Transcript – Episode 56
[Show music begins]
Caleb Graves: This is Episode 56 of Alohomora! for November 9, 2013.
[Show music continues]
Caleb: Hey, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Alohomora! I’m Caleb Graves.
Rosie Morris: I’m Rosie Morris.
Michael Harle: And I’m Michael Harle. And our guest today is Erin Southam. She is a teacher and librarian. Welcome to the show, Erin.
Erin Southam: Thank you very much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.
Michael: We’re thrilled to have you. Please tell us a little bit about yourself: what you do and your background with Harry Potter, and definitely let us know what house you’re in.
Erin: Okay. Well, I’ll start with that. I’m a Hufflepuff. Very proud to be so.
Rosie: Yay!
Michael: Oh, yay! We’ve got three Puffs on this show.
Caleb: I’m so outnumbered today.
Erin: Woo-hoo!
[Everyone laughs]
Erin: And I have what I consider to be a dream job. I’m a middle school librarian, and so I’m able to incorporate my passion for Harry Potter into my daily job. I have a Harry Potter book club at school. We also have a Quidditch team. I’ve been a fan, pretty much, since the books came out. And I love to take part in almost anything Harry Potter related and I am just super excited to be here with you guys today.
Michael: That is so fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on this show.
Caleb: Yeah, Erin is not a stranger to Alohomora! She mentioned her Harry Potter book club. She actually had her students join up with the show for a Google Hangout… I guess it’s been a couple of weeks now…
Erin: Mhm.
Caleb: Kat, Eric, and I joined with the book club and they were wonderful and delightful students and we definitely enjoyed it. It’s good to see Harry Potter alive in…
[Erin laughs]
Caleb: … so many generations.
Erin: And they were just so excited. They were like, “When are we meeting again?” So…
[Erin and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: We’ll definitely have to meet up again.
[Rosie laughs]
Erin: They loved it.
Caleb: We do want to remind you guys that we are nominated for the Podcast Awards, and MuggleNet as a whole is nominated for four different podcast awards. You have now less than one week to still vote for us. The voting ends [on] November 15, and you can vote every day until then. To remind you guys, we, Alohomora! are nominated in the categories of Entertainment and People’s Choice. Hogwarts Radio is nominated for Best Produced, and MuggleNet Academia for Education. So make sure to get to podcastawards.com and vote for those three podcasts in those four categories. Make sure you use a valid email because after you vote you are going to get a nifty little email with a link that will let you validate your vote. You’ve got to do that or the vote won’t count. And again we just want to say thank you for the nominations you guys gave us that made us nominated in the first place, and all the votes you’ve been giving us. It’s been great to see you tweet and post and all sorts of things about how you’re voting for us. We definitely couldn’t do it without you, so thanks a lot.
Rosie: And so on with the show. Before we get started, we need to remind you all to read Chapter 18, “The Weighing of the Wands.”
Michael: But before we get to our discussion on this week’s chapter, we are actually going to look back on the previous chapter’s discussion about… from last week on Chapter 16 and what was discussed last week about that. And some of the comments…
Rosie: Is that right? Hang on. We are on Chapter 18 this week.
Michael: Is it… it should be 17, right?
Rosie: Chapter 17.
Michael: Oh no, but… yeah, yeah. 17.
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: Whoops. Counting is hard. All right. I’ll say that again. But before we move onto this week’s chapter, we are going to look at some comments that you guys left about the previous episode’s discussion on Chapter 17. And we’re going to start with an audio clip from our Audioboo that was left by Lisa from California.
[Audio]: Editor’s note: This Audioboo has inexplicably gone missing.
[Audio]: We suspect Nargles.
Michael: Just so you all know, the comment is about the Age Line, and in general it’s the idea of the Polyjuice Potion and whether that would fool the Age Line and would it spit out the name of the person who is actually playing the person or would it spit out the name of the person who is the Polyjuice person.
Erin: Good question.
Rosie: It’s a really interesting idea.
Caleb: Mhm.
Rosie: But I think Polyjuice Potion is kind of an exterior thing. It changes your appearance, same as transfiguring or the age potion would do.
Caleb: Mhm.
Rosie: So I think it would probably still spit out your name rather than the Polyjuice name, and I don’t think it would work if you were still younger than the Age Line.
Caleb: I’m with Rosie.
Michael: Yeah, well… because this would also imply that the… because if you used the Polyjuice Potion, you would still be entering your name… the name of you because the goal is to get yourself into the tournament.
Rosie: That’s true. Yeah. You don’t want to be them the whole time. [laughs]
Michael: Yeah. So unless the Goblet actually knows how to change the name of somebody on the paper…
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: Although we don’t know what powers the Goblet has, so it could very well do that. But it would have to actually be able to change the name. I wonder what would happen though if you took the Polyjuice Potion and the aging potion together. It would probably have some horrible side effects.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Michael: But we had a few other comments about the Age Line because that was a very big topic of discussion on the last episode. From the website, madame_lestrange said,
“This may be VERY far-fetched but… would the Invisibility Cloak have worked for Harry if the Age Line was drawn by Dumbledore and therefore by the Elder Wand? Which Hallow would prevail?”
Because there was discussion last week that Harry could have gotten over the Age Line because he was wearing the Invisibility Cloak, and the idea that because the Invisibility Cloak is a Hallow, that it would have cancelled out the Age Line somehow. So we’re saying here that we’ve got two Hallows in play. What do you guys think?
Caleb: That’s really interesting.
Rosie: I don’t know.
[Michael laughs]
Rosie: That was a hard one.
Michael: Because there’s a suggestion from the website, from Aradan, that maybe the Elder Wand is what made it possible for Dumbledore to create such an intelligent Age Line.
Rosie: Is it really that intelligent, though? It’s just checking if you’re younger or not. [laughs]
Michael: Yeah, no, but I guess the debate, on the show at least has been that… how effective is something like an Aging Potion or Polyjuice Potion…
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: … and why isn’t a potion that is technically supposed to age you, why doesn’t it work on an Age Line?
Caleb: I guess my thought with the Hallows clashing here is, the power of the Invisibility Cloak isn’t – the purpose of that power is not to overcome what the Elder Wand has done here. So I don’t think it necessarily will overcome this particular spell.
Michael: Yeah. The Hallows don’t necessarily cancel each other out.
Caleb: Right.
Michael: They’re actually supposed to be used in complement to each other.
Caleb: Mhm.
Michael: But we also had another comment from the forums, LeslieLovegood, who said,
“In ‘Deathly Hallows’ the trio sets off the Caterwauling Charm when entering Hogsmeade under the Cloak. The Cloak, with all its power, does not protect the trio from this charm and I would think the same principle would apply to the Age Line.”
Caleb: Yeah.
Erin: Definitely agree with that.
Michael: Yeah. So the Cloak isn’t really intended to get you over an Age Line, anyway, is basically the point here.
Rosie: Because your feet will always be showing because they grew. They don’t fit under that Cloak anymore.
Caleb: Yeah.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Michael: So that’s the discussion at the end of the discussion about the Age Line. But one of the other topics of discussion was about Fleur, and Krum, and Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons, sitting at the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables. And crookshanks11 on the website asked,
“What houses would you sort Fleur and Krum if they went to Hogwarts? Do you agree with Slytherin and Ravenclaw or do you have another take?”
Caleb: See, I always found this really interesting because I never really understood… well, I think I know why, but I don’t necessarily get automatically putting especially Beauxbatons in Ravenclaw. I think it has to do with each house gets something. Hufflepuff and Gryffindor have their champions, Durmstrang goes to Slytherin, so maybe by default Beauxbatons goes to Ravenclaw. But I just don’t see those two necessarily meshing that well.
Rosie: No. I think Fleur is very… she’s very proud, and very full of that self-centeredness. So that could either be…
Erin: Slytherin.
Rosie: … sometimes it’s a Slytherin or sometimes maybe even Gryffindor, occasionally.
Caleb: Yeah. I agree.
Michael: Mhm.
Erin: Yeah.
Rosie: And I think I would put Krum in Gryffindor as well…
Michael: Oh.
Rosie: … because he strikes me as very brave.
Michael: Definitely.
Caleb: Yeah.
Michael: As some people pointed out because there were a lot of… I couldn’t document all the responses to that question that was posed on the website because there were a lot of responses but a few people pointed out that Krum doesn’t really enjoy his fame, which would be a Slytherin mark. So he doesn’t really [unintelligible].
Rosie: And he never really does anything bad.
Caleb: Right.
Michael: Mhm.
Rosie: The only bad thing he does is when he’s under the spell that Moody casts on him. So…
Michael: And, actually, when we see him later, at the wedding of Bill and Fleur we definitely see some Gryffindor qualities, when he gets very upset about Xenophilius. So…
Rosie: Yeah, that’s true.
