Transcript – Episode 57
[Show music begins]
Caleb Graves: This is Episode 57 of Alohomora! for November 16, 2013.
[Show music continues]
Caleb: Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Alohomora! We have a really awesome special guest today, so before we get there, I’m Caleb Graves.
Laura Reilly: I’m Laura Reilly.
Kat Miller: And I’m Kat Miller. And our very special guest today is the commissioner of the International Quidditch Association, Alex Benepe. Say hey, Alex.
Alex Benepe: Hey, guys. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast tonight, Kat.
Kat: Oh, absolutely. We’re super excited. Tell everybody about the IQA, in case they don’t know.
Alex: Sure. So the International Quidditch Association is a nonprofit organization that promotes, develops, and governs the real life sport of Quidditch and inspires young people to lead more physically active and socially engaged lives. We’ve been around officially since 2010, unofficially since 2007, playing an adapted version of the game Quidditch from the Harry Potter books. We currently have teams in over 200 cities worldwide. Most of these are colligate teams and most of them are based in North America, but we’re increasingly starting to have teams at the high school level and the post college level, and in other countries as well, particularly in Canada and England, in Australia. We’re starting to get teams popping up in France and Italy, and in tons of other countries. Probably our most exciting recent addition is a youth club in Uganda.
Kat: Oh, that’s really cool.
Laura: Oh, that’s awesome.
Alex: Yeah. They’re great. They make their brooms out of local materials. They have a few videos online you can dig up too that are very fantastic. We’re… I’m just looking forward to the day we have a Ugandan Quidditch team at the World Cup.
Caleb: That’s awesome.
Kat: That would be so amazing.
Alex: Yeah, absolutely. And for people who want to learn more about Quidditch, they can check out our website. It’s iqaquidditch.org. And we have a number of regional championships this fall and then, two more in February. And our World Cup event is in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, April 5 and 6, 2014.
Kat: And for those of you out there listening that have never been to a Quidditch game, a Muggle Quidditch game, you have to go. They’re ridiculously fun and awesome, so you should go.
Laura: And the World Cup tournaments, especially.
Kat: Yeah.
Laura: I only went a few years ago and you went last year too, and I’m planning on going this year. It’s so much fun, so I’m definitely looking forward to it.
Kat: Yeah, it’s awesome.
Caleb: And my alma mata is the defending National… or World Champions.
[Kat laughs]
Caleb: Get out there and support them.
Alex: That’s correct, Caleb. Yeah, the University of Texas team, they won the World Cup – the sixth World Cup – this past year in Kissimmee, Florida, and their… the University of Texas has a massive tower in the middle of campus that they light up in orange whenever one of their teams wins and I was so thrilled to learn the university did that for their Quidditch team for winning the World Cup.
Caleb: Man, I wasn’t on campus when that happened because I’ve already graduated, but hearing people talk about it because, literally, what they did for winning the Quidditch World Cup is exactly what we do if we win a football National Championship.
Alex: Yeah.
Caleb: And that’s just so awesome.
Kat: That is so awesome.
Alex: Yeah.
Kat: I love it.
Alex: It’s fantastic, it’s amazing. To be fair, they were also simultaneously lighting it up for two other club sports that also won national championships. I believe it was their rock-climbing team and one other club sport, but the fact that Quidditch was one of the three and was publicly announced as this to all the media as well was fantastic for us. It was a huge step forward for the sport and I know the team… there [are] tons of pictures of the team celebrating with the tower in the background.
Kat: Ah, who are we kidding? It was for the Quidditch team.
[Alex, Caleb, and Kat laugh]
Caleb: That’s one everyone on campus was talking about, so that’s what matters.
Kat: Awesome. Well, we just want to remind everybody before we jump into the chapter this week that we will be discussing Chapter 19, which is “The Hungorian…” oh my God.
[Laura laughs]
Kat: “The Hungarian Horntail.” I can never say that word. So be sure to read the chapter before we start, that way you can enjoy this to the fullest.
Caleb: Yeah, and before we do that, we’re going to read just a couple of your comments from last week’s episode. And the first two come on the topic of Snape, which we – or I – brought up because there’s a point in the last chapter where Snape is particularly cruel to Snape and I made the point that you shouldn’t be a Snape-lover because he’s a pretty terrible guy.
Kat: He’s so awful, but don’t get me started.
Caleb: But we have two comments: one from Aradan from the forums, which says,
“I think Snape is broken. He started out extremely intelligent, albeit with an unhealthy obsession with the dark arts. I’m still not sure that that would’ve been enough to make him join Voldemort if it weren’t for the situation at school where James and Sirius bullied him, and the break in his friendship with Lily. I’m not saying it’s necessarily James and Sirius fault, Snape did plenty of bad things himself, but the fact that he was fighting an uphill battle was hard enough without the fact that his best (and possibly only) friend ended up against him with those he hated, and I think that may have driven him over the edge […] I think Snape feels as drawn to Harry as he hates him even though he never really shows it, drawn to him because of Lily, and hates him because of James. All the same, he realizes the need to protect Harry, and does so unceasingly. think it’s okay to like Snape, but I think we still have to be conscious of his flaws. When people just say that they love Snape, and that he was just misunderstood, and not really bad, that’s not entirely true. He had a deep core of bitterness and hatred in him. The same goes for people who really hate him. Yes, Snape was a jerk, and had really horrible moments, like in this chapter, but we mustn’t forget how he got there, and that he has endured a lot of suffering.”
And on the flip side before we discuss it, really quick, someone else took a different angle on this. Daniel Sharp on the main site says,
“I’m totally with the guys about this chapter showing us that Snape is no good guy. Even without the dozens of other examples this one alone shows that he was a bitter and twisted man. While he may have acted on the side of ‘good’ and I love him as a character, he is not a hero. I actually think that reason he was in the room in the last chapter was in the hope that he would see Harry punished for putting his name in the goblet and to be there when Dumbledore realised that Harry was an ‘attention-seeking rule-breaker’ just like his father.”
Kat: Wow, so this was prompted from the comment he made about Hermione’s teeth, right?
Caleb: Yes.
Kat: This discussion? Right.
Caleb: Because he didn’t notice. He says, “I don’t see a difference.” Right.
Kat: [scoffs] What a jerk. [laughs]
Laura: See, yeah, this is probably not the best panel we could have right now.
[Kat laughs]
Laura: I don’t know what, Alex, what your opinions are, but it’s… as far as I know, me, Caleb, and Kat, we all have the same opinions of Snape of great character, horrible person.
Kat: Yeah. Very true.
Laura: So [laughs] this is not going to be a particularly… it’s a one-sided conversation unless, Alex, you have a different opinion. So, what do you think?
Alex: I think… [laughs] my view of Snape has been so stilted in recent years by Joe Moses…
[Caleb laughs]
Alex: … just because I see him so much at the World Cup and have been interacting with him and watching A Very Potter Musical. I feel like I’ve become closer to that version of Snape than the other one since I last read the books. So…
Laura: I’d have to agree, yeah. [laughs]
Alex: [laughs] It’s very hard for me to think back to real evil Snape and not picture Joe Moses’ face. [laughs]
Laura: Especially since those plays do make him extremely sympathetic, especially in the last one, so…
Alex: Absolutely.
