Transcript – Episode 71
[Show music begins]
Caleb Graves: This is Episode 71 of Alohomora! for February 22, 2014.
[Show music continues]
Caleb: Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Alohomora! I’m Caleb Graves.
Rosie Morris: I’m Rosie Morris.
Eric Scull: And I’m Eric Scull. And joining us this week is our guest host, Lucas Graden.
Lucas Graden: Hey!
Eric: First of all, Lucas, we would like to wish you a happy birthday!
Lucas: Thank you!
Rosie: Happy Birthday!
Caleb: Happy Birthday!
[Eric laughs]
Caleb: I think this is a first. I don’t think we’ve ever had a special guest on during their birthday.
Lucas: Yeah, I was pretty excited.
Caleb: Congratulations.
Eric: [laughs] Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from, and what House are you in?
Lucas: I’m a sophomore in high school, right now. I live in Indiana. I’m a Ravenclaw, and I’m very active in theater.
Eric: Oh, okay. What are you doing in theater right now?
Lucas: I’m actually… tonight is opening night for the winter play that I’m in, so I’m leaving right after this to go perform.
Rosie: Wow, thank you for joining us, then. [laughs]
Eric: Yes, thank you for joining us, and of course, break a leg later tonight.
Lucas: Thank you.
Eric: We do want to remind the listeners to this episode that today we will be discussing Chapter 33 of Goblet of Fire, which is called “The Death Eaters.” You should definitely have read this chapter recently before listening to the rest of this episode.
Rosie: And, as always, before we get on to this week’s chapter, we have to go back over last week’s discussion, which, considering it was such a short chapter, you guys have managed to come up with amazing things…
[Eric laughs]
Rosie: … to say. So let’s start off with another comment from AccioPotassium, who says,
“I’ve found it rather interesting how quickly the tables have been turned for the most dreadful Marauder, only a short time period has passed since the events of the Shrieking Shack, and now Peter is back in the position of changing Harry Potter’s life once again. I wonder what could be going on in Peter Pettigrew’s head during the course of his potion-making. Is Pettigrew in a fearful state of regret in his decision in bringing back the Dark Lord? Or could it be that Wormtail is rejoicing in his newly found position of power?”
Eric: If I could just tackle this real quick, I think what is going through Pettigrew’s head is, “My arm! Oh my God, my arm! My arm! My arm! Ahh!”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: “Ahh! My arm! Ahh!”
Rosie: True.
Caleb: Pretty accurate.
Eric: Because he’s just chopped off his arm. But every time I do try and gauge… I understand where AccioPotassium is coming from, and I love that username. Gosh, we have the best users. Every time I try to get into Peter’s head, it mystifies me. I come back feeling like I’ve just tried rebuffing a Memory Charm because you…
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: … you get the sense from his actions that he is really just one bad dude, and he’s cowering and he’s whimpering all the time, but when you sit down and write out a list of the things that he’s done to betray Harry and his parents and all that stuff, it is really perplexing that in his head he’s got to have death metal playing at all times or something.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Eric: Because he’s a really bad dude, and He accomplishes a lot, including the regeneration… nothing short of the regeneration of Lord Voldemort.
Rosie: Do you think he’s being manipulated into it, or is he actually doing it by choice at this point?
Eric: Well, Voldemort’s twisting his arm, although that’s kind of funny. [laughs]
Caleb: Ah!
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: I think it’s the overwhelming fear. Pettigrew is… another reason, another aspect that I think is brilliant about this part of the books is, Peter, when he returns and when Voldemort returns, still gets no love. He says, “Ah, you only came to me out of fear.” He really puts him back in his place.
Rosie: Yeah.
Eric: And he continues to tell Peter that he’s the worst Death Eater and such a coward and all this stuff. So really, I think that he is being strong-armed into… [laughs] How many arm jokes can I make?
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Eric: … into this. But he is doing this of his own accord. It’s just he doesn’t really realize this is what he wants. I don’t know. At this point, I think the actually cutting off of his arm shows his determination to affect change the way that he has.
