have to find them. So …
Kat: That’s true. That’s true. And that’s what we’re doing. We are on a quest to find the clues.
Rosie: We are.
Kat: A clue quest.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: Clue quest. Okay, so, they’re talking about … they’re walking back up to the castle after they try to feed the Blast-Ended Skrewts, which they ate nothing, I’m going to assume. And Ron is saying, “Oh, I’m really glad that they’re small,” and Hermione is like, “Yeah, they’re small now.”
Rosie: “But once Hagrid’s found out what they eat, I expect they’ll be six feet long.”
Kat: And Ron’s like, “Well, it won’t matter if they end up to cure seasickness or something, will it?” And Hermione’s like, “You know I only said that to shut Malfoy up.” She’s like, “As a matter of fact, I think he’s right. The best thing to do would be to stamp on the lot of them before they start attacking us all.” And that’s super uncharacteristic of Hermione…
Rosie: Mhm.
Kat: … to suggest killing anything, really, I mean, especially because we know what’s going to become of her in this book and in later life. That surprise anybody?
Michael: Eh, not me really just because this – that’s her reaction to pretty much everything Hagrid introduces to them in class.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Kat: Oh.
Michael: I think Care of Magical Creatures is where Hermione starts to lose her tolerance for things.
Rosie: I think when we see her talk about Centaurs later on as well and the idea that she’s not that bothered by them at all, she just doesn’t seem to care about creatures at all, other than house-elves. [laughs]
Michael: [laughs] I mean, maybe it’s just, too, the way that Hagrid introduces things to the class. It’s not exactly…
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: He’s more a dive right in without instruction, which is not Hermione’s forte. She likes to learn…
Kat: I was going to say because doesn’t she become, basically, the equivalent of an animal rights lawyer?
Michael: I believe she does.
Rosie: Hmm.
Michael: She works in the Law Offices for Magic – does she specifically for Magical Creatures? I thought that was what she ended up doing.
Kat: I feel like that’s right.
Rosie: But I think it’s creatures with near-human intelligence – Ministry words…
[Michael laughs]
Rosie: I think it’s that kind of creature rather than Blast-Ended Skrewts. [laughs]
Kat: Thank you for clarifying that, Rosie.
[Kat and Rosie laugh]
Kat: Yeah, I mean that’s probably true and this is probably the only batch of Blast-Ended Skrewts we ever see.
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: Odd question. What happens to the giant one in the maze?
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: He must let it out in the forest like everything else.
Michael: Probably.
Rosie: Oh dear.
Michael: He put Fluffy out there, right?
Rosie: I would never go out into the forest.
Kat: He did put Fluffy out there.
Michael: Yeah, if there’s a three-headed dog out there that’s definitely carnivorous, then yeah, why not a Blast-Ended Skrewt?
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Kat: Maybe Fluffy got him for dessert.
Michael: Yeah, there you go!
Rosie: Or Aragog!
Michael: Oh!
Kat: Or Aragog. Very, very true. Very, very true. Okay, so Hermione goes off to Arithmancy. Harry and Ron head up to the North Tower for Divination – that’s the word I’m looking for. And I thought this was really great. The first time that Trelawney sees Harry, she says to him, “I see difficult times ahead for you, most difficult. I fear the thing you dread will indeed come to pass and perhaps sooner than you think.” So I wondered and then I read on a little bit. [laughs]
[Michael laughs]
Kat: But Harry even questions what Trelawney was saying. You know the line, “I fear the thing you dread will indeed come to pass.” And I’m wondering what exactly at this moment do we actually think Harry is dreading? Harry himself questions, is it about Sirius? But I don’t think it is. What do you guys think?
Rosie: I think the Sirius idea could be important because, I mean, in the next chapter when Sirius says that he’s coming back, Harry has a mini panic and break down about the possibility of him getting caught. So I think that is a real fear that his one surviving family connection could be taken from him. But I mean, I don’t think he has any other fears at this moment because he doesn’t know that Voldemort’s coming back. He doesn’t know any of that stuff other than what he’s dreamt. So I don’t know.
Michael: This is… it is interesting. I know we’ll get more deep into this as we go along with this part because I’ve seen many deeper interpretations of what initially comes off as Trelawney’s more bogus predictions where she’s just saying blanket statements…
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: … and this is definitely one of them. This reminds me a lot of when she pointed at Lavender the previous year and was like, “Something bad will happen to you and this season…” [laughs] “… that you dread.” So again, it’s a blanket thing, but the interesting thing is that almost all of Trelawney’s things come true, just not in, perhaps, the way that she intends them to, or that she’s not really seeing. I do believe she’s not really seeing anything when she says these things.
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: It’s just fitting…
Rosie: Cold reading.
Michael: Yeah. So… but yeah, other than Sirius, because I think that’s really the only concern we’ve had up to here, he has no anxieties about the Triwizard Tournament because that’s not even a thought. So yeah. And then, like you guys mentioned, Voldemort’s not really a main concern. Voldemort’s just an always concern.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: Yeah. I just… it just made me wonder because Harry is very much a live-in-the-moment type of guy…
Michael: Mhm.