Laura: … definitely see where you’re coming from.
Alex: Yeah.
Caleb: And I understand where the first comment is coming from. You can’t forget where Snape’s come from, but I think you get into a very dangerous territory if you start to excuse things because of people’s pasts, especially the series is all based on choices, and no matter what you’ve gone through, you still have to make your own choices and I think that’s…
Kat: Exactly. That is exactly what I was going to say. I I agree more with Daniel Sharp in this point. I’ve always said, “I don’t believe he’s a hero. Not a hero, not a hero, not a hero.” And I will always stick with that. Yes, he has very few and far between redeeming moments, but overall, he’s a jerk. [laughs]
Laura: Which just makes him evil.
Alex: I think part of the…
Kat: Yeah, it just makes him not evil, exactly.
Alex: I think part of the culture of forgiveness around Snape is the result of Dumbledore’s influence on all of Hogwarts and therefore the readers in general. I know a lot of people who are just like, “Why is Slytherin still part of Hogwarts? You’d think they would learn after all these times again and again and again and again when Slytherins turn out to be evil people who’ve done evil things.” And I think that’s part of the culture that Dumbledore had mastered for him, created in the school of Hogwarts, and I think that is extended here to Snape as well.
Caleb: Hmm.
Kat: That’s a good point.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: I guess I never thought of it like that. Dumbledore’s breeding it.
Caleb: Hmm.
[Alex laughs]
Caleb: [unintelligible]
Kat: Makes sense.
Caleb: Okay. Well, the next comment comes from Tweak6 on the forums and this is on the topic on Harry and Ron’s fight that is now fully in form and the comment says,
“On Ron and Harry’s fight- as much as I hate it when the trio don’t get along, these arguments are actually some of my favourite moments in the books! The argument gives us so much character development which wouldn’t be able to happen as effectively in big adventure scenes, and the descriptions of their emotions are just so realistic for kids of that age. It gives a dose of realism in this magical world, with them just getting to be normal teenagers, and I love reading those scenes as they are what allowed so many of us to connect with and relate to the characters, rather than only admiring their actions.”
Laura: Well, I have to agree that it is definitely interesting character development and certainly makes it more realistic. I agree with those things. I have to disagree with the enjoyable aspect. I agree, yeah, that it’s certainly great character development. But at the same time, it’s like, “Everybody hug and make up, please. Let’s move on. Okay. Thanks.”
Kat: Yeah, I actually don’t mind at all when they fight. I feel like Harry needs to learn to be on his own sometimes, and that’s, I think, what those fights are mostly for to be honest because think about he… I don’t think he’d be as strong as he is in the end if… and I don’t think he would know that he could do it himself if he had never had to do it himself.
Caleb: Yeah.
Alex: That was a really interesting comment about how the fights feel very realistic to young readers. I think one of the many reasons why Harry Potter is so popular is because – unlike a story like Lord of the Rings where all the main characters are these mythical badasses, who’ve just always been that way – Harry Potter, the story starts off with a kid who has been totally normal his whole life and then all of a sudden he gets informed that he’s magical and has these magical abilities and gets to go to this magical school, and I think that access point for everyone to make the story feel real, like, “Oh, it could happen to me,” and everyone still laments when their birthday comes around and they don’t get their Hogwarts letter. I think you’re seeing that here, too. You’re seeing J.K. Rowling went to great pains to make the interactions of these kids feel like real kids to add another level of relatability to the story.
Kat: That’s super true.
Caleb: Yup.
Kat: Unfortunately, I was way too old when I read these books, but whatever.
Alex: You can still get your letter someday, Kat.
Kat: Fingers are crossed, man. Fingers are crossed.
Caleb: [laughs] And the last comments comes on the topic of Rita Skeeter’s Quick-Quotes Quill and it comes from Subjective Unicorn on the main site, and it says,
“I imagined Rita’s quill being similar to auto fill or T9 on a mobile phone, it takes time for it to learn which words the owner uses, but later it chooses the most often chosen vocabulary of the user and types it in. So is Rita’s quill, but in more complex format. It had learned her way of writing and follows the pattenrs. I could imagine that such magical object would be widely available for the wizard journalists to buy. We know that there are smart answer quills, auto spell quills made by Weasleys, possibly they took Rita’s quill as a prototype and developed it further.”
[Kat laughs]
Caleb: I love this analogy!
Kat: First off, the T9 – does anybody have a phone that uses that anymore?
Caleb: No! It’s been so long since I’ve used T9.
[Laura laughs]
Kat: I know! Not to insult anybody that does have that. I apologize in advance. That’s just really funny, and it’s, too, I was reading the comments earlier and there’s this whole great theory about… you guys talked last week about how if someone else picked up Rita’s quill, would it write her words or would it write their words? And there’s this whole theory about how before she writes she sucks on the end of it or whatever?
Caleb:
Mhm.
Kat:
That’s how the quill knows whose words to emulate. I don’t know. Just go read it, it’s on the forums.
Laura: Yeah. I’m really disappointed that I missed this discussion in general, because I’ve said whenever we’ve discussed artifacts in general – especially with me pursuing journalism – like I’ve always been fascinated with the Quick-Quotes Quill and how it actually works and if it was similar to… back before I knew what Horcruxes were, I assumed it worked in the same way Tom Riddle’s diary did, but that’s definitely not the case. So… [laughs] but yeah, I find it definitely really interesting and I think that sucking on it is an interesting theory.
Kat: You know what I just thought of, too? You know that whole meme thing that’s going around? That… that…
Caleb: “What would I say?”
Kat: That “What would I say” thing or whatever?
Laura: Oh my God, I’m so over it! [laughs]
Caleb: I’m so obsessed!
Kat: When it was talking about how it learned [Jo’s] ways of writing and following the patterns, that’s what I thought of, so…
Caleb: Yeah.
Alex: I wonder if the quill would self-destruct if someone else tried to use it?
Kat: Oh my God, that would be great.
Caleb: And exploding everywhere.
Alex: Exactly.
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: That would be awesome. I could see that. It is Rita’s quill after all.
Laura: Okay. Well, I think we’re going to move on to the Podcast Question of the Week responses, and I just want to remind you what that question was. We said that Harry – he was not on good terms with Ron, but Hermione is still there to keep him going. So Harry doesn’t seem to really acknowledge this. He’s constantly thinking of Ron. So we asked, “At this point in the series, is Hermione giving much more into her friendship with Harry than Harry is giving in return?” So we got lots of comments and this first comment comes from Pig-desk, and it says,
“We have to keep in mind that it’s Harry’s POV. We see Harry focus on Ron’s negative reaction toward him, rightly so. It is perfectly normal for an angstie youngster to obsess about one of his BFF’s not supporting him. In Harry’s POV we see it as an imbalance of attention but we don’t see him project this overwhelmingly slanted position to Hermione as much as we see it internally… I don’t think Hermione would perceive Harry’s focus on Ron to be more than warranted given the stress he is under. However, Harry’s stress and focus on Ron hinders him from utilizing and appreciating Hermione’s genius and that, I think, is annoying.”
First of all, I just want to say that I abridged that. But second of all, I definitely liked the point that they made that while we’re seeing Harry feel all this angst, he isn’t actually really outwardly projecting like, “Oh Hermione, I’m so miserable being with you.”