Michael: I’ve always wondered…
Rosie: I’ve always wanted Hermione to love him. [laughs]
Michael: [laughs] I’ve always wondered if the other schools actually have their own Sortings and have houses like that, or if they’re just all under one umbrella.
Caleb: Hmm.
Rosie: Do American schools have distinct houses?
Caleb: I think… go ahead, Erin.
Erin: Oh, no. I was just trying to think about that. Maybe private schools; public schools definitely don’t.
Caleb and Michael: Yeah.
Erin and Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: The only thing I can think about is when you get to college and there’s Greek life.
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: Mhm.
Caleb: That’s the closest I can really think of.
Rosie: Because there are, to an extent, houses in general secondary schools in the UK. Not so much in everyday schools; a lot more in private schools and things. And again, yeah, when you get to university you get a lot more of that kind of thing. So I was just wondering if it was a peculiar to the UK thing that you would be separated and pitted against each other for some reason.
Michael: Yeah, yeah.
Rosie: But if it’s more general… it could be possible that other places have houses, but I don’t think it’s necessarily important to them in the same way that it was for Hogwarts.
Michael: Mhm. Well, we don’t know how many students are at each school either.
Rosie: No, that’s true.
Caleb: Right. If it’s a smaller population it seems less likely for it to happen.
Michael: Yeah, yeah. So then we also had some discussion on the forum about why Snape… there was a question last week about why Snape was present for… when Harry… they’re trying to figure out if he entered his name in the Goblet of Fire because there are no other heads of houses in the room.
Rosie: There’s no reason for him to be there at all. [laughs]
Michael: And there’s supposedly no reason for him to be there but The Lost Diadem from the forums said,
“I think that Snape joins in on the conversation that takes up most of this chapter because of his vow to protect Harry. Harry will be in a lot of danger during the tournament, and it is probably clear to him that putting Harry’s name in the Goblet of Fire was a sinister move. He therefore wants to be involved in the discussion because he is involved in protecting Harry.”
And this was mentioned by quite a few people, that. Some people even suggested on the forum that Dumbledore asked Snape to be present during this meeting. So do you guys think this is another hint of how Snape is supposed to be watching over Harry?
Erin: I think if there were a reason why he was in the room, that would be it. I don’t necessarily know if Dumbledore would have asked him to come in the room, but I think if there was a reason he was there, it would be because of the protection of Harry factor.
Michael: Because of course Snape still uses this opportunity to be really snarky…
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Right.
[Erin laughs]
Michael: … and horrible, but I almost feel that if it was purely just that, then Dumbledore would have sent him back out, or at least encouraged him, maybe be like, [as Dumbledore] “Severus, why don’t you go check on everyone else?”
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Yeah.
Michael: So… but he does let him stay.
Caleb: It just seems like we get so many of these moments where… I mean, obviously McGonagall is there because she’s the Deputy Headmistress, but we get more of these moments that seems like Snape really is in this twisted, odd way Dumbledore’s right hand man when it comes to school issues like this.
Erin and Michael: Mhm.
Rosie: Yeah. I never really thought about it in the sense of him being helpful [laughs] in this uniform.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: So yeah, it’s an interesting idea. I’ll reconsider my “he had no reason to be there” theory.
Michael: [laughs] Well, and it’s… as we find out in Deathly Hallows, Snape is… Dumbledore does keep Snape updated on almost everything related to Harry.
Rosie: That’s true. Yeah.
Caleb: Mhm.
Michael: So we get a whole rundown from every year of the things they talked about, so that definitely could be part of that.
Rosie: Maybe Snape is also trying to keep an eye on Karkaroff for Dumbledore. You think?
Michael: Yeah, that’s true. As you guys mentioned last week, there are three former Death Eaters in the room. [laughs]
Erin: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.
Caleb: That’s insane.
Michael: [laughs] Of course, we don’t know about one of them, but still.
Rosie: We don’t know about two of them at this point, I think. Do we know about Karkaroff yet?
Michael: Yeah. Well, we don’t.
Caleb: We the reader don’t.
Michael: Yeah.
Caleb: And then there’s the one that no one in the room actually knows about, so… [laughs]
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: Mhm. And then you guys raised the question last week, too, about why perhaps Dumbledore continues to let Harry in the tournament and why he’s not more resistant to taking him out of it. And of course there was the discussion about whether the Goblet would actually let that happen, and then there was also the suggestion I know Patrick had suggested because it’s mentioned in the movie that McGonagall and Dumbledore talk about letting this situation play out. But on the forums, cassandra1447 stated… summarized why this would be a bad idea. She said,
“Harry is outclassed. Without Crouch Jr.’s help, he would have failed tasks 1 and 2 completely and potentially have been seriously injured. Dumbledore would not have allowed Harry to attempt something he is woefully unprepared for when, at this point, there are no exigent circumstances. I feel like having Moody as a professor was Dumbledore’s preparation plan for Harry this year. There’s also Dumbledore’s reasoning at the end of OotP about wanting Harry to have a normal quiet year… why wouldn’t have this applied in GoF as well? Dumbledore being forced to abide by the rules of the Tournament clues in the reader that events are moving beyond his control. Hogwarts is transitioning from being a rather isolated environment under Dumbledore’s control to being integrated with the events/politics/war of the entire wizarding community and Dumbledore no longer being the only leader who matters or has influence over the school.”
Rosie: Hmm.
Michael: So this is a big comment, but the gist is essentially that this is where we’re starting to see Dumbledore lose control and perhaps Hogwarts isn’t as safe as everybody is saying it is this year.
Caleb: Yeah.
Michael: So it was just interesting because I did, I agree with this. I’m inclined to agree that Dumbledore sees Harry as some precious porcelain piece…
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: … that he’s not going to let get seriously injured, especially…
Rosie: Yeah, I think they would all do something to protect him during the Tournament and that’s why he lets them carry on.
Michael: Mhm.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: He’s not going in there completely unprotected.
Michael: Yeah, interestingly enough because a lot of people on the forums actually said that they did not like that scene in the movie…
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: … when Dumbledore and McGonagall discuss with each other about just letting things play out and see what happens.
Caleb: Yeah.
Michael: So…
Rosie: They cut so much out of this book for that movie that just adding things in just annoys me.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Right.
Rosie: They could have done other things and made it better, but never mind.
Michael: Definitely. And lastly, we have a voicemail from Harrison, whose nickname is Harry:
[Audio]: Hello, my name is Harrison, although I’ve been nicknamed Harry for my love of a certain seven books and eight films. I wanted to comment on the episode that just came out – well, today, yesterday, whenever it did – and I wanted to say, why didn’t anyone use Veritaserum? Wouldn’t it have been really easy for Dumbledore or someone to have gotten some Veritaserum or even ordered Snape? I know Snape wouldn’t have wanted to, but wouldn’t it have just cleared Harry’s name if… and Harry would have definitely drank it to prove that he didn’t do it. It would have been the one true way of proving that he didn’t do it. So anyway, that’s just that and I’ll hope to be hearing more of you guys soon.
Caleb: Yeah, I mean…
Rosie: Because there are sanctions on Veritaserum. You can’t just use it all the time.
Caleb: Right. Yeah.
Michael: Which is good…
Caleb: And we talked… go ahead.
Michael: Dumping it down people’s throats, right?
[Rosie laughs]
Erin: Right.
Michael: What were you going to say, Caleb?
Caleb: Yeah, we… I was just going to say I think this is something we’ve talked about before, looking forward in this book, that Veritaserum is a wonderful thing, but it is not something that is just so easily used and that’s taken for granted.
Michael: Definitely. Well, and I think the following year Umbridge very much abuses the use of Veritaserum.
Rosie: Definitely.
[Michael laughs]
Erin: Yeah.
Michael: And they run out. So, and… which is something I don’t think Dumbledore would actually sanction.
Rosie: No. And there’s a difference as well between what they do with Crouch at the end and trying to answer one question.
Caleb: Mhm.
Rosie: With Crouch, they want the whole story over an entire year, so that’s going to take a while. If you’re just going to ask one question and you give them a whole dose of Veritaserum, they’re going to be spouting truth for hours. You don’t want that.
[Erin laughs]
Michael: Well, and there was… this is… that was a crime. He killed people. [laughs]
Rosie: Yeah. [laughs] Very different.
Michael: Harry’s just entering a tournament. [laughs]
Erin: Yeah, it seems like Veritaserum should be used for maybe criminal or suspected criminal actions, rather than just, “Oh, we want to know…”
Caleb: Yeah.
Erin: “… did Harry put his name in or not?”
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah, definitely. There would probably be a lot of abuse of that if that were what it was used for. And it certainly… I suppose that would… I feel like Dumbledore has a sense of his student’s rights, so…
Caleb: Sometimes.