Rosie: I think we often make the mistake of considering Voldemort as powerless in this situation, as well, because he’s this baby figure at the moment, before he’s regenerated. But he’s not powerless. We’ve seen him murder in whilst that state. We’ve seen him charm a snake into his power, all of those kind of things. So we can’t really say that Wormtail would survive if he didn’t do this.
Eric: Mhm.
Rosie: Okay, the next comment is from PixieDragon137, and it says,
“Does Voldemort’s appearance change with every Horcrux that he makes? What sort of creature is he turning into as he becomes less and less human? is he becoming something like a Dementor as his soul is diminishing with each Horcrux that he creates? Are his features snake-like because he is drinking snake venom? (perhaps he would’ve been more attractive if he resembled a unicorn…) or is it just a side effect of some other dark magic he performed on himself?”
Caleb: I do think that it makes sense that he’s snake-like because he’s drinking snake venom. I thought that was always pretty intuitive.
Eric: Yeah.
Lucas: Mhm.
Eric: I agree, and I think really it begs the question – which is the question that I had for this coming chapter which is – is Voldemort’s body the same as it was before? And I think if you base it on the dialogue, it appears that, yes, it’s actually his old body back and his Death Eaters really don’t seem to see him in any like, “My Lord, you’ve changed!”
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: He appears to be exactly the same way he was before. So, if he is snake-like now and they’re used to it, I would have to beg on the side of, well he was probably snake-like before. And I think in one of the memories when Tom Riddle goes back to Dumbledore and asks him for a job, he even then has performed some charms on his face and his appearance and his body that make him less human-looking. I believe, if I’m remembering correctly.
Rosie: No, yeah, Dumbledore definitely says that he has looked… that he has changed in appearance…
Eric: Yes.
Rosie: … by the time he goes and asks for the job.
Eric: And I think it was maybe his nose isn’t completely gone at that point [laughs] because you’re going to be working with little children and you should probably keep your nose or wear a prosthetic or something. But I think it’s along those lines. Slit eyes maybe? Something that is…
Rosie: Red eyes, I think.
Eric: Yeah, red eyes with slit pupils, like a cat’s, I believe it said.
Rosie: Yeah.
Eric: Something along those lines. So I think that the dis-formation or malformation is already there, but the fact that he was drinking snake venom certainly doesn’t help. I think that’s pretty astute.
Rosie: Yeah, your theory’s also backed up by another comment by PurpleEye on the forums and it says,
“I think this passage combined with other moments and memories from HBP shows that his change of looks is due to the damage he did to his soul until then…”
I think that means until… before his downfall.
Eric: Hmm.
Rosie: [continues]
“… and also that he will have to go further in becoming more evil to ‘achieve’ his final outer appearance he has when he gets his body back. Of course, as was mentioned, the close connection to snakes he possessed and nagini and the feeding of her venom/milk (?) helped to gain snake-features as well. But his red eyes (I also love this feature!) seem to have already started to become red earlier on and became permanently red some time later. I think maybe, in becoming more evil and non-human, Voldemort might have overcome the human needs for sleep and food and this could contribute to his outer appearance as well.”
Caleb: Man, if Voldemort has figured out how you don’t have to sleep…
[Eric and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: … some nights, I will gladly become evil to achieve that.
Rosie: No, we definitely need sleep. Sleep is a good thing. Trust me.
Eric: There is a fortune to be made on college campuses. Voldemort should just go around and…
[Caleb laughs]
Eric: … sell the secret of staying awake…
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: … to study. But I think it’s important – and I really do want to say this, this is my strong feeling – that there is no association with how much of his soul is left, or how fractured his soul is, and his outward appearance. I’m sorry, it’s not connected. The only connection happens later in the books when Harry says he never felt more dangerous then when he… that he’s becoming more manic and less human in the way that he is more vicious in behavior. But looks wise, creating a Horcrux, your soul is something that’s non-corporeal. It doesn’t happen on your face or in your forehead, and so I think that it’s wrong to say that his use of Horcruxes is somehow damaging his outward appearance. I think it really only affects his behavior.
Lucas: Yeah, I do defiantly agree with that. I think it’s also… it’s the same connections of your soul and your Patronus versus your body and your Animagus, I think might be a better parallel? I don’t think your damaging your soul does affect your outward appearance. I think that was all done by him just manually with charms and transfiguration.