Caleb: Yeah, but that doesn’t make it okay. [laughs]
Laura: Oh yeah, I’m not saying that.
Caleb: It doesn’t change the fact that… he may not be showing it completely, but while Harry may harbor these internal feelings and that… it’s true we’re getting a biased point-of-view perspective and he’s not necessarily acting on all these feelings. Think about it, when you are feeling a negative way about someone, you may try to hold back and you don’t tell them bluntly how you feel, but the tone with which you talk to them, how you use your intimate space with them, changes to a degree. It comes through.
Kat: Sure, okay, I get what you mean. No, that’s true. Usually I bluntly tell people, but… that’s me.
Caleb: Right, that’s all of us. [laughs]
Kat: If they’re not right in my face then yeah, that’s true. I would definitely, probably… you know, the tone of my voice and stuff. That’s true.
Laura: Okay, so now we have an audio clip from Audioboo to listen to:
[Audio]: In response to this week’s Question of the Week, I think Harry is in a bit of a selfish stage in his life – a period many of us go through in our early teen years where we start to take for granted those long-lasting friendships. I think adults tend to have more trouble making friends, especially once they’re out of college and no longer have extra-curricular activities like sports teams, et cetera, so older people tend to value friendships more. Harry loves Hermione, obviously in a platonic way, but I don’t think he ever fears showing a hand in the friendship, so he doesn’t have to put as much in. With Ron there’s already a jealously issue that Harry is somewhat aware of. Ron has a serious inferiority complex around Harry, whereas Hermione clearly has some talents and skills that Harry cannot compete with. I think Harry fails to fully appreciate Hermione, but it doesn’t come out of spite. He’s simply a young, naive teenager.
Laura: Yeah, I don’t want to give him too much – write him off too much – and say that just because he’s young he’s stupid, because I feel like that’s not necessarily an excuse. But at the same time, it happens.
Kat: It does, and I do agree with her point about how as you get older you appreciate your friendships more – I think. Although I think probably by their seventh year at Hogwarts they appreciate each other quite a bit. [laughs] But maybe not so much at this point. I would agree with that.
Laura: Mhm. And this last comment comes from thebandthatneedsnointroduction – I really like that username – and it says,
“Harry and Ron give Hermione what she needs most – friendship, a sense of fun, and getting the job done in the end. Hermione gives Ron and Harry what they need most – brainpower, motivation and emotional maturity. Hermione’s help to Harry and Ron is more obvious and regular, but Harry and Ron’s help to Hermione is just as significant.
When Hermione comes to Hogwarts, she has no friends and is a stranger to the wizarding world. Ron helps to integrate her into that world and Harry is her companion as they enter that world together. Even in later years, her friendships outside the trio are limited to Ginny and some of the DA. Without Harry and Ron, Hermione would be lonely at Hogwarts. Hermione would never take a break, have some fun or take risks if it weren’t for Harry and Ron’s influence. She would never have gone through the trapdoor to get the Philosopher’s Stone, never had a laugh and never taken a night off studying. She is a more balanced person thanks to them. Hermione often figures out what needs to be done, but she needs Harry and Ron to do it with her…”
Kat: And I think that’s the beauty of the trio – basically what they said right there – that the three of them give and take things from the other two. It’s pretty balanced for the most part.
Caleb: Mhm.
Laura: Yeah. And I also wanted to give a quick shout-out… there was a beautifully written comment on the forums that we couldn’t include because it was extremely long and slightly off-topic. But if you want to read Olivia Underwood’s comment on Harry’s fault of always feeling like he needs to be alone, it’s a very beautiful and eloquent comment. You all should check it out.
Kat: Where is that? On the forums?
Laura: It’s on the Podcast Question of the Week for Episode 56 comments.
Kat: Okay, so it’s on the main site.
Laura: Yeah.
Kat: And with that, we are going to jump into our chapter for the week.
[Goblet of Fire Chapter 19 intro begins]
[Sound of a dragon roaring]
Hagrid: Chapter 19.
[Dragon roaring sound continues]
Hagrid: “The Hungarian Horntail.”
[Goblet of Fire Chapter 19 intro ends]
Kat: Okay, so here we are. Harry has gotten his letter back from Sirius, and he’s super excited because now he gets to talk to his godfather. He’s not quite sure how that’s going to work. I know he knows it’s in the fire, but anyway, it says that he’s never been this nervous, not even – oddly enough – since his first Quidditch match. [laughs] And he admits that he isn’t sure Sirius is really going to make him feel any better, but he’s really excited to talk to him anyway. So it goes on to say that Rita Skeeter has released the article that she wrote about the “tournament.” [laughs] Which really turns out to be, basically, a piece about Harry. The names of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang champions, which were misspelled, were stuck in the last sentence of the article, which ran over four pages, I think it said?
Caleb: Uh-huh.
Kat: And poor Cedric wasn’t mentioned at all. Hmm. Poor guy.
Laura: I felt so bad for him right there.
Kat: I know! [laughs]
Laura: More so… I think I felt [worse] for him… I mean, this is going to sound awful, but at first, it was him dying, and I had a more emotional reaction to him being left out of the article. I just felt so bad for him. [laughs]
Kat: I just feel bad for the Hufflepuffs out there.
Laura: Yeah.
Kat: Alex, what house are you?
Alex: Well, that’s a good question. I always fashioned myself a Gryffindor, but Pottermore put me in Ravenclaw, and I think more and more people who[m] I’ve asked independently, without telling them what I think I am, have put me in Ravenclaw, too, lately. So I’m having a bit of an identity crisis.
Kat: That’s where I would put you! I would put you in Ravenclaw.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah, see, I think I’m turning into a Ravenclaw in my old age. Or maybe I always was? And I just…
[Kat laughs]
Alex: … didn’t know it.
Caleb: Perhaps we sort too soon.
Alex: [laughs] Yeah.
Kat: [laughs] Perhaps we sort too soon.
[Alex laughs]
Kat: That may be true.
Alex: Exactly. I played… I went to my alma mater, Middlebury College – where Quidditch started – to run a lecture at an entrepreneurship course at Middlebury about Quidditch and how it got started. And I started off… it was a small class. It was a special winter-term course with fifteen students. So I started off the class by sorting all of the students because I that knew it was a very concentrated class, where they met every day for a month, so we played this awesome sorting game that I came up with where I would write each of the four houses on the chalkboard at the front with a summary of the characteristics underneath for anyone who wasn’t super familiar with each of the houses. And then we would take turns having each student in the class come up and sit in a chair in front of the class, and we put a hat over their eyes, and the rest of the class would silently vote on what house they’re in, and then you announce it. And it was really cool because some of them… there’s a lot of… there’s a little bit of hushed debate, and people were raising their hands. It was a really close vote. Others… one kid went up, and the whole class voted Slytherin instantly, so that was fascinating. And what was disturbing to me there was they voted me Slytherin. [laughs]
Kat: Oh.
[Laura laughs]
Alex: I hope they liked the rest of my lecture. But it’s a cool game. I highly recommend you try it.
Kat: I was just going to say, “That sounds like a lot of fun, actually.”
Alex: Yeah, yeah. It’s very fascinating.