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: Most of the time. I mean, he does use Legilimancy on them a lot.
Caleb: Yeah.
Michael: But we want to thank you for all of your wonderful comments that you left on the episode and if you ever want to leave any more for us, there’s a lot of ways to do that. Please visit the forums, our website, and you can leave us audio messages and we got a lot of those from last week’s episode, so thank you all.
Rosie: So we will go on now to the Podcast Question of the Week from last week. So we’re moving from one person putting their name in the Goblet of Fire to another. We asked, “Do you think, hypothetically, if the Triwizard Tournament had existed without age restrictions back in the era when Tom Riddle was at Hogwarts, would he have entered and would he have been selected?” And we had so many comments this week, guys. It was amazing. You’re all having conversations in there, as well, backing up each other’s ideas and just really nice to see. [laughs] So thank you for that. Let’s get on to some of these comment now. The first one comes from Helentheeagle and it says,
“I agree that he would not have entered when he was younger, he still had this wait and see attitude back then. And cheating is definitely his thing. It would be complicated though, he would want to win no matter what, but he can’t risk revealing how much he has dabbled in the Dark Arts. He would use this opportunity to show everyone how brilliant he is at magic, while showing his Death Eaters to be that even without Dark magic he is still not one to be crossed.”
So this comment slightly contradicts itself in that she says that he wouldn’t have entered and then talks about what would happen if he did enter, but it’s interesting that lots of people are saying that if he did enter, he would definitely cheat to win because he’s Tom Riddle and he can’t fail because that would be a bad thing. What do you guys think? Do you think he would cheat if he did enter?
Michael: [scoffs] Yeah. He killed people at school.
Caleb: Yeah, if he entered, there’s no question.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: He killed one person and it technically wasn’t him. It was his snake.
Michael: But it was via him.
Rosie: Yeah.
[Michael laughs]
Caleb: Listen here, guys. Rosie is defending Voldemort.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: Okay, we’re done.
Erin: Cheating is an acceptable part of the Triwizard Tournament, right?
Caleb: Absolutely.
Erin: Kind of a tradition, right?
Rosie: It is.
Michael: Yeah.
Rosie: Okay, the next comment is from Madina and it says,
“I think DEFINITELY, Voldemort wants all the ‘eternal’ glory he could get, he has a very strong desire to show how powerful he is as a wizard. And I think he would be selected if the goblet’s choice of champion was based on how powerful a wizard is (and Voldemort has both the magical genes and the will to work really hard to become a great dark wizard), unless the goblet took the purity and goodness of the person into consideration.”
So there was a lot of discussion about how the Goblet actually chooses people. I think we’ll have another comment or two later on about that, but a lot of people were saying that if it’s power alone, then you’re definitely going to choose Tom Riddle at this point, no matter who else enters their name in.
Michael: Mhm.
Caleb: Yeah, which I would be more inclined to agree with, that it’s about power alone. I don’t think it makes moral judgements.
Michael: Yeah, I think…
Caleb: It’s very complicated.
Michael: I think that’s… I mean, although, the four people who are chosen, they do all seem to – at least at various points – have good sense of morality, but, at least in this Tournament…
Caleb: That’s true.
Michael: … but I’m inclined to agree too that the Goblet picks more on power because it reminded me… and we’re going to talk about him later in the chapter, but Mr. Ollivander and the way he appraises wands, and especially Harry’s wand, and he’s like, “Oh, Voldemort did great things. Terrible, but great!”
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: And I feel the Goblet thinks the same way.
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: It sees potential in people…
Caleb: Mhm.
Michael: … and power. So it really doesn’t account for personality.
Rosie: Okay. Let’s see if you agree after a comment later on. We’ll find out. Okay, so the next comment is from Kaitlyn and it says,
“I don’t think that he would have entered. Riddle obviously viewed himself as a proficient and powerful wizard already and wouldn’t go for this tournament like a jock-like person would in order to prove himself. Riddle wanted glory of a more violent, more personal, and perhaps even more intimate fashion. In ‘Half-Blood Prince’ we learn that he was already questioning Slughorn in his teenage years about Horcruxes, so I think he’d have been too busy planning and ensuring his immortality in order to worry about such an event that could have very well killed him. And I don’t think he could care about the money, he could get anything through intimidation.”
Caleb: I totally agree with this. This is exactly what I was thinking. I do not think he needs the Triwizard Tournament. I don’t think he would waste his time with it.
Michael: Hmm.
Rosie: I think it would depend on… actually the next comment says exactly what I was about to say, so I’ll wait for that one.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Yeah. I mean, I just think that… well, and even more so, I think that he probably doesn’t… I mean, he’s certainly confident in his abilities, but he has not worked himself up to the level he knows he’s capable of and I think – trying to walk in his shoes – he would be nervous that if he came up short, it would be a very big disappointment and he’s not ready to show all of his cards.
Rosie: Do you think he might have talked one of his friends into going… or friends or followers, whatever you want to call them – into going in, so maybe he would get Lucius to enter or something?
Caleb: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s possible.
Rosie: Being the puppet master from behind.
Michael: I don’t think so. I know Voldemort usually likes to be the center of attention. [laughs] So…
Rosie: Well, then what are his Death Eaters for? He’s not always the center of attention.
Michael: They’re his wingmen.
Rosie: He does hide occassionally.
Michael: [laughs] That… well… that’s the… but he only hides because he has to. He wouldn’t have any reason… I mean, sure maybe to…
Rosie: Probably not in this one.
Michael: Yeah, I think because he was… that… it is interesting to note that this would have happened around the time that he was working on the Horcruxes and that possibly would have, I think, been a major factor in him deciding, but I almost can’t see him shying away from the advertisement of eternal glory. He probably wouldn’t care about the money, but as far as the idea of getting all that attention and possibly having that attention segue into future opportunities for him, I don’t think he would pass that up.
Rosie: Do you think that if he had entered and had won, would he then turn the Triwizard Cup into a Horcrux?
Michael: Ooh!
Rosie: As a trophy of won of his crowning moments of glory?
Michael: Probably because he does love things that mean a lot to him or he collects things.
Rosie: Mhm.
Michael: He’s a hoarder.
[Everyone laughs]
Erin: And it’s a powerfully magical object.
Rosie: Yeah.
Erin: So it seems like it would be a good candidate for a Horcrux.
Michael: Yeah.
Rosie: Okay. Spectacularlyhypothetical says,
“I think that the answer to this question relies on what year of schooling Riddle was in when the tournament took place. I think in his first few years (1-3) he definitely would have entered. He was young and full of himself at this point and wanted to prove that he could be full of eternal glory. If it was held in the last few years of his Hogwarts schooling (5-7) I don’t think he would have. At this point (and maybe earlier) he had already decided his fate in Horcruxes and was working on creating them and would not worry on a silly sporting event. Why would he need to prove that he had eternal glory when he had already tethered himself to earth and was on his way to becoming the most powerful wizard of the age?”
Erin: I was thinking that this was a comment that I most agreed with, but actually, thinking back, he’s still in years five through seven, he’s still seeking approval at Hogwarts. I mean, he’s still doing things to please the professors so that he stands out from other people. So in a way, I agree with this, that maybe in his later years it wouldn’t have been as important, but he’s definitely still seeking glory and seeking approval and trying to set himself apart even in years five through seven.
Caleb: Hmm. Yeah, that actually made me think of something else because even though he’s doing Horcruxes behind the scenes, that’s obviously something he’s not public about and he wants to have a public. At least, shortly after school, he wants to be in some sort of public role. I mean, he seeks out the Defense Against the Dark Arts job. So I think this would be an opportunity for him to build up that public persona and prove his capabilities for whatever he wanted to do after school.
Rosie: Okay, and our final comment will come from Crookshanks11 and it says,
“On the subject of him being chosen by the Goblet of Fire, however, it could go either way. My initial reaction was yes, of course he would get picked, because even if his magic wasn’t used for good, even Dumbledore could not deny (in ‘Half-Blood Prince’) that Riddle was an extraordinarily powerful and talented wizard, and that the Goblet would recognize that right away. But after reading the other comments, I did start to wonder whether the Goblet chooses champions based on their virtues, not only power or skill. I don’t know if I want to argue that because even though you can say that Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum are good people without a doubt, but especially in this book they don’t initially scream ‘heroic’ and ‘virtuous,’ and Fleur isn’t particularly powerful either. But one thing that I can say without hesitation is that if Tom Riddle was chosen as a champion, he would win and he would make sure that he won. We know that he has no problem pushing others under the bus or cheating to reach his ambitions, and can’t you just imagine him manipulating Slughorn to give him hints/help?”