Kat: … which was proven by the fact that his Boggart in Prisoner of Azkaban was a Dementor and it wasn’t Lord Voldemort. So it just made me really wonder about what he could actually be possibly worrying about. I’m not sure that it’s Sirius.
Rosie: Maybe it’s just not anything at the moment. He’s pretty chill. He’s about to fall asleep. He doesn’t really care.
[Kat, Michael, and Rosie laugh]
Kat: And speaking of the fact that he was about to fall asleep, Harry is awoken by Ron muttering to him because the whole class was staring at him. Trelawney had apparently… was speaking at him, or asked him a question, or whatever. But she goes on to make this – as you were saying – not a prediction, but a statement, which has a lot of really great amazing clues in it. So, the first part of it says: “I was saying, my dear, that you were clearly born under the baleful influence of Saturn.” And, so, I looked up a couple things in there. “Baleful,” first, for those people that don’t know, means threatening. I looked up what “Saturn” meant because I don’t know too much about astrology. I don’t know about you guys, but it’s just one of those things that I never really studied. And so, I found out that in astrology, Saturn is associated with restriction and limitation. Where Jupiter expands, Saturn constricts. Although the themes of Saturn seem depressing, Saturn brings structure and meaning to our world. Saturn knows the limits of time and matter. Saturn reminds us of our boundaries, our responsibilities, and our commitments. It brings definition to our lives.
Michael: Geez.
Kat: Saturn makes us aware of the need for self-control and of boundaries and our limits.
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: So Saturn is like the downer at the planet party.
Rosie: Saturn is the Spiderman planet. “With great power comes great responsibility.”
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Kat: Pretty much. But it goes on to say that Saturn is often associated with our fathers or father slash authority figures.
Rosie: Hmm.
Kat: In childhood, the discipline, rules, and regulations imposed on us by our authority figures from parents, teachers, and the like were not always pleasant, but they actually helped us to understand the world around us. Similarly – a word I can never say – Saturn’s lessons actually help us to grow. So, the fact that she even talks about Saturn representing Harry, how did you guys feel about that?
Michael: Hmm. I don’t want to say anything until the next part.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Kat: Okay. That’s fair enough. So I’ll go on. She continues. Harry says, “What? What?” And Trelawney says, “You were born under Saturn.” She says, “I was saying that Saturn was surely in the position of power in the heavens at the moment of your birth. Your dark hair, your mean stature, tragic losses so young in life – I think I’m right in saying, my dear, that you were born in mid-winter?” And I know, I know it’s been discussed a million times over in the fandom that she’s indeed not talking about Harry. She’s talking about Voldemort. So before we talk about what that means, what were you going to say, Michael? What do you think?
Michael: Well, it’s related to that, the, I guess, father figures in both…
Kat: Mhm.
Michael: … Harry and Voldemort’s life are very significant…
Kat: Mhm.
Michael: … in how they shape their world views. Especially Voldemort because Voldemort, being rejected by his Muggle father, completely blacks out that lineage, ends up killing all of that side of the family, but it definitely shapes how Voldemort sees the world after that and the sympathy that he has for – well, “sympathy”, quote-unquote – his mother with that. So yeah, the father thing definitely boosts the idea that she’s reading Voldemort and not Harry. So yeah, that’s what I was going to point out.
Rosie: But in a way, it contradicts it as well. If Saturn is all about laying down these rules, then I guess the fact that he didn’t have the figures would be showing Voldemort. Yeah, I guess. And yeah, if you did want to talk about Harry, then his father figure was born in March, so that’s not mid-winter. Dumbledore is a summer child as well, so he’s not going to be giving those kinds of rules and restrictions in a Saturney way. So yeah, it clearly is an interesting link that it does work for Voldemort and not Harry. Must be an obligatory genius moment again.
Kat: I think that this speaks to the relationship that Voldemort and Harry have, one thousand percent. Obviously, Voldemort’s not a father figure or an authority figure or whatever, but he’s definitely a very strong and big influence on Harry’s life…
Michael: Mhm.
Kat: … and I think that all of that whole first chapter that I read about, that Saturn is depressing, it brings structure and meaning to the world, who would Harry be if Voldemort wasn’t around right now? We have no idea. Voldemort constantly reminds Harry of his boundaries, his responsibilities, the commitments…
Rosie: Mhm.
Kat: … all of that stuff. I think this is such a big clue into what’s going to happen [laughs] in their relationship and who they’re going to become.
Laura: I always remember reading… I had never picked up on this before. It was only brought to my attention through Facebook memes and stuff of everyone talking like, “Oh, mind-blowing!” And I didn’t buy it at first just because I didn’t think that even with the Horcrux that they’d be that connected, but reading that description again with the dark hair, mean stature, tragic losses in life, all of that applies to both of them and I don’t know. I’m torn because I think the whole “born in mid-winter” thing, it’s meant… and when he’s like, “No, I was born in July.” It’s for comic effect, that I don’t know. I’m not sure how intentional it was. I don’t know if people just made that connection too, but I think it could be valid. I’m not sure that she did it on purpose.
Rosie: Yeah, I guess. If she did, it’s amazing. If she didn’t, it’s still amazing. [laughs]
Kat: Wait, how can you guys say at all that this isn’t on purpose?