Kat: If we weren’t already all sorted…
Caleb: Yeah.
[Alex laughs]
Laura: Yeah, I refuse to do any more quizzes just because I’m afraid. It was the most validating experience of my life to get Gryffindor, and I’m never touching anything again.
[Caleb laughs]
Laura: I’m acknowledging that.
Kat: I was happy with my sorting, so…
Caleb: Yup.
Laura: Yeah.
Kat: Okay, but back to Rita’s article here. My point about this was “How does this woman keep getting away with writing these awful, awful articles, which have nothing to do with anything?”
Caleb: Man, she’s like…
Laura: Have you heard of the tabloids?
Caleb: Well, man, it’s not even that, though. She’s on the front page of the Daily Prophet. For me, she reminds me of Nancy Grace. I have this piece that if Nancy Grace [were] in the wizarding world and a reporter, she would be Rita Skeeter.
Laura: Oh, my God. That’s so true. [laughs]
Kat: That’s hitting the nail on the head, man.
Caleb: Because it’s not tabloids. This is legit on the… it’s in the paper. This isn’t The Inquirer or whatever.
Alex: Yeah. In my experience with doing interviews for Quidditch, I definitely had some interviews with newspapers that I won’t name here that you think the interviewer is going to tell one story, and then the thing that ends up getting published is just so different from anything you said to them or anything they asked you about. I’ve been terribly misquoted, I’ve had quotes taken completely out of context. It definitely gives you a really deep appreciation for really good journalism because sometimes I’ll do interviews with people who come prepared with tons of really interesting, insightful questions that show they’ve really done their research, or I’ll do interviews with people who take five scribbled notes over the course of a 30-minute conversation and then just make [beep] up.
[Alex and Caleb laugh]
Alex: So it’s… I think Rita Skeeter is a really cool… I feel like she’s one of the more blatant pieces of social commentary that J.K. Rowling inserted into the Harry Potter series, and I love to see that taken to its full extension in Cuckoo’s Calling, which I just read and loved.
Caleb: Yeah, I was just thinking the same analogy.
Kat: Oh, I haven’t finished it! Don’t spoil it.
Alex: Oh, we won’t spoil it then, but it’s obviously… I’m sure you’ve read it far enough to understand that there’s definitely commentary on the role of media.
Kat: Yeah. I feel like… I mean, again, I haven’t finished it, but I feel like she took that one little idea that she had with Rita and made it into a book. So that’s exciting.
Alex: Absolutely. I think the one thing that’s true about real journalism and Rita Skeeter is that you get these situations where you have a lot of editors or writers who come to the story having already figured out in their heads what the story’s going to be, and they’re really just looking for quotes to plug into it to make it fit their vision of it.
Caleb: Oh.
Kat: Oh. That’s true. I guess it feels like that. This way with Rita in this story, doesn’t it?
Laura: Yeah.
Kat: Okay, so obviously, as we were just talking about, she goes on to misquote Harry a bajillion times. And people still believe it, which I think is the hilarious part. These people have known Harry for the last three years. Have they ever seen him walking through the halls crying?
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: I don’t know. Anyway. And I like this little bit in here where Colin Creevey is quoted saying that Harry is always seen with Hermione, “a stunningly pretty Muggle-born girl,” and I just pictured Colin crushin’ on Hermione a little bit. It made me smile. Because I saw that dorky little kid [who] plays him in the movies when I pictured him in my head.
Caleb: Hmm.
Laura: Mhm.
Kat: Yeah. Anyway. So to continue here, not much happens in this chapter, guys, just to be honest. There [are] a couple of key things that get dropped, but really, not a whole lot happens. Here, Harry is super frustrated because all of the Slytherins keep picking on him, asking him if he wants a hanky in case he starts crying. And he basically blows up at Cho in the hallway. Whoops.
Laura: Awkward.
Kat: [laughs] Yeah, I mean, a little bit. And Harry – his inner dialogue – keeps saying that he is wishing that Ron [were] around. That he does miss him even though he’s trying to pretend that he doesn’t miss him. And I was wondering: He talks about the detentions that they had with Snape and how Harry was saying he wished… he was hoping that at that point that he’d be able to make up with Ron. But that was the day that Rita’s article came out. And I was thinking, do we think that Harry would have been more confident going into the first task, in this next chapter, if they had in fact made up at those detentions? Would Harry feel better about himself?
Caleb: I mean, maybe. But I think that the way that it plays out – him finding things out – is probably the best prepared he can get. He gets to see the dragons the night before. I don’t know how much Ron would have added to that.
Laura: Yeah, I think… let’s just pretend that Ron never had a problem and was total support from the beginning. I don’t think anything would be different, really, because Harry would almost have known what he had lost in the same way when everyone thinks he’s the heir of Slytherin and all that. But if they had fought and then made up, I do think that would have had a positive effect on him. I wouldn’t say it would have made him more confident about the First Task, but I think it would have made him feel less miserable, socially.
Kat: Less terrified. Less alone.
Laura: Yeah, I mean because it’s not just the First Task he has to worry about. It’s just all this stuff… it’s the article, and it’s all the people calling him names, and all that, and Sirius stress, and there [are] a million things happening, and I think [that] everything that isn’t the First Task would have been better.
Alex: I think that sometimes, when you’re entering some kind of major test or public challenge like this, in the form of the First Task, that sometimes having other problems or everything else going wrong in your life can even help you going into the task, because it’s sort of… it’s like that expression: once you hit the bottom, you can only go up. So he knows he has to face a dragon, and he’s having these terrible problems with his friends, and the whole school hates him and is making fun of him. Where else can he go but go into this task and rock it? So I think that sometimes there is something to be said for going into something in a very [censored] position and having this sort of chance for redemption.
Kat: That’s true. He is definitely at pretty much the lowest point he could be at self-esteem-wise right now anyway.
Laura: Yeah.
Kat: I never thought of it that way, rock bottom you can only get better from there.
Caleb: Hmm.
Kat: It’s true. And there is this quote in here that I really like. Again, this is Harry’s inner dialogue. It said, “There was much less laughter and a lot more hanging around in the library when Hermione was your best friend.” [laughs]
Caleb: Whoops.
Kat: [laughs] I don’t know, for some reason I just read it this time and I laughed out loud.
[Laura laughs]
Kat: I don’t know. I’m kind of tired this week. [laughs]
Caleb: Get it together, Kat. [laughs]
Kat: [laughs] I know. It’s a day. What can I say? It’s a day. And then at the top of page 317, there is another great quote here. It says that, “Harry still hadn’t mastered Summoning Charms, he seemed to have developed something of a block about them, and Hermione insisted that learning the theory would help.” And of course when I heard them talking about learning the theory, I immediately thought of Umbridge.
Caleb: Huh. That’s a good thing. I never really thought about that.
Kat: Yeah, because I feel like it shows here… I mean, if you think about it, that Hermione knows that Umbridge on some level is right that learning the theory would help, but I’m wondering if… and this is jumping forward a little bit to the next book, but if the reason she’s so worried about Umbridge’s way of teaching is because she’s scared not to learn how to do them because of Voldemort.
Caleb: Yeah.