Michael: Poor Fleur. Nobody can figure out why she was selected for this tournament.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: The other Beauxbatons girls mostly.
[Caleb and Michael laugh]
Michael: Yup, that’s it, it’s just ranking against them.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: There are some good comments in the discussion. Go and read through the comments on the Podcast Question of the Week thread because there are some good discussion of why those two were chosen, but she does seem to be a bit of an odd hero.
Erin: But she’s very driven.
Rosie: Yes.
Erin: And that could be part of it. She wants to compete, she wants to win, so she’s got that going for her definitely.
Michael: Well, she certainly believes in herself. She has no doubts in herself whatsoever, and that’s certainly important. It’s funny because I think this comment was thinking maybe it is personality, then they were like, “Oh, wait, wait! It’s not.”
Erin: I like the idea that it takes the whole person into account rather than just power. That could be the case, but I like the idea that it would virtues and their goodness or purity into account as part of the whole person.
Rosie: Yeah, me too.
Erin: I don’t know whether that’s the case, but I like that. [laughs]
Caleb: Have we talked any about how the Triwizard… the Goblet of Fire, rather, was created? I don’t feel like we have.
Michael: Oh, yeah. Well, that was a Podcast Question, actually.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Oh, that’s right, we did. I was thinking we did at first, but then I couldn’t remember where.
Michael: We’re just waiting and crossing our fingers that Jo says something about it on Pottermore. [laughs]
Erin: Oh, that would be great, yeah.
Rosie: Yup.
Michael: The history of the Goblet of Fire would be fantastic to hear about.
Caleb: Right.
Erin: Oh yeah, that would be great.
Caleb: All right, so we are now going to move on to this week’s chapter.
[Goblet of Fire Chapter 18 intro begins]
Rita Skeeter: How’s this for a headline? Chapter 18, “The Weighing of the Wands.”
Harry Potter: That’s… um…
Rita: Brilliant, I know.
Harry: Hey! There are not tears in my eyes!
[Goblet of Fire Chapter 18 intro begins]
Caleb: Okay, so as this chapter starts off, Harry and Ron are still in a little tiff because Ron is very jealous and that’s the focus of a lot of this chapter, and it’s actually my least favorite thing about this book, which is why I hated this book… well, I wouldn’t say hate, but it was my least favorite book for a long time because Harry and Ron’s argument is the most annoying thing for me in the entire series.
Erin: Yup.
Rosie: I have to admit I generally skip over these chapters. As soon as he falls out with Ron, I generally skip over this chapter and the next one, and then as soon as it gets to the First Task and he’s talking to him again that’s when I’ll read, which is amazing for me because I love dragons and I miss the dragon chapter.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: Just because I hate the fact that he’s arguing with Ron.
Erin: It’s really stressful when the trio are fighting. We just finished Prisoner of Azkaban in the book club and the chapters where Ron and Hermione aren’t getting along are just terrible too.
Rosie: Mhm.
Erin: I agree, it’s stressful. Very stressful.
Michael: Yeah.
Caleb: Yeah.
Michael: But oddly enough, just as hard as this particular chapter especially because this is where Harry hits an all-time low, I would say…
Erin: Rock bottom, yeah.
Caleb: Yeah.
Michael: … around the school. This chapter is extremely important. There is some key information in this chapter.
Caleb: Right.
Erin: Oh gosh, yeah.
Rosie: Mhm.
Caleb: So… but I don’t want to skip over that, the idea of the fight because I think there are a lot of important things about it.
Michael: Oh, definitely.
Caleb: It’s really the first moment in which Ron – my personal opinion – fails Harry as a friend…
Erin: Mhm.
Caleb: … because that next morning, Hermione is immediately there for him…
Erin: Mhm.
Caleb: … she meets him as he is walking out of Gryffindor Common Room, even bringing him toast so that he can avoid the Great Hall…
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: … and it made me think, right here especially – clearly, right here – does this lend evidence that Hermione is a better friend to him than Ron is?
Rosie: I wouldn’t necessarily say it shows she is a better friend, but I think for a lot of fourteen-, thirteen-year-old boys, they have difficultly handling emotions…
Caleb: Mhm.
Rosie: … because everything is a bit too confusing, and I think that this is the real reminder that these are kids and they are going to fall out over things like this. And typically girls mature slightly earlier and have more than an emotional range of a teaspoon.
Caleb: Right.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: And I think it is Hermione being able to tap into that more than Ron is. Ron does redeem himself, he does try with the whole dragon thing…
Caleb: Mhm.
Rosie: … and Seamus says that Dean says… whatever it is in the movie that just gets on my nerves, that whole sequence where he is trying.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: Yeah, ge just handles it badly.
Michael: Erin, as a middle school teacher, what do you think?
[Everyone laughs]
Erin Well…
Michael: Don’t site specific examples but… [laughs]
Erin: I was even reflecting back to when I was this age, and you wake up and everything is fine and all of a sudden you remember that oh, you’ve had this falling out or something bad has happened and just that whole sinking feeling…
Rosie: Mhm.
Erin:… that things aren’t what they should be, and I really think that Hermione does come to the rescue here. Harry is feeling terrible, and he goes down and she’s got the toast and “let’s go for a walk” and so…
Caleb: Mhm.
Erin: … I really admire Hermione for being there for Harry at this point.
Michael: I love Hermione in this chapter.[laughs]
Rosie: Yeah.
Erin: Mhm.
Michael: She always steps up when everybody else is losing their heads.
Erin: She does.
Michael: She’s an amazing… I do think that… I think this chapter in tandem with the chapter from Prisoner of Azkaban with the Firebolt stuff that does down…
Erin: Mhm.
Michael: … is always some of the hardest stuff because nobody ever thanks Hermione.
[Erin and Michael laugh]
Michael: They just get angry with her or they are dismissive of her because pretty much this whole time Harry is:[as Harry] “Hermione is nice and she has toast, but Ron is funny and I miss Ron.” [laughs]
Erin: Well, as soon as he realizes that he has Hermione on his side, then he immediately changes the subject to Ron because that’s what’s really bothering him so.
Michael: Mhm.
Rosie: Yeah.
Erin: Yeah.
Rosie: And you think about everything that Hermione is going through in this book as well, she’s… the whole young love thing is happening for her in this book, whereas it happens for the boys later on. There is a lot going on for Hermione…
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: … and yet she is still able to support them really well.
Erin: Mhm.
Caleb: Yeah, I do like that it points out that Hermione knew from the start, she mentions how she saw the look on his face…
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: … on Harry’s face when Dumbledore read out their names…
Erin: Mhm.
Caleb: … there is clearly the evidence for someone who is that close to Harry, something that Ron should have picked up on, but I think, like you said, Rosie, he’s not as mature emotionally as Hermione is here.
Erin: That’s a good point.
Caleb: Hmm.
Michael: Well, and to give Ron credit too, he does come from a very different family than Hermione.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Right.
Michael: That is exactly how she summarizes why this is happening anyway.
Rosie: Yeah, Hermione would never have wanted to enter, really, I don’t think.
Michael: No.
Rosie: Whereas Ron really would have done.
Caleb: Ron would have, yeah. Ron would have wanted to enter just for the sake of winning…
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: … and the glory it would bring without really thinking about what happens in the process. [laughs]
Erin: Yeah, because in Book 1, when he is in front of the mirror, he sees himself… what is it? Is it Head Boy? Or…
Caleb: Everything.
Erin: He’s just…
[Everyone laughs]
Erin: Yeah, He’s a little bit of everything in there. So he does definitely have dreams of standing out as an individual.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: Mhm.
Caleb: And also this section of the chapter gives us the chance to recognize that Hermione has amazing insight on both of her best friends. She really does care about them a lot. She brings up that Harry is always put in this position even though he doesn’t really want it, and she obviously has even more insight into Ron, talking about his family. You can see that she’s very attached to Harry, but she, I don’t know… I guess, reading back, it seems easier to recognize her feelings maybe toward Ron more than Harry because she just seems so much more aware of what he’s going through.
Rosie: Yeah.
Erin: I think this is the first time too, when it’s explicitly stated that Harry’s famous and he always gets all the attention, and this idea comes back in later books too. But I think this is the first time when a character has actually verbalized and it’s Hermione…
Caleb and Michael: Mhm.
Erin: … talking about Ron being jealous, so…
Michael: When this… what I like about this part, as difficult as it is to read, is that this could be something any lesser writer could have just easily skipped over that aspect of the friendship and just have Ron be supportive of Harry and make this part really easy.
Caleb: Yeah.
Erin: True.
Michael: I always think back to… as much as I once loved the series – The Chronicles of Narnia and the consequences of what happens to those kids in that book, but C.S. Lewis doesn’t really give focus to that and just has them go romp through little adventures all the time, and there’s really no consequences until the end of the series.