Michael: I think it’s on purpose.
Kat: Yeah, me too, one thousand percent.
Laura: I guess, yeah. I guess I have to agree. I almost just think because the mid-winter is just the opposite of July, so…
Rosie: It works well as a joke.
Laura: Yeah, it works well as a joke, that that’s why I almost think she made up the joke. Because if she had said, “Oh, no, I’m born in May,” it wouldn’t have had the same effect, but it’s the opposite of July, is mid-winter.
Kat: But I think that she’s trying to show contrast, though, is the point.
Michael: Well, and it’s definitely… when you first read through the series, you could not possibly pick up on that as a clue. You’d have to…
Kat: Right.
Michael: You see it in reverse because we don’t have any understanding of Horcruxes right now. So yeah, I think for the first read-through, when you’re a first-timer to the series going through it, it’s meant to be a joke, definitely, because, I mean, this chapter is actually a very funny chapter. But I think, yeah, when you go back, this is… and I’m sure Rowling means for her readers to do exactly what Alohomora! does and go back and look and see what she was doing. Yeah, then I think it’s meant… I do think she put it in there intentionally that way for both reasons.
Rosie: You do have to wonder how much influence the Horcrux actually has though. I mean, we read in a lot of things that could be the Horcrux that could also just be coincidence. I mean, yes, the Horcrux is there, but it’s never necessarily being active or…
Laura: Yeah.
Rosie: … being read by Trelawney or anything. That’s only a fan idea at the moment.
Laura: That’s what I was getting at. I do think, just the more I think about it, yes, that it probably was intentional, but that’s more what my thought process was going on was that we almost give the Horcrux too much credit in that – of how much of an effect it actually takes.
Michael: So in a way, you’re saying even though it was intentioned by Rowling that Trelawney’s not seriously reading this.
Laura: Yeah, I think that’s what I’m saying.
Michael: I think that’s correct.
Laura: For her to have said that, so that people may make this connection, and it is there, but I don’t think she… that it’s so deeply connected to his soul or something that’s what she’s picking up on as a true Seer. I think she’s just making stuff up, like she does when she’s not in that trance thing, and it’s more a fun Easter egg of like, “Ah! That’s Voldemort’s birthday! Fancy that!”
Michael: Yeah, I think that’s right.
Kat: Yeah, I mean, but if that’s true, then Trelawney is insanely lucky far too many times in this series.
Laura: I said before that I only think she ever makes any true predictions when she’s in that trance and that everything else is just…
Kat: I mean, that’s probably true, but there are definitely people out there who can feel… I don’t even know how to describe what I’m trying to say, but people who are perceptive and can read those things without having to go into a trance. Many times growing up, my stepmother would have dreams the night before and then things would happen the next day that she had dreamt about. Her neighbor had a heart attack in her dream; the next day he had a heart attack. My father fell down a flight of stairs; the next day he fell down a flight of stairs. So, I think there are definitely people…
Rosie: Would she tell you about these dreams before they actually happened – because that’s a recorded phenomenon of dÈj‡ vu, is that you think that you’ve dreamt it the night before – and that’s where you end the dÈj‡ vu memory from?
Kat: She always kept a dream journal.
Rosie: Okay.
Kat: So she would…
Rosie: So it was recorded before it actually happened. That’s quite cool. [laughs]
Kat: Yeah. So I’ve always kind of seen her as Trelawney.
[Kat and Rosie laugh]
Michael: I think she has more cred than Trelawney. [laughs]
Laura: That’s what… yeah, I agree with Michael. That sounds legit, and I’m not discrediting – “Oh, I don’t believe in Seers” or something – I totally think people have that gift. I don’t think she does. That’s more of what my thought process is.
Kat: I have a little more faith in Trelawney, I guess, than the rest of you. I still think that 90% of the time she’s a hack, but I think that…
[Michael laughs]
Kat: … these things are completely purposeful and that she’s probably really… she doesn’t know what she’s seeing, obviously. She’s not saying, “I’m reading the Horcrux in Harry right know.” She doesn’t know what she’s doing, obviously.
Laura: Hmm, yeah, all right, that’s it. That’s a good point, that she might not realize it in and of herself, right.
Michael: Oh, yeah, no, it’s definitely fake.
Kat: It’s not like she knows she’s reading this part of Harry or whatever, she just is doing whatever, so…
Michael: Before you move on, Uranus joke, because it’s funny.
Kat: No, I was definitely going to bring that up.
Michael: Oh, please! [laughs]
Kat: The whole… at the bottom of 201 in the US version – I think we actually Tweeted about it today – one of the best lines in the whole book is…
[Laura laughs]
Michael: Oh, God. [laughs]
Laura: Am I right for saying the dirtiest joke in the Harry Potter series?
Rosie: Probably close.
Kat: Probably pretty close, yeah.
Laura: Because I obviously didn’t pick up on that when I was, what, nine reading this? But reading it now and the last time I read it, I was just like, “Wow!”
Rosie: Jo knows how to write for teenage boys.
Laura: All right, Jo, we’re going there.