Laura: I think… I mean, honestly, I think it’s more to do with just a balance. I think it’s the extremism that turned Hermione off. If it had been like, “Oh, we’re going to be learning lots of theory and we’re going to have to read a million books, but we’re also going to do spells,” I think Hermione, Umbridge’s personality aside, would have been pretty excited to read a million books on theory but also be able to do the spells. I think it is the extremism of like, “We’re only doing this coupled with the fact of Voldemort being back and stuff,” so I think that had more to do with her freaking out about that. But in this situation, I think it’s totally very Hermione-ish to be like, “Yes, you need to learn theory and practice it.” All about that balance.
Kat: That’s true, I would agree with that. So there’s this great scene, again, where Harry and Hermione are in the library, of course, studying, and they’re talking about Krum and his “gaggle of girls” that all seem… oh, “gaggle of giggling girls.”
Laura: “Gaggle of giggling girls.”
Kat: Yeah. You sounded very Weasley right there, when you said that. I was… you know that scene in the movie where they’re talking about…
Laura: What I was going for.
Kat: Yeah, okay.
[Laura laughs]
Kat: It made me laugh how she’s talking about how he’s not even good looking and then she says, “They wouldn’t look twice at him if he couldn’t do that Wonky-Faint thing.”
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: And I feel for Harry here, because he says that it causes him a pang of hurt to imagine Ron’s expression if he could have heard Hermione talking about “Wonky-Faints.” And I just felt for him here, that he was missing his best friend so bad.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: I just felt for him. So it goes on to say that it’s the weekend before the task and everyone above the third year is able to go to Hogsmeade, and… I’m not even going to really talk about this part because nothing super exciting happens except for the fact that we learn that Moody can see through Harry’s invisibility cloak.
Caleb: But it would be funny if you were there to see Hermione talking to herself so frequently.
Kat: [laughs] That is very true. I want to see her hand the Butterbeer and have it disappear.
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: Has anyone ever had hot Butterbeer?
Caleb: No.
Kat: Because I just read this thing about where you can, like, order from Starbucks now.
Caleb: Yeah, but… so that’s… okay, so someone told me this… well, I mean, I knew that they were doing this, but someone told me the actual recipe. I don’t think they’re making Butterbeer right, because it seems like they’re loading down on caramel, which, granted, may be in normal Butterbeer, but that seems like the main ingredient, and that’s not right.
Kat: What else is in it?
Caleb: Isn’t there a lot of butterscotch in it?
Kat: Yeah, in real Butterbeer. What’s in the Starbucks recipe?
Laura: Toffee nut.
Caleb: Yeah, that.
Kat: What?
Laura: Toffee nut. It’s actually… I mean, I’ve had it. I think it’s pretty good. But I’m also…
Caleb: It doesn’t sound real.
Laura: I mean, it’s not. [laughs] But as a beverage that I enjoy, as a butterscotch lover…
Caleb: Yeah.
Laura: … regardless of my Butterbeer, I’m a fan.
Alex: I’ve heard that when they were making the theme park that much convincing had to be done to assure Jo Rowling that you couldn’t have warm Butterbeer in Florida. She wanted the Butterbeer to be warm, and they had to…
[Caleb laughs]
Alex: … explain to her, “Look, just because you have warm beer… first of all, warm beer is an English thing, and second of all it’s Florida. It’s got to be cold, and there has to be an iced version too.” And actually, I think she came around…
Kat: That frozen Butterbeer is so good. [laughs]
Alex: Oh, it’s great.
Laura: At the same time, I would have ordered the hot one. Like, I was in Epcot and I still got piping hot tea in France just to have it. Like, it was miserable drinking it, [laughs] but I needed it. So if I was in the Wizarding World, I’d have my hot Butterbeer.
[Alex laughs]
Laura: Regardless.
Kat: You would be the only one.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: I mean, that is probably not true, but you know. Anyway, so I was wondering… as we mentioned, the only thing we really learn here is that Moody can see through the invisibility cloaks. What do we think that the information, at this moment, achieves? I mean, obviously, it helps us learn later when Harry is stuck on the stairs, blah blah blah, but is this setting up Moody to be on Harry’s side at this moment? As a helper, as an ally.
Caleb: I didn’t really think about it, because he’s not really helping Harry here. I just more thought, “Oh, I guess…” well, the first time when you were like, “Oh, I didn’t realize [that] the eye could see through a cloak.” So…
Kat: Makes me wonder what else he can see through.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: That was Kat’s dirty moment of the episode.
Caleb: Oh, I didn’t even take it there.
Laura: I did, but I just figured I’d let it sit there. [laughes]
Kat: I mean, that’s not going to be a new thing. Like, that’s not going to happen every episode, [laughes] so… okay. Anyway, so when Hagrid runs into Harry and Hermione at the bar, he tells Harry to meet him down at midnight, and of course, you know, Harry does.
Caleb: Which is just a little odd. Like, [as Hagrid] “Harry, come and see me late at night tonight.” [laughs]
Kat: [laughs] And that’s Caleb’s dirty moment of the show.
[Laura laughs]
Caleb: No, it’s not even about that. No, like…
Kat: I know.
Caleb: It makes me think of when Alyssa… I don’t know if when she was on the show we talked about Hagrid, but we always have conversations about Hagrid and how he’s just so awful and inappropriate, so…
Kat: I mean, he’s the drunk uncle, right? I mean, haven’t we discussed this before?
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: Yeah. He’s the inappropriate one for sure. So later that night, of course, Hermione helps Harry get out of the common room, which I thought was really odd. She’s not really the rule-breaking one, but I guess she’s going easy on him these days.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: And he heads down to the cabin, and Hagrid leads Harry and Madame Maxime, of all people, out to the dragon enclosure. And I just really like the way that this was described. It says, “Hagrid led Madame Maxime around a clump of trees and came to a halt. Harry hurried up alongside them ñ for a split second, he thought he was seeing bonfires and men darting around them ñ and then his mouth fell open. Dragons.”
Caleb: It’s so epic.
Kat: I remember reading this and being like, “Oh my God, dragons!”
Laura: I mean, I wasn’t particularly shocked just because the cover has got a big old dragon on it, [laughs] but at the same time it’s still pretty awesome.
Caleb: Yeah. Like, it’s… you’re living in this magical world for three and a half books at this point, and then Jo kicks it up another level. That’s just so awesome.
Kat: Yeah, everything in this book is super magnified, isn’t it?
Caleb: Yeah.
Laura: I love this book for that reason.
Kat: Yeah, it’s your favorite, right?
Laura: I straddle between this and Deathly Hallows, but you know. [laughs]
Kat: Fair enough.
Laura: Probably Deathly Hallows.
Kat: So the whole first two pages here when they are talking about the dragon[s], there is a ton of emphasis on the Horntail.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: Which I guess I had never noticed kind of until this time around, which is obviously foreshadowing that, “Remember this one, because it’s going to be really important. Remember how vicious and awful and spiney it is.” [laughs] Poor Harry. So then we go on and Harry says that he recognizes one of the dragon tamers and it’s Charlie Weasley, Ron’s older brother. And in true Weasley fashion, he makes a nice joke about Hagrid taking Madame Maxime on a nice romantic date to see the dragons. [laughs] I just thought it was really cute.