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: Versus this, where she, Rowling, is always careful of how old these kids are, and she is so good at portraying that age.
Rosie: Yeah, definitely.
Caleb: Mhm.
Michael: Just so on point.
Caleb: Yup, and Hermione is also there to not just to help Harry emotionally but also think ahead logically. She really has it all. She suggests that he needs to write to Sirius about this to let him know because Sirius wanted to know anything that was going on at Hogwarts for Harry. Harry says no, he’s worried about how Sirius would respond to this, but Hermione is already thinking more ahead she’s considered the possibility that the Daily Prophet is going to give this story so much attention, and finally Harry agrees to owl Sirius.
Michael: I love that she whips out ink and quill and parchment and she’s just like, “Go!”
Erin: “I just happen to have a quill with me!”
Caleb: Yeah, exactly.
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: So resourceful, that one.
Rosie: And the fact that Harry doesn’t even think that this is a big news story that’s going to get out there.
Caleb: He’s so single-minded in things like this.
Erin: Uh-huh.
Michael: Of course, he hasn’t met Rita Skeeter quite yet.
Caleb: Right.
Rosie: True, but he’s had the Daily Prophets around and he knows that there are things going on, and he just doesn’t even consider that this really, really famous tournament is going to be big news, whether something wrong happens.
[Michael laughs]
Caleb: Right. But then we get another amusing scene with Hedwig in this book because Harry has to send Sirius an owl, he knows that he can’t use Hedwig so he uses one of the school owls, and Hedwig – after Harry tries to console the owl afterward – is having none of it, once again.
Erin: Oh yeah, she… her talons cut into his shoulder.
Caleb: Yeah.
Erin: I’m like, “Gosh, Hedwig!”
Michael and Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Has an attitude.
Erin: Yeah, “she clicks her beak furiously and soars up to the rafters out of reach.”
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah, when your pet doesn’t like you, [laughs], you’ve definitely hit rock bottom.
Rosie: [laughs] Yeah.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: Everything that does go wrong for Harry goes wrong for Harry in this chapter.
Michael: In this chapter.
Caleb: Harry… through the narration, we get commentary about how he’s being responded to by the other houses. Obviously… well, that comes a little bit more later with all the houses, but obviously Gryffindor is very excited, but Hufflepuffs think that Harry has stolen their glory. It’s really funny that today I’m the only Gryffindor and we have three Hufflepuffs.
[Everyone laughs]
Michael: Yes, be careful what you say, good sir.
Caleb: Oh, I do not care.
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: I do not care.
Michael: A Gryffindor.
Caleb: From my perspective, I’m just like, “Ugh, whatever. I’m sorry, Hufflepuff, you definitely got your champion and that’s great for you, but chill off Harry’s back. He did not want it.”
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: And I don’t know.
Erin: Well, the Hufflepuffs always have a continuous… a little bit of a chip on their shoulder because they do get overlooked so often, so it’s probably not directed specifically at Harry. If it had happened with anyone, they’d probably feel the same way.
Caleb: True.
Rosie: We have no glory at all throughout the whole books.
Michael: I’m sure…
Rosie: When Cedric wins the Quidditch thing, we don’t even get to celebrate that because Harry got knocked off his broom…
Erin: Yeah, that’s…
Rosie: We can’t celebrate here because of Harry again!
Caleb: Whine, whine, whine, whine, whine!
Michael: I can’t imagine it helped that the Gryffindors probably brought their giant party down to the Great Hall that morning. [laughs] That’s why Harry doesn’t want to go in the Great Hall. Because he’s sure they’re still in there freaking out, and he’ll get a big reaction if he goes in.
Rosie: Plus they stole all that food from the kitchens, traipsing past the common room all the time…
Michael: Right. They’re making such a noise.
Rosie: Exactly!
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: And aside from Hufflepuff’s response, of course Malfoy is going to be jealous of Harry’s opportunity to be the star again. So he takes it to the level of just proclaiming that Harry is going to get killed and he won’t make it very long in the Triwizard Tournament, as we probably could have expected from Malfoy.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: But they see him and other Slytherins next in Care of Magical Creatures class where they are still dealing with the Blast-Ended Skrewts…
[Michael laughs]
Caleb: … which they are now going to take for a walk. How nice [unintelligibile]…
[Michael laughs]
Erin: I’m sorry, but why couldn’t this have been included in the movie?
[Everyone laughs]
Erin: That would have been hilarious.
Caleb: Right.
Erin: Seeing them walk the Skrewts around the yard there.
[Rosie laughs]
Erin: And Malfoy is like, “Where do we attach the leash?”
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: Yeah, I do love…
Erin: “The stinger, the sucker?”
Michael: I love these little moments of what’s going on at school. I think those tend to be some of the funniest moments in the book, how she describes the horrible things that are happening to the students in the background.
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: And I love that Hagrid is just like, “Oh, aren’t they havin’ fun?” and Harry is like, “He must be talking about the Skrewts.”
[Everyone laughs]
Erin: Yeah. The Skrewts are just blasting off. [laughs]
Caleb: And we also get from this lesson that Hagrid without a doubt believes Harry, so…
Erin: Ooh…
Caleb: And that’s important to find out.
Michael: Definitely.
Erin: And he says Dumbledore does, too.
Caleb: Right. But then Harry hails back to Chamber of Secrets, remembering how he was falsely accused then once he inadvertently revealed he was a Parseltongue. It was a very… obviously different circumstances but a somewhat similar situation where Harry was falsely accused, and I’m just very annoyed that the students of… obviously a lot of them are young but still, shouldn’t some of them have learned their lessons about jumping to conclusions? At least with Harry.
Michael: This is something I think kind of comes with celebrity status. Again, Rowling’s incredible insight into all the things she writes about, but this is something that we do with celebrities. It’s like if they do something good, we love them, and then if they do something even remotely bad, we hate them.
Caleb: Sure.
Michael: And we really take them to task for that. And I believe that… because this is not the first time this happens to Harry, nor will it be the last.
Rosie: Especially for child stars as well, so if you think of Harry as sort of a child star…
Michael: Oh, yeah.
Rosie: He’s done Disney, now he’s getting to the age where…
Caleb: He’s Miley Cyrus!
[Everyone laughs]
Rosie: Even if it’s not his idea, even if he didn’t do if himself, he’s still the one who gets persecuted for it.
Caleb: Yeah.
Erin: Yeah, and I think in Chamber of Secrets it was a little more outlandish to suspect him of attacking students, whereas them believing that he put his name in the Goblet is a little more believable because…
Rosie: Yeah.
Erin: … you know. Who knows, he could be seeking that glory and fame.
Michael: Well, we do have to consider…
Rosie: But it’s interesting that you’ll get treated the same for just a little piece of paper as harming students.
Michael: Harming people.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Michael: Well, we also have to consider that not everybody in school knows Harry.
Erin: Right.
Michael: They know of him but they don’t know him.
Erin: Right. They know he’s famous and… yeah, so… yeah, I agree.
Caleb: But as Harry is lamenting all these accusations, he’s getting… he remarks that he probably could have dealt with all the heat he’s been taking if he would have gotten this one thing. And this is honestly one of the most depressing and sad lines in the series for me. It says: “He thought he could have coped with the rest of the school’s behavior if he could just have had Ron back as a friend…”
Erin: Mhm.
Rosie: Aww!
Erin: Yeah. And it just shows that in times of trouble how much we rely on our close friends to get us through. And the fact that Ron’s not there for him, it is very sad, very stressful.
Caleb: Yeah. But we do find out… one of the more amusing things that Jo thinks up – Slytherins are wearing… when they get to the Potions lesson, they’re wearing “Support Cedric Diggory” badges. And the badges say “Support Cedric Diggory, the REAL Hogwarts champion.” And then, whenever you hit it, it flashes to “Potter Stinks.”
Erin: Poor Harry.
[Erin and Caleb laugh]
Caleb: Which is pretty funny, actually.
Rosie: It’s such a childish thing.
Erin: It is.
Caleb: It is, but it definitely made me think of these kitschy things that happen when you’re in school.
Erin: Oh, yeah.
Michael: Mhm.
Erin: And it bugs you. It’s something that would bug you, especially with everything else.
Caleb: Right. Yeah.
Michael: And it’s so clever because the teachers can’t see it… can’t see the nasty part of it. [laughs] So it’s very clever on the students’ part.
Caleb: Yeah, it reminds me of when I was teaching. My kids would have things that would sort of be double entendres, so they would argue that it was okay to have them on their bracelets or whatever. But they would obviously have some double meaning.
Erin: I think I know what you’re talking about, Caleb.