Kat: She does. If they had included the Japanese golfer joke, that would have been the worst, but this one…
Laura: I didn’t… yeah, I remember that, of me thinking, because I brought that up in The Movie Watcher, something like, “That is not the type of joke that you’d be telling in that sort of company.” [laughs]
Kat: No, not really. But of course, just to set it up here, Lavender is looking at star charts or something and she says she has an unaspected planet, and she says, “Oh, which one is that, Professor?” And Trelawney goes, “That is Uranus, my dear.”
[Michael laughs]
Kat: And Michael, do the line.
Michael [as Ron] “‘Can I have a look at Uranus, too, Lavender?'” [laughs] “said Ron.”
Kat: It’s great. But yes, 13-year-old boys and girls probably around the world snickered when they read that part. And me, I think I was…
Michael: Oh, I did. [laughs]
Kat: Oh, I don’t know, 22.
Laura: I snicker rereading it now at 19.
Rosie: I do, too.
Kat: Yeah, I do, too. I think it’s great. Anyway, so moving on real quick, Malfoy comes up to Weasley later on and says that Arthur is mentioned in a Daily Prophet article about Mad-Eye Moody’s rescue and then, it’s like “Boom!” Mad-Eye comes and he rescues Harry and Ron from being picked on, which I thought was just a good flip on the situation, Mad-Eye needing rescuing then he did the rescuing.
Laura: That’s a good point.
Michael: Yeah.
Kat: That’s all. Anyway…
Rosie: But remember, this isn’t Mad-Eye.
Kat: Right, I know and I… oh, my next point has so much to do about that, it’s really funny. So Mad-Eye says that he doesn’t like it when people who attack when their opponent’s back is turned, and I thought it was really funny when he – this, Barty Crouch Jr./Mad-Eye hybrid thing…
[Michael laughs]
Kat: … seems to have a lot of honor. And knowing that this is Barty Crouch Jr., where do we think that comes from? Do we think it’s from him being proud of who he is? What he’s become? The job he’s doing for Voldemort? Where does this sense of honor come from?
Michael: Well, Voldemort certainly has… we see at the end of this book, Voldemort as crazy as he is, he does like to respect the manners of dueling, so I think that’s definitely something that comes from… that his followers also – at least his most loyal crazy followers – stick to. So I think that might be… I think you’re right. It’s the pride of what he’s doing, the job that he is doing. I think that’s kind of where that’s been drilled into him.
Rosie: But I don’t think that’s necessarily why he attacks Malfoy. Sure it’s to protect Harry because the ultimate goal of this entire book is to get Harry to the end of the Tournament. You have to remember that bit as well. He doesn’t want him to be cursed by Malfoy in the first couple of chapters. But I think it’s mainly to do with his whole idea of he doesn’t like Death Eaters who walked free, and who is the ultimate Death Eater who is walking free? Lucius Malfoy.
Michael: Hmm.
Kat: Which is funny because Mad-Eye… it says here, he’s like, “Hey, tell Draco I said hi.” I mean, “Tell your dad I said hi,” basically.
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: Which is like really, really funny.
Rosie: Which is why I always thought this is… Moody is going to be picking on – or Barty Crouch Jr. – is going to be picking on Draco throughout the whole book just to get back at Lucius.
Kat: Hmm. We’ll have to keep an eye on that and see if that happens.
Laura: I always forget, and I always need that constant reminder that it’s not actually him. Because this is why I get so angry because I really like his character in this book.
Rosie: Mhm.
Kat: It’s okay to like Barty Crouch Jr. I mean, that’s…
Laura: That would be totally fine if he didn’t maintain the same personality for the next three books.
Rosie: Yeah. I don’t think he does.
Laura: That’s my issue is that… and then when everyone mourns, when Harry mourns him in the final book, it’s like, “You never really knew him! You knew the Death Eater version.”
Kat: Is that a movieism, though? The fact that he never really changes?
Rosie: I think he does change. When you read the books, you see a very different Mad-Eye, in my opinion.
Laura: Minimally.
Kat: I definitely haven’t studied his character enough to make an opinion on that yet, so…
Laura: Yeah. I just have always liked this character until you realize it’s like not the character.
Michael: Yeah. I think there’s something to that, Laura, because I think the Hogwarts students are even affected that way because next year when Umbridge is ragging on all of the past Defense teachers, I think it’s Dean Thomas who stands up and was like, “Moody was great even though he ended up being a crazy guy!”
Kat: Yeah.
[Everyone laughs]
Michael: And even Harry, I think, reflects on that, what Barty Crouch Jr. taught him.
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: Yeah. He eventually says… I don’t know when… when he wants to become an Auror, that he’s like the irony that the person who first presented that idea to him was a Death Eater.
Michael: Yeah. I do… I think Crouch Jr. if he had gone into the Wizarding Theatre would have been an excellent actor.
[Kat and Laura laugh]
Kat: Does that exist? I mean, it must.
Michael: It does. There are Wizarding Theatre productions. It’s mentioned in the Tales of Beetle the Bard, but yeah. I think he was just… there’s a reason Voldemort sent him to this particular job. He did really well.
Rosie: And there’s a reason why he managed to avoid being caught for so long as well.
Michael: Yeah.
Rosie: It’s a massive production when he gets sent to jail, isn’t it?