Laura: I’d be really happy if someone took me on a date to see dragons, just putting that out there. [laughs]
Caleb: Well…
Laura: So I don’t see the problem. [laughs]
Caleb: I also really liked that even though it’s very quick, Charlie asks about Harry. So you get just another element of a Weasley showing how much they care about Harry.
Kat: Yeah, because then he goes on to talk about Molly and how worried she is about Harry. And I…
Caleb: [laughs] Because she takes Rita’s story as complete fact.
Kat: I know! I couldn’t believe that. I was like, “How many weeks has Harry spent with them?” I can’t believe Molly believes that.
Laura: But [in that case] she’s just a mom who gets wrapped up in tabloids. It’s like my mom would come home and be like, “Oh my God, did you see that this person did this,” and I’m like, “Nope, they most definitely didn’t. I promise you.” So… and I love in the future when she sends Hermione some crappy Easter present or something because she’s mad.
Kat: That’s right. That’s totally rude.
Laura: I totally love that moment. [laughs]
Kat: I forgot about that. Oh, bad Molly. That’s not very mother-ing of her.
Caleb: Whoops.
Kat: So they hang out a little while in front of the dragons here. Harry basically craps himself [laughs] and then runs off back to the castle because he needs to meet Sirius. At 1:00 a.m. of all times. Like, hello, responsible godfather. Anyway… and on his way back up to the castle, he literally runs into Karkaroff. Like bang, falls over. I just want to say I wish that had been in the movie because I think Dan would have shone. He would have shined in the…
Caleb: Yeah. Those are his kind of moments.
Kat: Yeah, definitely.
Caleb: But also just think about [laughs] if you were walking around and you feel someone run into you out of nowhere.
[Kat laughs]
Caleb: Like, what is your initial reaction to such a horrifying experience?
[Laura laughs]
Kat: I mean, I love how it says how Karkaroff is, like, looking down around his knees. Like, he thinks it’s a dog. Like… I don’t know.
Caleb: Yeah. Fam, something just collided with you that is your height.
[Kat laughs]
Caleb: You need to be looking around. Not just for animals.
Laura: He just reckons it’s a dog.
Kat: He’s like, “Yeah, whatever.”
Alex: It’s also a magical world, and granted there’s a shocking lack of invisibility in the magical world besides this invisibility cloak. But in a magical world, I feel like you’re… and when you’re walking around a castle that’s devoted to the study of magic, I feel like your sort of tolerance for crazy things happening is a lot higher.
[Kat laughs]
Caleb: That’s a good point.
Alex: Like, you just sort of accept it. Like, “Oh, something invisible just bumped into me. Magical school.”
Laura: Just another Wednesday.
Caleb: Yeah, and it makes sense. Like, Karkaroff is ready to, like, duel it out. But I’m thinking, in my daily life, if something like this happens then I would be terrified.
Kat: Oh my God.
Caleb: I’d just scream and run.
Kat: I was going to say, what would you do?
Caleb: [laughs] No, I would not. I’m in Gryffindor. I’d stand and fight.
Kat: Would you, though?
Caleb: I mean, I’d be fighting air, I guess.
[Kat laughs]
Caleb: But I would say I won.
Laura: Just flailing.
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: You could say that you won. I mean, that’s true. You could. Oh, that’s funny.
Caleb: And that’s what’s important: winning.
Kat: Spoken like a true Gryffindor. So Harry makes it back up to the Gryffindor common room and is looking around for Sirius and hears him pop into the fire. So he turns around and he says that he would think it was kind of crazy if he hadn’t seen Cedric Diggory’s father do this only mere months before. Anyway, so we had talked about the Floo Network before and it’s in… what kind of fireplaces are connected and what aren’t. Thank you, Jo, for answering all those questions that we asked on Pottermore. But still, this still confuses the hell out of me. How is Sirius able to just stick his head into a fireplace in Hogwarts?
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: Which is, like, impossible to get into.
Caleb: Yeah, this is one of the things I’ve never been able to figure out. It just… there’s… you get all of these explanations of how this shouldn’t be possible in Hogwarts and how special circumstances have to be created for it, and it’s… I don’t think Dumbledore… well, first off, Sirius wouldn’t be able to really contact Dumbledore easily, and then Dumbledore, I don’t think, would open the fireplace. Plus, the Ministry would have to know about it if that was the case. I would think. I don’t know.
Laura: Plot hole!
Kat: Not cool, Jo.
Caleb: I’m sure she has a brilliant explanation for it.
Kat: Oh, I’m sure she does. I bet if we asked her, she’d have an answer right there on the tip of her tongue.
Caleb: Yeah.
Alex: This interaction between Harry and Sirius is very interesting to me. I don’t know how jails work in England, so I don’t know if it’s just me creating this connection or if J.K. Rowling intended it, but even though Sirius has escaped from prison, the way in which he and Harry are interacting through this fireplace reminds me of prisoners being visited. How they have to speak to somebody through this glass wall and with this telephone. It’s almost like you’re just seeing an image of the person and hearing them through the phone. The fact that even though Sirius has escaped from jail but because he’s this wanted man he still has to kind of live like a prisoner and speak to Harry in this sort of secretive manner where he can’t really connect with him face to face.
Caleb: That’s really cool.
Laura: Yeah, I think that’s a really awesome point.
Kat: I’m kind of speechless over here. I…
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: That’s brilliant! You are a Ravenclaw, sir.
[Alex and Caleb laugh]
Caleb: Yeah. I couldn’t have thought that up.
Alex: It’s conclusive now.
Kat: We welcome you into the house.
Alex: So now I need to look it up and figure out if that’s a thing in English jails, but I guess surely it’s like a thing in popular culture. I mean, it’s in like every other American film, so I’m sure J.K. Rowling was at least aware of it even if it wasn’t intentional.
Kat: Wow. You’ve blown my mind. I’m sorry, I just… that doesn’t happen very often.
Caleb: Some Ravenclaws I’m always wondering if they’d be able to solve the riddle to get into the common room. Alex, I think you’d be safe.
Alex: [laughs] We’ll see about that.
Kat: [laughs] I would never be able to solve the riddle.
Alex: I just think that would be so annoying at certain times.
Kat: Oh my God.
Alex: I guess Ravenclaws are more organized, so maybe they’re not running behind schedule, but if I think back to my experiences, I was always rushing to get to class or do one thing or another, and if you’re in a hurry and then you have to stop and solve a riddle, that just screws up your whole day.
Laura: Or even coming back. If you had a paper and were at the library until like two in the morning like I am and then it’s like, “I have to come back and I just want to sleep,” but nope, gotta solve a riddle.
Alex: [laughs] Yeah.
Kat: Yeah, and if nobody else comes along for like an hour, you’re screwed.
Laura: Campin’ in the hallway!
Kat: I guess that’s… I can’t say that because I wouldn’t be able to solve it myself, so nevermind.
Alex: Did you guys know… I just… I didn’t even have a chance to read the article – I just saw the headline and the photo that accompanied it – but they have these new machines in Russia in the subways – or in the Metro – that to get a free subway pass, you can stand in front of the machine and do a certain number of exercises like squats and the machine counts them…
Laura: I actually did read the article.
Kat: No way!
Alex: … using lasers…
Laura: Yeah.