[Caleb and Michael laugh]
Caleb: But it made me think… I wish we would have had more people from other houses so we could get different perspectives, but you guys are all Hufflepuffs. If you were in Hogwarts… I mean obviously, if you put yourself in there, you’re a little upset about Harry taking Cedric’s spotlight. Would you wear a badge like this? At least the part that just says “Support Cedric Diggory, the real champion.”
Michael: Honestly, no. I would not.
Erin: Probably.
Rosie: No, I don’t think I would.
Michael: Erin, did you say you would?
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Erin: I probably would. I don’t know if I’d necessarily do the “Potter Stinks” but gosh, I’m supporting Cedric, yeah.
Caleb: Right.
Michael: Erin is shaking the box of badges at Rosie and I.
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: That’s funny. I mean, obviously I would not wear one. I would be taking out people who were wearing them… or something.
[Erin and Rosie laugh]
Michael: I would see the benefit that we’ve got two champions in this school and maybe I’d wear one that says “Support both of them.”
Caleb: There you go.
Erin: Yeah.
Rosie: Cheer for Hogwarts.
Michael: Right, there you go – “Support Hogwarts.”
Erin: That would be better, yeah.
Caleb: That just makes me think we haven’t gotten more about Cedric yet, but why he’s such a good person. But we’ll get to that. Okay, so Harry and Draco have a confrontation as they’re getting ready for Potions class. It forms after Malfoy calls Hermione a Mudblood and they shoot curses at each other. And something really interesting happens that I had forgotten happens. But when the spells hit each other, they deflect. Harry’s spell hits Goyle and Draco’s spell hits Hermione. And before we talk about what happens to her, I can’t remember… I mean surely there is, but off the top of my head I can’t think of another time where we see two spells colliding and then deflecting and hitting other people. Does that happen any other time in the series?
Rosie: I don’t think so.
Caleb: And if that’s the case, that’s really weird what happens here. And there are obviously many other times where that would happen, and it makes me think about the end of this series when Harry and Voldemort Stupify and Avada Kedavra. Obviously that’s kind of a different, unique situation, but why don’t we see more of that when people are dueling or whatever?
Rosie: I think we see spells miss each other and go and hit other people.
Erin: Right.
Rosie: But I don’t think we ever see them hit each other and deflect.
Michael: And maybe that does have something to do with how they’re cast and the power behind them and the timing of the cast as well. There’s a lot of mechanics behind magic that Rowling kind of slips in. I think when we are first introduced to classes in Sorcerer’s Stone where she’s just like “This isn’t as easy as it looks.” So I guess on occasion these things are prone to happen.
Rosie: I like that this is such a small detail as well that then gets referred to later on with Hermione in particular.
Michael: Mhm.
Rosie: Because this is the moment that her teeth grow and she can correct them through magic afterwards.
Caleb: Right.
Rosie: She makes the most out of a bad situation.
Caleb: She does.
Erin: Do you guys want to know a little about the spells? I looked them up on the Lexicon…
Caleb: Yeah, sure.
Michael: Of course.
Erin: So, Densaugeo – which is what Hermione is hit with – the first part “dens” is the Latin for “tooth” and “augeo” is the Latin for “grow.”
Caleb: Mmm.
[Michael laughs]
Erin: So that’s why her teeth grow.
Michael: That’s an oddly specific spell.
[Everyone laughs]
Erin: And then the Furnunculus comes from the English word “furuncle”, which is like “furnuncle” without the “n,” and it’s a fancy name for “boil.”
Caleb: Hmm.
Erin: So thanks to Steve Vander Ark and the Lexicon…
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: It just makes me think of “Furry Uncle”…
[Everyone laughs]
Erin: Yeah. [laughs] Well, they said maybe that’s why they put the “n” in, because it makes it easier to say.
Caleb: Hmm.
Erin: “Furnuncle” [rather] than “Furuncle.”
Caleb: Yeah. So then we get on a point that I think is very important. So this is something that kind of takes an issue to the whole series. There are people out there who absolutely love Snape, think he’s a wonderful… for some reason, just love him. And not to confuse anything, but I think Snape is a wonderfully written character, probably the most complex in the whole series, and he does have his redeeming moments later. But it has always really frustrated me how people just love Snape, and I think here for you Snape lovers, we get some cold hard medicine. Because if you reread here, he is not someone to be fond of. Because the way he reacts to Hermione’s teeth is one of the most cruel things someone could say…
Erin: Mhm.
Caleb: … especially an adult to a child. He sees Hermione’s large teeth and the text of the book is, “Snape looked coldly at Hermione, then said, ‘I see no difference.'” How awful is that?
Erin: I have this in my notes too, Caleb, so I thought it was funny looking through yours. I said it was definitely one of Snape’s cruelest moments, the exact words you used. Yeah, because she lets out a whimper, her eyes fill with tears, and she just turns and runs. What an awful thing to say to somebody. Really cruel.
Michael: Both of you, Hallelujah! Thank you for saying this about Snape.
[Erin laughs]
Michael: Because this is something I have… Caleb, that is exactly my stance on Snape since the beginning, all the way through, and then of course it evolved with what we found out about him. But at the same time, no. Snape is still a jerkface and even Rowling has said that.
Erin: Right.
Michael: That he is not… people have put him on a pedestal. Even Harry does… and she even says that at the end, Harry naming his child after Snape…
Caleb: Right.
Michael: She even was like, “Maybe he went a little too far.”
[Everyone laughs]
Michael: I agree. The fact that this came out, that he just said this…
Rosie: It’s horrible.
Erin: Yes, it is.
Michael: … that’s his first inital reaction… that is not something you do to a student.
Caleb: Yeah. I definitely think from a teaching perspective… I cannot imagine… no matter how justified you feel in your mind that one student did something correctly over another, I would never dream of saying anything remotely close to that to a student.
Erin: No. Especially at this age. Kids are so fragile at this age. To say something like that is just so damaging and… no excuse for that.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: Looking at it not as Snape the person but as a character in a plot device, do you think it’s really to break Hermione down and to remind you that’s she got all these insecurities and all of these things that can be played on, in order so that her moment on the stairs becomes all that much greater?
Caleb: Hmm. Yeah, I would buy that.
Michael: I think that’s part of it. Oh, definitely. Yeah, I think because the teeth play a big factor in that moment.
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: Because that’s when Harry and Ron notice that her teeth are smaller later. It takes them a while to get it. [laughs]
Rosie: Yeah. They see her around so much between this moment and that one, and they don’t notice her teeth.
Michael: Yeah.
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: Too, they also don’t… it takes them a while to understand why Hermione would do that.
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: Let her teeth just go back. And they’re just like, [in a British accent] “Why would she do something like that? She’s just so smart and focused on her studies.” [back to normal voice] And then suddenly it hits them that oh, maybe she actually does have some insecurities. [laughs]
Rosie: Mhm.
Erin: Every little girl wants to feel pretty sometimes.
[Caleb and Michael laugh]
Caleb: Right. But a couple of things happen in response to Snape being so vicious to Hermione. Harry and Ron both yell at him at the same time, and you almost get this moment where they’re back together on the same team. And for a moment they are on the same team. And they get detentions, which is obviously going to be important for them sort of getting back on better terms. [laughs] I almost said “getting back together,” like they’re in some relationship.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: I’m sure there’s plenty of fan fiction about that, but… and then as Harry sits back down in class before he’s taken away, he fantasizes using the Cruciatus Curse on Snape. And this is really important because we know that he does use it later in the series, and we sort of get to see that he is definitely capable of considering using it.
Michael: Well…
Erin: Yeah, he also mentions ramming forward and bringing down a cauldron on his head.
Caleb: Yeah.
[Michael laughs]
Erin: It’s definitely a darker side of Harry.
Caleb: Yup.
Erin: But he’s… that’s the point he’s at at this point in the book.
Michael: Fair enough.
Rosie: It’s interesting what triggers it as well. I mean, when we see Harry really act out against Draco later on, it’s not for any kind of noble reason. But here, it’s literally protection overruling everything else. He wants to help Hermione.
Caleb: Right.
Erin: Mhm.
Caleb: Yup.
Rosie: Which is a nicer thing but still… don’t Cruciatus Curse people, Harry. [laughs]
Erin: It’s still dark.
Michael: It’s fair trade, though. Snape is eyeing him being like [as Snape], “I’m going to poison you later.”
Erin: That’s true.
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: Yeah. But yeah, Moody has planted this… well, Crouch Jr. has planted a seed in Harry about what he can do for the sake of retribution by using the Cruciatus Curse, which he would not have maybe had without that teaching. And then he goes on to use it later in the series, so it’s interesting.
Erin: Well, it’s interesting, too, because we just finished up Prisoner of Azkaban, and at the end when they’re in the Shrieking Shack, and there’s that scene when Harry is planning to “kill” Sirius…
Rosie: Yeah.