Michael: Yes. Erase the stupid tongue thing from the movie, and you have an excellent, excellent acting here. It’s just pretty amazing what he manages to do, actually.
Laura: I don’t mind the tongue thing.
Kat: Just wrapping up the chapter, there’s a couple of quick little, I guess, clues or digs or whatever. Moody says – Moody/Barty Crouch says – he has been looking forward to a chat with Snape, another old friend, which I thought was really funny, and then when they’re talking about… Harry and Ron are talking to Lee, George, and Fred about Moody…
Rosie: “He knows, man.”
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Yeah, “He knows.” And Ron is like, “He knows what?” And George is like, “He knows what it’s like to be out there doing it.” And Fred’s like, “Fighting the Dark Arts.”
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: And I just thought it was really funny that like good old Barty Crouch is out there fighting the Dark Arts.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: It’s just funny. There’s so much irony in this chapter.
Laura: And also it’s really speaking a lot to his teaching ability if just based on the twin’s interest, or lack thereof, in everything academic-wise.
Rosie: Yeah, that’s true.
Kat: Right. Very true. Right, if they’re interested in it, then it must be good, right?
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: But that’s it, so not too much happened in this chapter, but definitely some significant points.
Rosie: But the last line in the chapter for us is brilliant because Ron’s disappointed that, “We haven’t got him until next Thursday.” That’s when we record our next episode![laughs]
Kat: It is! Oh, that’s very true.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: Good wrap up, Rosie, good job.
Rosie: Git. [laughs]
[Pottermore In-Depth intro begins]
Announcer: Pottermore In-Depth.
Rita Skeeter: Well, Harry, the Daily Prophet readers want to hear the in-depth scoop on you.
Harry Potter: Well, I…
Rita Skeeter: Absolutely brilliant! Ignore the quill. Tell me more, Mr. Potter!
[Pottermore In-Depth intro ends]
Michael: Okay, so, we are bringing back this week Pottermore In-Depth because of the first chapters of Goblet of Fire have been released, and one of the points we had mentioned earlier was colors in the wizarding world and the significance of colors and Rowling did actually add more about that. She had put earlier a little tiny piece about the colors green and purple and their significance to the wizarding world. We get a little more about that here, where she mentions, again, that witches and wizards reveal themselves in public by wearing purple or green. In Britain, and much of Europe, purple has an association with royalty and religion, which is an interesting thing to mention because, as Rowling has frequently stated in interviews, there’s not direct references to, there’s no mention of religion in Harry Potter. There are references to religious moments, but there’s never… wizards don’t have a religion, at least as far as we know, so that’s an interesting point for her to bring that up. She mentions that purple dyes were very costly at one point and were worn strictly by royalty, whereas green, and this isn’t going to do anything for our talk about Slytherins…
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Michael: “Green has long had supernatural connection in the UK. Superstition says that it ought to be worn with care. The fairies are supposedly possessive of the color green. It ought to never be worn at weddings due to its association with misfortune and death. Green is also the color of much Dark magic, of the Dark Mark, of the luminescent potion in which Voldemort conceals one of his Horcruxes, of many Dark spells and curses, and the nail on the coffin, of Slytherin House.”
[Everyone laughs]
Michael: But, with that, she points out that when you combine purple and green, you get both sides of magic. You get noble and the ignoble, the helpful and the destructive.
Kat: Did…
Laura: And a fashion faux pas.
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Kat: Did Harry wear green to the wedding?
Michael: I don’t remember what he wore to the wedding. His dress…
Rosie: I think he wears purple. His dress robes are bottle green because they bring out the color in his eyes.
Michael: His eyes.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Kat: Right.
Rosie: I’m fairly sure he wears purple to the wedding.
Kat: Okay. I couldn’t recall, just…
Michael: Well, that is interesting, though, because Harry is so frequently associated with green because of his eyes.
Kat: Yeah.
Laura: Mhm.
Michael: And that’s actually meant to represent Lily, but there is Dark magic contained within Harry that he is unaware of.
Kat: Do you think his eyes were a different color before?
Michael: Purple?
Rosie: No, he has Lily’s eyes. Come on.
Kat: Yeah, babies’ eyes change all the time.
Michael: He should have had purple eyes.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: I’m just saying that you never know, eye color does change.
Rosie: I don’t think he would have had different-colored eyes before.
Laura: Because it’s the whole thing that it’s his mother’s eyes.
Michael: Yeah, they’re Lily’s eyes, yeah.
Laura: Isn’t that the thing?
Kat: Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he had them when he was born.
Rosie: I doubt they would have changed, and if they did, they would have changed into that color before a year.
Michael: I think Harry’s eyes were always green. That’s because, again, it is so strictly tied to Lily. It’s not really mentioned… it’s not really ever stated that that’s a consequence of Voldemort’s Avada Kedavra.
Kat: Well, that would be super damn cool if it was.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Kat: I’m just saying.
Michael: If his eyes changed…
Rosie: If nothing else, you’ve got kind of a superstitious link between Harry and Lily, the whole mother’s love thing is kind of an ancient magic which you could call superstition and supernatural, that kind of stuff.
Kat: Mhm.
Rosie: So it could work with that connection, instead.
Kat: Very true.