Alex: … and then gives you a free subway pass.
Caleb: To promote…
Laura: Yeah, it gives you one thirtieth of a subway pass, so if you do thirty squats you get a free subway ride.
Caleb: To promote physical activity?
Alex: Yeah.
Laura: Yeah, to promote the values of the Olympics as not just something you watch but like an ideal.
Caleb: Oh my God, that is awesome.
Kat: Damn! I would ride… oh, I’d be in such good shape.
Laura: Right? [laughs]
Kat: Because I’m kind of cheap, so I would do like a bajillion squats.
[Laura laughs]
Kat: Okay, so Harry and Sirius are talking in the fire, and obviously, Harry basically word vomits everything that’s happened over the last couple of weeks because who else does he have to talk to besides Hermione? And God bless her heart. Probably not one you’re going to spill all your problems to.
Caleb: This reminds me of the scene in the movie because I hate the way they do his face, like, shifting out of the coals in the movie.
Kat: [laughs] I know. It’s so bad.
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: Nothing like how I pictured it. Like floating…
Caleb: No.
Kat: … like it talks about.
Caleb: No. Terrible.
Laura: Do they ever do it again outside of… yes, they do! He does it again in… I guess it would have to be Order because… whoops.
Kat: He does?
[Caleb and Laura laugh]
Laura: But yeah, no, they do it differently where they don’t do him like climbing out of the coals like a monster. They do it like his face is floating, right?
Caleb: I don’t remember.
Laura: No, he totally does.
Kat: Are you sure?
Caleb: I mean, you might be a liar, so…
Laura: I’m doubting myself, but I’m pretty sure because…
Caleb: I think it’s just that vividly in your mind.
Laura: Oh my God, now I have to look it up.
Kat: Yeah, I don’t think it happened.
Laura: Continue and I will prove myself right.
Kat: Okay.
Laura: Or…
Kat: All right.
Laura: … die trying.
Caleb: You’re insane.
Kat: So, like I said, Harry is spilling his guts to Sirius, but Sirius really focuses on Karkaroff being in the school. He tells Harry that he used to be a Death Eater, and there’s this whole diatribe where he’s talking about how Karkaroff got released because he released a bunch of names to the Ministry of Magic, and he thinks that he’s been teaching the dark arts to basically every student that’s walked through his school and warns Harry to be careful of the Durmstrang champion as well. So right here, again, we’re getting that reinforcement that these people are bad. Don’t trust them. She’s setting up them as kind of the bad characters. And there is also a mention of Moony being… or Moody being attacked – I said Moony [laughs] – at the beginning of the year. And this is… I think this happened a couple of chapters ago where basically she spelled out everything that was true and legit right in the chapter. Right, that was a couple of chapters ago?
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: But here she is again basically putting it all out there, the plot before the big reveal basically. The genius moment for the chapter.
Caleb: I also think it’s funny that Sirius is like, “Oh, you got dragons tomorrow? No big deal. Let me tell you about the real problems.” [laughs]
Kat: Yeah.
Caleb: True but Sirius, he is going to face a Hungarian Horntail tomorrow, so maybe give him some advice.
Kat: Little does he know.
Caleb: Right.
Laura: Can I just stop for a second? You…
Kat: Are you going to brag?
Laura: … suck it. [laughs]
Kat: [laughs] Okay.
Laura: Don’t put that in, but I’m right.
Caleb: Oh yeah, I do remember that now.
Kat: Wait, did you just post it?
Laura: I put in the chat.
Kat: Oh, right.
Caleb: I was just really hoping that it was just in your mind just so you would have to see a doctor or something.
[Laura laughs]
Kat: I forgot about that stupid scene. That one is not any better than the other one.
Laura: I don’t even remember when that happens. I just remember it happening because I remember at least actively thinking this is much better than the creepy coal face. [laughs]
Kat: Coal face, okay. So Sirius goes on here, and he is a smart guy because he’s already kind of figured it all out, so to say. He mentions that there is a lot of very strange things happening. He brings up the Death Eaters at the Quidditch World Cup, and then he brings up Bertha Jorkins, which… she is still missing, and then he also mentions Albania, which is the last place that Lord Voldemort was seen.
Caleb: He also talks about how dumb she is.
Kat: He does. He says, “Very nosy, but no brains, none at all.”
Caleb: Which is a little insensitive, considering…
Kat: Well, isn’t that Sirius’s MO?
Caleb: Yeah, oh well.
Kat: I mean, that’s kind of how he is. So… ow. I guess I’ll stop playing with pens.
[Kat and Laura laugh]
Kat: I’m having a total[ly] dramatic night. So they’re chatting and Harry hears a noise and he tells him to stop, stop talking. And of course it’s Ron. Ron interrupts just as Sirius was about to tell Harry how to get past the dragons. It says, “Using a very simple spell.” And then Harry basically gets pissed and completely explodes at Ron, and rightfully so? I mean…
Caleb: No.
Kat: Yeah, I don’t think so either. I think…
Caleb: It’s one of the few times I’m actually on Ron’s side. Like Harry, shake back.
Kat: Right.
Caleb: Also, it’s late. Why are you getting so angsty at two in the morning? Go to bed!
Laura: That’s the exact reason why he’s getting angsty, because it’s two in the morning.
Kat: Nothing good happens after 2:00 a.m.
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: But… I guess this brings up the point for me, like Ron is all pissy too. And why in the hell does he actually believe Rita? Like, I don’t… it just feels so crappy. Like, I know he’s mad at Harry, but why would you believe all those things that that Rita woman said?
Caleb: Oh, I don’t think he believes it. I think he’s just using it to get back at him.
Laura: Right, because Hermione says pretty much… when Harry asks, “Oh, does…” oh no, I’m misattributing that. That was whether or not he put his name in the Goblet. But at the same time, the same thing goes. It’s where… he doesn’t actually believe it. Like, not even deep down. Well, pretty surface level, but he’s just like… to validate his own anger. It’s just like, “Yes…”
Caleb: Yeah.
Laura: “… stupid person of this stupid article.”
Kat: Okay, so then I’ve got a question. So Harry chucks one of those “Potter Stinks” badges at him, hits him in the forehead, and he gives him this nice dig. He says, “You might even have a scar now if you’re lucky. That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Which I was like, whoa, that is…
Caleb: Yeah, that was so uncalled for.
Kat: A deep burn, yeah. But do you think Ron would ever wear one of those?
Caleb: No.
Laura: No. I mean, he doesn’t.
Kat: You don’t think so?
Caleb: Yeah. I actually asked this question in the forums to get people’s responses, so I’m glad you brought this up.
Kat: Oh, good. So everybody should go over to the forums and talk about it then.
Caleb: Yeah. I also threatened if Gryffindors say that they would wear it, I’d disown them.
Kat: Oh, boy.
Laura: On second thought…
Caleb: But no, I don’t think… even as upset as he is, no. Ron would never do that.
Kat: I’m not so sure.
Laura: Because “Potter Stinks” is the ultimate insult you can throw at a person.
Kat: [laughs] I suppose.
[Laura laughs]
Caleb: Ron is… you can tell right here… if you really think about his perspective, he is hurting here. He is hurt.
Kat: And the thing that always got me about this is, why isn’t Harry just like, “Oh, I was talking to Sirius in the fire”? Why is it a big deal?