Erin: … and you’re thinking, “Well, how is he going to kill him?”
Rosie: He doesn’t know how.
Erin: He doesn’t even know the Unforgivable Curses at this time, and what’s he going to do? So…
Rosie: But maybe that makes it more interesting because if… that’s the book before. We haven’t had the Unforgivables. He doesn’t know any of the most dangerous spells, yet.
Erin: Hmm.
Michael: Mhm.
Rosie: He shows that Harry was still capable of it in that scene, which obviously then has to resolve itself quickly, and he realized how wrong he was.
Erin: Right.
Rosie: But Harry has always got this kind of darker side that we don’t necessarily pay attention to. With great power comes great responsibility, Harry.
[Caleb laughs]
Michael: I’m always surprised, too, just how people… because people had written into Rowling, and she’d responded to this about how they were… some people were actually disappointed that Harry used the Imperius Curse later in the series successfully.
Erin: Right.
Michael: But the thing is [that] he was doing it in an extreme situation where there were no options left…
Erin: Life or death.
Michael: Yeah. He would have died if he hadn’t done that, and I do think… it’s not… Rowling is not saying that Harry revels in killing people or anything like that or that he would or torturing people in any way. It’s just that he has his low days, and he, I don’t think… we see in Order of the Phoenix that Harry…
Rosie: He battles with that, yeah.
Michael: Yeah. And that he can’t honestly, no matter how angry he gets in that scene with Bellatrix, actually cast a successful Cruciatus Curse on her.
Erin: Mhm.
Michael: And he’s at the height of his anger, and he can’t do it. So I think that’s…
Rosie: Which is good.
Michael: Yeah.
Erin: [The Imperius Curse] seems a little milder then. [laughs]
Michael: Yeah.
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: But Colin Creevey comes along and saves Harry from Potions class and takes him away to the Weighing of the Wands. So we’re really starting to get into the kickoff of the Triwizard Tournament. And of course, we finally meet the wonderful, nasty Rita Skeeter.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: I mean, she…
Erin: Her…
Caleb: Go ahead.
Erin: Oh, I was just going to say, the character description really stood out to me this time.
Michael: Mhm.
Erin: How they describe her, I mean. Because the movie Rita is not in some ways like the book Rita but how she’s heavy-jawed, with thick fingers, mannish hands. I just… I guess I never really caught on to that in previous readings before.
Caleb: Yeah.
Erin: I had a different picture of her this time.
Rosie: I think that comes under Jo using the caricatures of the “ugly character makes ugly person” thing.
Caleb: Right.
Erin: Mhm. Gold teeth.
Rosie: Yeah. Whereas the movie… I mean, Miranda Richardson is amazing.
Erin: Yeah.
Rosie: And they’re really playing on the fake side of Rita…
Erin: Right.
Rosie: … more than the physical badness.
Michael: What I liked about Rita [in the movie], though, was [that] Miranda Richardson tried to get as close to the book description as she could.
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: Because they even discussed having her have the gold teeth, but she said that it was too… they tried it, and she felt that that made Rita too unapproachable because she’s supposed to be able to pull you in before she gets you, and… but I… unlike Umbridge, who’s just one of those despicable characters that you can’t… she’s just so beyond. Rita I love because even though she’s horrible, she does it with so much style and hilarity.
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: Like the quill… that quill. [laughs] Her poison pen.
Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: This portrayal of the press… this is fantastic.
Caleb: Speaking of pulling people in, that’s exactly what she does with Harry. Getting an interview with him first because he is, of course, the star story and pulls him into a broom cupboard.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Rather inappropriate.
Michael: That’s insensitive. [laughs]
Caleb: Yeah. But yeah, Michael, you mentioned, the Quick Quotes Quill, and I think this is one of Rowling’s most amusing inventions through the whole series. I just love the idea of it. The way she… I mean, you can just see her exaggerated commentary on what journalism can be.
Rosie: Yeah.
Erin: So how do you think the quill works? I mean, are these Rita’s words that the quill is writing?
Rosie: Is it alive?
Michael: “Is it alive?” [laughs]
Caleb: [laughs] God.
Erin: Is it a sentient being? No, I’m just kidding.
[Rosie laughs]
Michael: I almost feel like…
Erin: No, but…
Michael: Oh, go ahead, Erin. Go ahead.
Erin: No, go ahead.
Michael: All right.
Erin: I was just going to say…
Michael: But I was just going to say that I feel like the Quick Quotes Quill is almost akin to a wand in that it’s writing what she would say.
Rosie: Yeah.
Erin: Okay. So [they’re] her words, you think.
Rosie: Extentsion of her personality.
Michael: Yeah, so I think it is sinmilar to a wand. Obviously, it’s not quite as deep magic as that, but it has, I think, the same bond with the wizard who owns it. I think if Harry had… if it had switched to somebody else, it would not… if Harry took Rita’s quill, it would still write what she would want it to write.
Erin: So is she not even listening to what Harry is saying at this point? She’s just already composing her own story?
Michael and Rosie: Definitely.
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: Like a real sensational journalist usually does. And we get this wonderful sequence of quotes from the book that… I think it plays out a little… the words are a little different in the movie, but it’s still a really great scene.
Erin and Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: The Quick Quotes Quill writes, “tears fill those startlingly green eyes as our conversation turns to the parents he can barely remember.” [as Harry] “I have not got tears in my eyes!”
[Erin and Michael laugh]
Caleb: It’s just great. Dan does…
Rosie: The words obviously have to be different because of the green eyes aspect.
Michael: Yeah.
Caleb: Oh, that’s what it is. Yes.
Erin: Yeah, they cut that out. [laughs]
Rosie: It’s just something like “ghosts of my past” or something.
Caleb: Yeah, right.
Erin: Yeah, yeah.
Michael: Yeah, the “ghosts of his past.” Yeah, that… [laughs]
Rosie: Which is still equally brilliant.
Caleb: Yeah, Dan does a great job in this scene of the movie. And Ollivander shows up because he is the one officiating the weighing of the wands, and I love how he passively issues judgment of Fleur and Viktor’s wands, who are clearly not made by him. He starts to really say what his feelings are and then stops short. It’s really fun.
Michael: I like that, too, because on Pottermore we get a sense of how proud Olivander is of his wands.
Erin: Mhm.
Michael: And that he’s… out of all of the wand makers, his family’s been in this business the longest and that that’s… this is his expertise. And he’s even… he insists on using certain cores and wand woods, and there are things that he won’t use. He even points out, when he takes Fleur’s wand, “Oh, this is the hair of a veela. I would never ever do that!” [laughs]
Erin: Well, it probably is temperamental.
Michael: Yeah, definitely.
Erin: That’s just what it says in the book. “I find it makes for rather temperamental wands.” Yeah, I can see that. [laughs]
Rosie: It’s also the first mention we get of Gregorovitch.
Michael: Yup.
Rosie: Which… he becomes more important in the last books.
Michael: Major name drop there.
Erin: Yeah.
Rosie: Yup.
Caleb: Yes.
Erin: It’s interesting, too, that it’s only the second time that Harry has seen Ollivander, which… he hasn’t seen him since the day in the wand shop, which is one of my favorite scenes from the books – when Harry gets his wand – and…
Rosie: [as Ollivander] “Curiouser and curiouser.”
Erin: Yeah, yeah, and there’s that whole… “What? What’s so curious?”
Rosie: Yeah.
Erin: “It’s curious you should be destined for this wand.”
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: And just John Hurt as well. Perfect casting.
Michael: Oh, definitely.
Caleb: Mm.
Rosie: That enigmatic character is just amazing with him.
Michael: Oh, I agree.
Erin: And I’ve always loved Ollivander, but I finally – in this reading – got the fact that Harry is actually kind of creeped out by Ollivander. [laughs]
Rosie: Yeah.
Erin: Because of his moon eyes and his creaky little voice and…
Michael: Well… and I love, too, that Harry was on pins and needles that Ollivander was going to say something about his wand’s connection to Voldemort…
Erin: Oh, yeah. Right.
Michael: … and that Ollivander had the sense not to.
Caleb and Rosie: Yeah.
Michael: Because he did quite a bit of commentary, as you mentioned, Caleb, on everybody else’s wands, and then he just kept quiet for Harry’s wand and made it shoot wine. And then he was like…
Rosie: Quite a bit of commentary, apart from Cedric. “It’s just unicorn hair. Unremarkable.”
[Michael laughs]
Erin: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting, too, because Fleur’s wand… of course, fleur is the French word for “flower.”
Michael: Mhm.
Rosie: Yeah.
Erin: And then her wand wood is rosewood.
Michael: Rosewood.