Michael: Probably freaked Trelawney out when she first saw his eyes.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Kat: Probably.
Michael: But after the green and purple, Jo goes on to mention the Hogwarts houses and not only their colors but also their elements. As she puts, Gryffindor, which is red and gold, is connected to fire; Slytherin, which is green and silver, is connected to water; Hufflepuff, whch is yellow and black, represents wheat, soil, and the earth; and Ravenclaw, which is blue and bronze – not blue and silver…
[Laura laughs]
Michael: … is connected to the air and is also representative of the sky and eagle feathers. And actually if you do – I know Pottermore has actually done some in-depth posts about this on their blog – but if you look closely at their house crests that they designed, they each have the element behind…
Kat: The background.
Michael: Yeah, it has the background.
Rosie: Brilliant.
Michael: Which I thought was great because this is never said in the book, and it’s never mentioned that the design of the crest incorporates the element. Pottermore was, I think, the first one to point… to do that officially, right?
Kat: I think so, yeah.
Rosie: I think so, yeah.
Kat: I mean, it’s always been hinted at that the houses represented the elements, but it’s nice to have the confirmation.
Michael: Mhm.
Laura: And as someone who loves fire as a Gryffindor, I am super approved. I like the elements.
[Michael and Kat laugh]
Rosie: And you got the animals associated with that as well. Lions are often seen as quite fiery [and] you know, snakes go in and out of water – well, at least some of them can – badgers are obviously very earthy, and ravens are air. So, it all works out very well…
Kat: Eagles. Yeah.
Rosie: Eagles, yeah. Ravenclaw, eagles, whatever…
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: That’s okay, we’ll take both animals. We’ll take both. It’s cool, it’s cool.
[Michael laughs]
Rosie: They’re both birds.
Laura: Eagleclaw.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: Oh yeah, that doesn’t sound as nice, does it?
[Michael laughs]
Rosie: I never understood why it’s not a raven? Why would Ravenclaw not use a raven?
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Kat: Well, the same reason Gryffindor doesn’t use a Gryffin.
Rosie: Ah, true.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Or a Huffle…
Rosie: Slytherin is just too on the nose. [laughs]
Kat: It is! That is very true.
[Kat, Michael, and Rosie laugh]
Michael: And then of course, what the hell is a Hufflepuff?
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: The ever eternal question.
Michael: [laughs] The ever eternal…
[Kat laughs]
Michael: And then she mentions in addition to that – which she has talked about before – colors like peach and salmon pink are distinctly unmagical…
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: … and therefore much favored by the likes of Aunt Petunia. So there’s… you know, if you want to be a wizard, don’t wear those colors!
Kat: But that’s so funny because then we have Umbridge who only wears pink, so…
Rosie: Hmm…
Laura: But this is specifically peach and salmon pink…
Rosie: But it really describes Umbridge as well if you think about her. She doesn’t want to use magic; she wants theory of magic.
Michael: That’s true.
Rosie: I mean, she probably uses it herself but she teaches kind of non-magical magic.
Kat: That’s true.
Michael: That’s very true.
Kat: Very true.
Michael: Well, this is strictly the movies but I did like that choice in the movie where the more control Umbridge asserts over Hogwarts, the more pink her outfit gets.
Rosie: The more pink she gets. [laughs]
Kat: Yeah, it got darker and darker.
Michael and Kat: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah, so more kind of threatening.
Rosie: That showed really well at the Wizarding World tour…
Michael: Oh, yeah…
Rosie: Not Wizarding World… Studio Tour. [laughs]
Kat: Yeah, and..
Michael: And they have them all lined up? Is that…
Rosie: They have, I think, three of her costumes…
Michael: Oh, that’s cool.
Rosie: … that show a kind of difference in color.
Michael: Yeah.
Kat: And some of them have little skulls on the buttons…
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: … which I was in love with. They are so amazing.
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: That’s wonderfully terrifying.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: Yeah. No, they’re incredible. They are absolutely incredible.
[Everyone laughs]
Michael: But she does confirm… because I’m sure as she was writing that, she heard in her head the fans shouting: “But Tonks has pink hair!”
[Everyone laughs]
Michael: But she did mention that when people like Tonks wear very shocking pink, that conveys a certain punky “Yes, I’ve got a Muggle-born father and I’m not ashamed of it” attitude. Which is an oddly specific thing for a color but there you are.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: So basically if you just wear the ugly shades of pink, you don’t like magic, and any other shade you’re good.
Michael: Yeah, if you wear bold shades that just means you’re making a statement. So…
[Laura laughs]
Kat: Got it.
Michael: Probably one of the most interesting color references that she talks about in this new section is how color played a part in naming Hagrid and Dumbledore – Hagrid, whose first name is Rubeus, which is red and Albus, which is white. The choice was a nod to alchemy, which is very important of course in Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone where the red and white are essential mystical components in the process of creating the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone. The symbolism of the colors in this context has mystic meaning representing different stages of the alchemic process, which many people associate with a spiritual transformation. And where Hagrid and Dumbledore were concerned, she named them for the alchemy colors to convey their opposing but complementary natures – red for passion or emotion, which is Hagrid or white for… is it asceticism? Is that the word?
Kat: I think so.