Eric: He actually chose to look like a snake.
Rosie: Yeah, he’s choosing to become more scary. So…
Lucas: Mhm.
Eric: Mhm. Have we ever asked what Voldemort’s Animagus would be?
[Lucas laughs]
Caleb: I don’t know if we have.
Rosie: Would he ever… I guess his Animagus would be a snake, I’m guessing.
Caleb: Yeah. I can’t imagine what else it would be.
Rosie: Something to do with Slytherin. Probably a basilisk.
Eric: And we’ve… I think we’ve guessed his Patronus before, but the theory was that he wouldn’t produce a happy thought because he has no happy thoughts. [laughs]
Caleb: Right.
Eric: Unless it’s killing everybody is a happy thought that you could use.
Caleb: It’s happy for him. I mean…
Eric: Yeah.
Rosie: Well, he’d never get to Neverland.
[Eric laughs]
Caleb: Which is ironic because then he could just live forever.
Eric: Live forever.
Rosie: Live forever, yeah.
Eric: Oh, I love it.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: Okay. Another comment from GhostHeart says,
“Maybe it’s the Slytherin in me, but going for the Cup is not a ‘negative impulse’. It was the task to win the Tournament, the correct impulse is to go for the Cup! If you want to win, you grab the Cup. I wouldn’t have thought badly about Harry at all if he’d done that, to be honest. I have no problem that he offered to tie with Cedric, and I agree it was being something close to noble, but the Tournament isn’t about being noble, it’s about winning.”
Eric: So what was this discussion last week? Who said it wasn’t a negative… who said it was a negative impulse?
Rosie: I think we said that it was… if he had just gone for the Cup and not agreed to go back and help Cedric, if he just left him to die. That’s what it was about.
Eric: Oh. [laughs] He’s Harry Potter. He’s the savior. It had to be out of Harry’s hands. Just judging by that chapter, where they both are figuring it out and they decide to tie, it was… I got warm feelings reading that.
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: And then, of course, immediately after, in the last chapter, Cedric is killed for it. It just had to be out of Harry’s hands.
[Caleb laughs]
Rosie: Yeah.
Eric: But he was a hero, so I think I agree; it wasn’t a negative impulse to win. [laughs] And it was still, as they said, a Hogwarts victory.
Rosie: I think that’s even why Harry definitely has to go back and save him at this point. He has to go and save Cedric and then go for the Cup together in order for his death to be even more dramatic and even more gut-wrenching because “but Harry has just saved him and now he’s dead.”
Eric: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Very much.
Rosie: There’s nothing you could have done in that moment, but it adds to that drama.
Eric: Harry is darn decent. But then, of course, if you’re entertaining the thought, what if he had just let… what if Cedric hadn’t been so modest and Cedric actually did grab the Cup, appeared where Voldemort was, and the Portkey would be found out, and Harry would be there going, “Okay, what just happened?”
Rosie: Yeah.
Eric: And there wouldn’t be the regeneration and all sorts of stuff.
Rosie: Yeah. We were discussing that last week, actually: What would have happened if Cedric had gone and left Harry behind?
Eric: Yeah. [laughs]
Rosie: Lots of good answers.
Eric: Yeah.
Rosie: And there’s actually plenty of discussion happening on the forums and on the main site in regards to Noah’s analogy that he made last week, but we’ll leave those comments for him to answer because it was his theory, after all.
Caleb: And we’re going to move into your responses to our Question of the Week. And just to quickly remind you of that question: We don’t really know a lot about the rebirthing potion that is used in this chapter. What exactly is this potion? Is it related to the Horcruxes in any way? Is it an offshoot perhaps of other potions that we know of? What other ingredients do you think go into the making of it? Anything about the potential origin story of what this potion would be, we would love to hear it. So there were a wide range of different ideas. It was really cool to read such diversity in your responses. But we picked three to go through, but I definitely encourage you to read through all of them. LeslieLovegood says,
“I think, In some way, it has to be related to the Horcruxes. Without Horcruxes, how would someone’s body end up in a state that needs the potion? Anyone who did not have Horcruxes would just die because their soul would not be tied to anything. As for its origins, I think you’ve got to look back to the origins of Horcruxes. Who ever invented that spell would have realized that there would be no point keeping a piece of your soul alive if you didn’t have a way to get your body back. So they would have devised this potion to bring themselves back to their former power.”