Erin: So you have the flower there. And then he does the Orchideous Charm…
Caleb: Oh, I didn’t even think about that.
Erin: … when testing it out, yeah. And actually, I tried to look up rosewood, but rosewood is not included in Pottermore.
Michael: Yeah. Yeah, I noticed that in the list of wand woods.
Rosie: Because it’s not an Ollivander wand. That’s why.
Caleb: You’re right.
Erin: Oh. That’s probably true, yup.
[Rosie laughs]
Erin: Good point.
Michael: Well, Caleb has a note on that – about Krum’s wand, though.
Erin: Well, I just put a note in…
Michael: Oh, that’s Erin’s.
Erin: … because I did look up their wand woods and… so Krum’s is hornbeam, and actually that’s what Jo has as her wand wood when you look on Pottermore.
Michael: Oh, you know what, though? That’s actually… that’s Ollivander talking, not Jo.
Erin: [gasps] Oh, you’re right, you’re right. Okay. Yeah. Good point.
Michael: But that’s still an important point because actually… Erin, do you want to expand more on hornbeam? Because this is really interesting.
Erin: Well, just that it selects a life mate, a “talented witch or wizard with a single, pure passion, which some might call obsession (though I prefer the term ‘vision’)” That’s what he says.
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Erin: “… which will almost always be realised. Hornbeam wands adapt more quickly than almost any other to the owner’s style of magic and will become so personalised so quickly that other people will find them extremely difficult to use, even for the most simple of spells. Hornbeam wands likewise absorb their owner’s code of honour, whatever that might be, and will refuse to perform acts – whether for good or ill – that do not tally with their master’s principles.”
Caleb: Hmm.
Michael: That… what I liked about this was the mention of… that it attaches itself to somebody who has a very pure, single passion, and I would say with Krum, that’s pretty much correct. Because at least we get the sense from our impressions of Krum that he’s that kid who you’re just like, “You’re really good at sports, but you haven’t really honed any other skills,” because…
[Erin and Michael laugh]
Erin: You don’t have anything else going for you, Viktor. [laughs]
Michael: Yeah, because Krum doesn’t really strike me as somebody who can go and do something else in the wizarding world. And the narration on Krum kind of suggests that he doesn’t really have any other options. He just has to be a really successful athlete all the time. But it’s what he loves because he’s really good at it. So it’s just… I liked that that… again, and we’ve talked about this before but that Rowling is not… she doesn’t just choose arbitrary wand woods for everybody. She thought it through.
Caleb: Right. And then we get this slight side note, and well, it could be very humorous for some purposes, but we’re not going to talk about that on this show…
[Michael laughs]
Caleb: … but it mentions that Cedric polishes his wand, and it seems regular…
[Erin, Michael, and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: … but my… well, not my first thought about this line but my second thought about this line is “Why does no one else take good care of their wands?” It mentions that Harry finds his own wand rather scruffy and tries to clean it off before he gets his evaluated.
Erin: Do you think the other Champions knew about the Weighing of the Wands ceremony? Because I feel like Cedric got his ready specifically for this.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Yeah, that’s true because it does say that he did it the night before, so maybe he just did it in preparation.
Rosie: I think the others have probably researched the Tournament a bit more, and Harry is still just going by what Hermione has told him, which isn’t a lot.
Caleb and Erin: Yeah.
Caleb: So I guess this is another good moment to show how ill-prepared Harry is for the Tournament.
Erin and Rosie: Yeah.
Erin: It’s pretty funny, too, when the purple sparks shoot out, and “Fleur Delacour gave him a very patronizing look”…
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Erin: … and he desisted. She’s just like, “Get over it Harry.”
[Erin and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Yeah. The chapter ends with Harry getting a response from Sirius, who… Sirius wants to set up a meeting with him on the 22nd of November. He asks about the Gryffindor Tower at one o’clock in the morning, so right now we don’t know quite how Sirius is going to pull that off, but we know that that is in the future.
Michael: I’ve…
Erin: And there’s…
Erin and Michael: Oh, go ahead.
Michael: [laughs] I just had to point out, since we had talked about Harry and Hermione’s relationship earlier, that I love that Harry just goes… he thinks [as Harry], “She’s probably still in the hospital wing with giant teeth. I’m going to go to bed.”
[Michael and Rosie laugh]
Michael: It’s like, “Go visit her!” [laughs]
Rosie: He just doesn’t think…
Erin: Yeah, right. I know, he’s… yeah. And it’s interesting, too, that he’s left to eat dinner alone, and he’s got extra Summoning Charms homework…
Michael: Yeah.
Erin: … so we know that that’s coming up for him. He’s going to be putting that into use in not too long.
Michael: No, definitely some great foreshadowing there. That specific homework that he’s failing on is the one he’s going to need.
Erin: Mhm.
Rosie: I don’t think there’s anything mentioned in this chapter, apart from maybe the toast, that doesn’t come up again in the future.
[Caleb and Michael laugh]
Erin: True.
Rosie: Everything is important in this chapter.
Erin: Yeah.
Caleb: Definitely.
Erin: It’s a great chapter.
Rosie: Mhm. So it’s time for our Podcast Question of the Week this week, and it’s a bit of a tough one because there is so much in this chapter that we didn’t quite know what to choose, but we have gone for… “Up to this point in the series…” So over the last four or three and a half books. Are we even halfway through, yet? Probably not. Only a third through. “… who has been the best friend? We’ve seen Hermione in this chapter give so much to each of the boys. She knows exactly what’s going on with them, and she’s got all of her emotional stuff going on as well herself, but the boys just don’t seem to quite get it, yet.” So we want you guys to really come up with some examples of… have the boys actually supported Hermione at all, other than the troll? Why is she still friends with them?
[Caleb, Michael, and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: Let us know in the comments.
Caleb: Why has she not moved on?
Rosie: Exactly.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Michael: And Erin, we want to thank you so much for being such a wonderful, eloquent, prepared guest today.
Erin: Woo-hoo! This was so much fun, you guys. I had a blast. This was my dream event, and I’ve just loved being on, so thank you so much for having me.
Michael: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Caleb: Of course. It was great.
Michael: You are welcome back anytime.
Rosie: And if you would like to be on the show, just like Erin, you can head over to alohomora.mugglenet.com and click “Be on the Show” to find out all of the information about how you can get involved. Just make sure that you have appropriate audio equipment, and in the meantime remember to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes because we love seeing your messages on there.
Caleb: And if you just want to keep in touch with us, make sure you’re following us on Twitter (@AlohomoraMN), Facebook (facebook.com/openthedumbledore), or you can give us a call at 206-GO-ALBUS – that’s 206-462-5287 – and also, you can leave us a message through Audioboo and they are super great, so you should definitely use it. And it’s super easy to use. You can do it right on our website, alohomora.mugglenet.com, and there should be a space just on the right sidebar for you to give us a clip. It’s free and all you need is a microphone.
Rosie: And do actually go and visit our Audioboo Owlery as well because there are some messages on there that you guys send in that we don’t get to play on the show. And they’re really interesting, so make sure you listen to them as well.
Michael: And we have a store for all of your Muggle-wizarding needs. We sell T-shirts – with short and now long sleeves – tote bags, sweatshirts, flip flops, water bottles, travel mugs, and even more items coming soon. We also have the Mandrake Liberation Front and Desk!Pig shirts now available, and Kat’s shirt, the Obligatory Genius Moment, has been redesigned recently. We have over 80 products to choose from. We also have ringtones as well, so please go to the store and check those out.
Rosie: And don’t forget that we also have our app, which is available hopefully pretty much worldwide. The prices vary, obviously depending on where you’re from. They were around $1.99 and 99 pence, I think, in the UK, and obviously your currency will apply. And on that app, there are transcripts, bloopers, alternate endings, host vlogs, and much, much more, so make sure you get it now.
Caleb: And just a last final reminder to vote for us in the Podcast Awards. Less than one week to get your votes in, and you can do it every day until November 15. Just go to podcastawards.com and vote daily for Alohomora! in People’s Choice and Entertainment; also for Hogwarts Radio in Best Produced and MuggleNet Academia in Education. Remember to use a valid email. Go to your email [and] verify the vote or it won’t count.
[Show music begins]
Michael: Well, thank you all for listening, and with that, I’m Michael Harle.
Caleb: I’m Caleb Graves.
Rosie: And I’m Rosie Morris. Thank you for listening to Episode 56 of Alohomora!
Michael: [as Hermione] Open the Dumbledore! I’m the better friend.
[Show music continues]
Michael: You guys, what is MLF? What does that stand for? What does that mean?
Rosie: Mandrake Liberation Front.
Michael: Oh, that!
[Everyone laughs]
Erin: It’s still alive.
Michael: Got it.