Michael: Asceticism, what does that mean? [laughs]
Kat: I don’t know, I’m going to look it up right now.
Laura: Well, ascetics, so…
Michael: Well, ascetics, like…
Laura: I don’t know what asceticism means.
Kat: It means, “Severe self discipline, avoidance of all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons.”
Laura: Ooh.
Michael: Oh, that’s interesting.
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: See, learning something new on Alohomora!, I like that.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Michael: Vocabulary – Alohomora! vocabulary. But she explains Hagrid being the “earthy, warm, and physical man, Lord of the Forest,” Dumbledore “the spiritual theoretician, brilliant, idealized and somewhat detached.” So that’s where that asceticism definition would play.
Kat: Mhm.
Rosie: Mhm.
Michael: “Each is a necessary counterpoint to the other as Harry seeks father figures in his new world.” So this definitely hits the obligatory genius moment. [laughs]
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: Definitely.
Laura: Uh-huh.
Michael: And this is why, I believe, what we were talking about before with the Horcrux and what Trelawney reads was intentional because…
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: Going into this much detail in her first…
Rosie: She’s amazing. [laughs]
Michael: She did this in the first book and she knew that this would carry for all seven books, so it’s definitely… it really shows you how intentional every single thing… nothing is in Harry Potter without reason, pretty much.
Laura: Mhm.
Michael: But it is… I do think it’s interesting that she frequently mentions religion and spirituality in this discussion of the colors just because of her… I know in interviews she’s had constant debates with her own views on religion and spirituality, and in the books she puts those themes in without explicitly saying it. Not as heavy-handed per se as Narnia, you know!
[Laura and Michael laugh]
Kat: Oh God, wasn’t he like a Catholic teacher?
Michael: Yes.
Rosie: Yeah, Narnia was with actual purpose.
Michael: Yes.
Rosie: Here it’s just an undercurrent.
Kat: I think a lot of these things – the religious aspects that she writes about – are just her way of working through it for herself.
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah.
Kat: I know that’s true for a lot of authors. They write to kind of work through issues.
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: And I definitely think that…
Rosie: She’s not trying to preach anything. She’s just setting up the arguments.
Kat: Right, working it out for herself.
Michael: So yeah. So listeners, every time a color is mentioned, have a long think on that now.
Rosie: Constant vigilance!
Michael: Constant vigilance! [laughs]
Kat: I know really little about alchemy, so the red and white thing with Hagrid and Dumbledore just blew my mind.
Rosie: Yeah, because I’ve always thought she would have done Albus white and kind of pure, especially with the King’s Cross scene at the very end. It really kind of shows that. But I guess that’s still my prejudice towards early Dumbledore rather than late Dumbledore, which I don’t like quite as much because he is slightly less pure. So if that’s not actually what she was going for, it works perfectly fine. [laughs]
Kat: Yeah. I’ve always associated Dumbledore with white anyway.
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: Oh, definitely.
Kat: The beard and…
Laura: The beard’s kind of like the focal point.
Kat: Well, hasn’t Harry described him before as having this halo or this glow? I’m pretty sure he has.
Michael: Yeah.
Kat: I think that’s where it comes from.
Michael: And like, as Rosie mentioned with later Dumbledore, he loses that in Harry’s eyes eventually.
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: Right.
Michael: Around Book 5, Book 6, the first time Harry sees Dumbledore cry and definitely when he sees Dumbledore start to doubt even his own decisions…
Kat: Hmm.
Michael: He becomes a little off-white, I guess you could say. [laughs]
Rosie: To me, he’s kind of… he’s anti-Gandalf. Gandalf goes from gray to white.
Michael: Yes.
Kat: He does it the other way around.
[Laura and Michael laugh]
Kat: Ah, very true. Good point there, Rosie. That’s very true, very true. So that was good. For the next couple of episodes, we’re going to be having the special feature. Just since we’re not really aligned with Pottermore anymore, but we definitely want to talk about the information because it’s so amazing and incredible and genius, you could say. So for the next, I don’t know, three or four weeks this is definitely going to be there. So make sure you guys comment on it because we will definitely read some of your comments on the next episode.
Rosie: And we’ll keep asking for things to be answered as well because it really seems to work. They keep filling in the gaps for us.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: She’s definitely listening to this show. I just…
Laura: She mentioned it on the last…
Rosie: She did!
Kat: I know. So we’re on her mind, man. We’re on her mind.
Laura: Yeah.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: I mean, that was the most random of mentions ever.
Laura: It was, it was extremely… I didn’t read Potttermore yet but my Facebook feed, since I’m friends with 25 people from MuggleNet, blew up about it being posted on there. And I looked it up and was like, “That’s just very, very random to put there… but sure.”
Kat: She either has that on display somewhere or has the best memory of anybody ever.
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: Because that was what, ten years ago, twelve years ago that they talked… that they met and interviewed her?
Laura: That was Half-Blood Prince, so that was… don’t tell me that was ten years ago. Oh my God, I’ll die.
Kat: It’s been well over… it’s been around there. Wasn’t it 2003?
Laura: No, no, no, Half-Blood Prince was like… I was in sixth grade, so it was like…
Kat: 2006?
Laura: 2006… around there, yeah.