Laura: Right, and it’s even made more apparent in the movie when it would have been so easy for him to just say that and it would have been totally fine. And it actually probably would have bridged it faster because Ron would have been curious about what was said or something.
Kat: Right.
Laura: So it’s just Harry being…
Caleb: I mean, this shows one of Harry’s faults. He’s very stubborn to his own end here.
Kat: Very, very true. Well, thus ends one of the lengthiest, non-exciting chapters of this book.
Laura: I liked it. I like dragons.
Kat: Well, dragons are great.
Alex: This chapter also gets a pretty huge amount of screen time in the film too.
Kat: It does.
Alex: Between the dragon scene, between the fire scene… thinking about how much they truncate from each [book] to make the movies, this chapter gets a lot of time.
Kat: That’s true. This is probably a good six or seven minutes of this one particular chapter, maybe in ten minutes.
Caleb: Yeah.
Alex: Yeah.
Kat: Huh, that’s true.
Alex: I think it’s mostly because of the dragons. They just wanted to show the dragons in the cages. And that dragon cage scene always reminds me of the opening scene of Jurassic Park when they’re getting the Velociraptor into the cage and stabbing him with the electric sticks.
Kat: Aww.
Caleb: Sad.
Alex: Yeah.
Kat: That’s so mean.
Alex: Yeah. Well, the Velociraptors get their revenge later, so…
[Caleb and Kat laugh]
Caleb: That’s right. And dinner, so… [laughs]
Kat: [laughs] That’s true. Revenge and dinner right there.
Laura: So now the Podcast Question of the Week: In this chapter, pretty much the main chunk of the action is Harry going to see the dragons, and he gets to go there because Hagrid leads him there. But Harry isn’t the only one that Hagrid leads – he obviously leads Madame Maxime as well. So I think what we’d like to know is, do you think in this moment that Hagrid… is his primary concern Harry or Madame Maxime? Who is he doing this more for?
Kat: To help out his friend or to get some tail?
Alex: Some Horntail.
Kat: Oh! Bada ding! Very good.
Caleb: Nice.
Kat: That was a good addition, Alex. I liked that.
Laura: Mic drop.
Caleb: Yeah.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: Perfect.
Caleb: I’m really excited to read these responses because I think in our hearts, we want it to be one thing, but I don’t know if we can be so sure of Hagrid.
Kat: Right. I think this… yeah, we’ll get some interesting responses this week for sure.
Laura: Yeah. Can you [unintelligible] my question next week, though? [laughs] Because I’m really curious what people have to say about that.
Kat: Sure.
Caleb: Yup.
Laura: Okay.
Caleb: And we want to say a huge thank you to Alex for joining us this week. It was great having you. Thanks for stopping by.
Alex: Oh, my pleasure, my pleasure. And I love, Caleb, that you’re wearing a “Texas Swagger” shirt in your Skype profile pic.
Caleb: Yeah. [laughs]
Alex: That’s great, that’s great. We need to get you a Texas Quidditch shirt.
Caleb: Yeah, that’d be awesome. I mean, they kind of flopped in that. Well, they didn’t flop, but they didn’t win the Southwest, so I was upset. But we’ll see. They’ll have to rebound during the World Cup.
Alex: Yeah. Well, they have their Southwest Regional… the Southwest Regional Championship is in February.
Caleb: Oh, that’s right. This one wasn’t the championship. It was just a…
Alex: Yeah, it was just a tournament. A regular season tournament. So the championship is in February and they’ll have their chance there, although I’ve heard that a lot of their top players have left, have graduated, and are now playing for a Texas club team called the Lone Star Quidditch Club.
Caleb: Right, yeah. I saw their scores. I was actually… this is kind of a plug for your website. I was reading some of the reports from the tournament. They’re really great and in depth. They give really good reports of what happened during the tournaments.
Alex: Oh, yeah. They’re super detailed. The players are… most of the reports are written by players and they’re obsessed with the sport and they love writing about it any chance they can get.
Kat: And most… I mean, I feel like I just read somewhere that the majority of players at this point aren’t Harry Potter fans. They’re actual athletes.
Alex: That’s a good… I’d be curious to know. We haven’t done a survey in a little while. Our last survey was in early 2011. I’d say definitely a very large percentage are more into Quidditch just for Quidditch as a sport.
Laura: Yeah. I know I just went to a party that was all… the whole Quidditch team. It was very fun. [laughs] But it was… because all of the people… everyone that I talked to, it was like five people who were really big Harry Potter fans. The other thirty just joined just because the sport looked awesome. Which I think is cool because then they become more into Harry Potter because they’ve been exposed to it in that way. And then, conversely, the people that are Harry Potter fans are being exposed to athletics and stuff. So it’s really awesome. I just bought my Rutgers Quidditch Team shirt.
Kat: Nice. So Alex, just remind everybody where they can find out some more information about Muggle Quidditch in their area.
Alex: Sure. Anybody who is interested in finding out more about Quidditch, finding out about any games coming up in their area, or joining a team, or creating their own team, they can head over to iqaquidditch.org.
Kat: Awesome. And if any of you out there listening want to be a guest on the show, much like Alex today, you know the drill. Go over to our “Be on the Show” page on our website and find out how you can do it. Of course you do need appropriate audio equipment – that includes a set of headphones. And in the meantime, don’t forget to check us out on iTunes. Subscribe to us, otherwise when will you download the newest episode? Who knows? If you subscribe, you’ll get it right away. And leave us a review, because we love your reviews. So do it.
Laura: And you can also let us know your thoughts on our Twitter page, which is @AlohomoraMN, our Facebook page, which is facebook.com/openthedumbledore, you can leave us a voicemail at 206-GO-ALBUS, which is 206-462-5287, or you can also now leave us a message on Audioboo, which is… what you do is you leave us a message directly on our main site, alohomora.mugglenet.com, and it can be played on the show, which we played one today. So it’s free – all you need is a microphone.
Caleb: Make sure to check out our store that has tons of great products, including T-shirts that are short and now long sleeved since it’s getting cold, tote bags, sweatshirts, flip flops, water bottles, travel mugs, and a lot more coming soon. And we also have the MLF and the Desk!Pig merchandise now available. There are over 80 products to choose from, and we also have ringtones, which you can check out for free on our website.
Kat: And just real quick, I want to take a quick second and thanks to everybody who voted for us for the Podcast Awards. Voting ended yesterday, and now fingers crossed. We won’t find out until January if we won. But if you voted for us, especially if you voted every day, big round of applause. We love you.
Caleb: Yeah. You’re awesome.
Kat: Thank you so much.
[Someone applauds]
Kat: And just one more plug before we end the show: Don’t forget to check out our app. It’s available pretty much worldwide at this point. Prices vary depending on where you live, but it has transcripts, bloopers, alternate endings, host vlogs, and like a bajillion things more. So check it out.
Caleb: All right, that’s going to do it for this episode of Alohomora!
[Show music begins]
Caleb: I’m Caleb Graves.
Laura: I’m Laura Reilly.
Kat: And I’m Kat Miller. Thank you for listening to Episode 57 of Alohomora!
Caleb: Open the Dumbledore!
[Show music continues]