Rosie: Yeah.
Laura: So that would make me ten? Wait…
Kat: Okay, you’re not sixteen… oh wait. Never mind.
Rosie: It was about eight years [ago].
Laura: I don’t know. Don’t make me do math! The point is…
Michael: Half-Blood Prince was released on the 16th of July, 2005.
Laura: Wow.
Kat: Okay, so it was before Half-Blood Prince, so it was at least eight or nine years [ago].
Laura: Oh my God.
Kat: But regardless, Jo, when you listen to this…
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Kat: Thank you. Thank you, but next time…
Rosie: Thank you very much.
Kat: … capitalize the “N”.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Kat: That’s all I’m saying. Capitalize the “N”.
[Long silence]
Rosie: Okay, so it’s time for this week’s Podcast Question of the Week, and what we really want to know is how much of Barty Crouch Jr. do you guys think is showing up in Mad-Eye Moody as we see him currently? Because obviously as Laura was saying, we go through this entire book thinking this is one guy and it turns out to be another. So, how much do we see of the balance? How much can we actually associate as him acting as Mad-Eye Moody and how much is actually Barty Crouch’s ideas coming through. Let us know in your comments on the Alohomora! website at alohomora.mugglenet.com and we’ll read them out next week.
Laura: Okay, so this week we had a familiar cast right here. We didn’t have a guest because Michael has been around a bunch of times.
Michael: Hi.
[Laura laughs]
Kat: He’s on every episode, man! He’s the only one on every episode.
Laura: Yeah, this is true. Michael is on every episode.
[Michael laughs]
Laura: But if you would like to be on the show, you certainly can. To find out how, head over to our website and check out “Be on the Show” – the page at alohomora.mugglenet.com. Please make sure you have appropriate audio equipment and in the meantime, please subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes.
Rosie: And you can also contact us elsewhere on Twitter at @AlohomoraMN, on Facebook at facebook.com/openthedumbledore, and you can Skype us on 206-GO-ALBUS or 206-462-5287. And we are very excited to announce that we now have an Audioboo channel, so you can go to audioboo.fm/channel/alohomora and you can find us on there. And we are going to be using that sometimes to send you guys little voice clips, but you can also use it to send us messages. And very soon there will be a little box on our website which has a little “Record” button, and as long as you have a microphone you can now send us messages straight from our homepage. So look out for that; it’s coming very, very soon.
Kat: Yeah, and that’s free to anybody all over the world, so if you’re not able to Skype us for some reason, or you’re not in the US to call, you can leave us a little message and we’ll play it on the show, just like we read the comments.
Rosie: It’s going to be good.
Kat: Yeah, definitely go over and do that; it’s super cool. And while you’re at our website, don’t forget to check out our store. As we’ve mentioned, there are now over 75 products to chose from, which is like a lot. There’s T-shirts – short-sleeved and long-sleeved – tote bags, sweatshirts, flip-flops, water bottles, travel mugs, and so much more coming soon. And we’re actually going to have a big sale when this episode comes out, so definitely check out for that. It’s in honor of our favorite homegirl, so…
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: And also on our website, we just added ringtones. I think there are six or seven of them. They’re exclusive, just for us. Our theme song was made by Pogo and it is a YouTube video that has a bunch of words all over it. He made an instrumental version just for us, so those ringtones are completely exclusive to us. You literally can’t get them anywhere else, so be sure to check them out. You can download them for pretty much any phone you have, so… and they’re free! Yay for free.
Laura: Okay, and also be sure to check out our exclusive app. It’s available seemingly worldwide. As Eric said, if it’s not, if your country doesn’t have it, let us know. [laughs]
Kat: Someone from Italy tweeted and said it’s not available on Android in Italy, so…
Laura: All right.
Kat: Italians, we’re very, very sorry. We’ll work on it. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah. [laughs] We’ll sit down with the Italian government.
Kat: Mhm.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: We will. We’ll make it work.
Rosie: When your government is working again.
Laura: [laughs] Yeah, as soon as our government gets in. Okay. Yeah, the price is varied depending on your country, but the app has transcripts, bloopers, alternate endings, host vlogs, and more. Yeah, so definitely check that out.
[Show music begins]
Rosie: Well, that pretty much wraps up the show. I’m Rosie Morris.
Laura: I’m Laura Reilly.
Michael: I’m Michael Harle.
Kat: And I’m Kat Miller. Thank you for listening to Episode 51 of Alohomora!
Laura: Open the Dumbledore!
[Show music continues]
Kat: Can you just say it again and say Alohomora!?
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: Did I say it wrong? [laughs]
Kat: Yeah.
Rosie: Alohomora!
Michael: Alohomora!
Kat: Eric does it, too. You’re not the only one.
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: Alohomora! Okay. This is Episode 51… oh, damn it!
[Everyone laughs]
Michael: Now I can hear both in my head! Say it again.
Rosie: Alohomora!
Kat: Alohomora!
Laura: Instead of saying “Aloe,” it’s… not like “Aloe” like the aloe vera. It’s “Alo.”
Kat: “Alo.” Yeah.
Laura: “Aloho.”
Rosie: Alo, mate!
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Michael: Alohomora! Okay.