Rosie: I agree. Yeah, I think it is connected to the Horcruxes.
Caleb: Yeah. I think it’s really smart to bring up that whoever thought up the Horcruxes probably had to think about this situation.
Eric: We see them… I imagine they would appear next to each other in the same old book of ancient spells. That’s how I feel they’re related because in this chapter, when Voldemort ends up – or in this coming chapter – when Voldemort ends up recounting the story, he keeps mentioning, “This was ancient magic. This was an old spell. This was that.”
Rosie: Mhm.
Eric: And I’m like, okay, clearly you’re just working with almost elemental, total base stuff. How to give yourself a body when you find yourself without one? It is very to-the-soul and to-the-earth. Very basic stuff, I think, but very powerful.
Lucas: Definitely.
Caleb: Yep. All right, PixieDragon137 gives us another theory:
“I think this rebirthing potion is completely different from anything we have encountered so far in the books. But for the sake of making up theories, I think apart from the three core ingredients (flesh, blood and bone) it may have contained some sort of maturation or Ageing Potion for his body to grow so fast in such a short space of time. It may have also contained Dittany, for its healing and restorative properties, and perhaps a Blood-Replenishing Potion in order for him to regain enough strength to be able to walk around again.”
Eric: Hmm…
Rosie: Very practical. [laughs]
Eric: Indeed.
Caleb: Yeah, I like that – definitely thought through some of the ingredients. That would make sense here… because he does grow pretty fast.
[Eric and Rosie laugh]
Eric: It’s the Dittany.
[Caleb and Eric laugh]
Lucas: I think it’s interesting that you have Dittany as a possible ingredient because it’s healing and restorative, and yet you have this potion that’s so closely connected to Horcruxes and their magic which is such a detrimental and scarring process. You kind of have to tear yourself down to build yourself up.
Eric: I think the thing is, though, going into the cauldron he does have a body. It is a shadow or a baby but he is more than just a spirit, so it’s kind of like taking that little shell that he’s in and growing it to the old way. So, it’s restorative but I think he was pretty good when he was going into that potion. He was still… he had at least a body. It was something that could wave a wand. But I think another essential ingredient must have been gunpowder because of all the sparks that go off in that chapter.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
[Caleb makes an exploding sound]
Eric: [laughs] I think that… it was sparking like crazy! You saw it. You read it.
Caleb: Yep. Fourth of July at the graveyard.
Rosie: Or just magic.
[Eric and Rosie laugh]
Eric: Yeah.
Caleb: All right. And the last response comes from DolphinPatronus and it says,
“I can’t say I have any theory as to the potions origin, but I will say that the way it seems to function reminds me (for obvious reasons) of amniotic fluid. As was pointed out on the podcast, once the baby-esque Voldemort is dropped into the cauldron (I’m sure there’s no coincidence that cauldrons are often used to symbolize the womb) he has no trouble not drowning in it very much like a baby in utero.”
Rosie: Good point.
Eric: Ooh, I like that.
Rosie: I agree.
Eric: Mhm.
Caleb: What a cool analogy.
Eric: Well, I’ve never seen cauldrons compared to the womb, but I think it makes perfect sense now.
Caleb: Yeah.
Lucas: It does, yeah.
Rosie: There’s a really good comment about it on the forums, Eric, so you should go and read that comment.
Eric: Mhm.
Caleb: All right. Well, thank you guys for your responses. Good job.
Eric: And now we move on to Chapter 33.
[Goblet of Fire Chapter 33 intro begins]
Voldemort: Chapter 33.
[Sound of hissing]
Voldemort: “The Death Eaters.”
[Goblet of Fire Chapter 33 intro ends]
Eric: Well, guys…
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: … what we’ve always feared to be the worst has now occurred – has happened. If everyone wants to take your red envelope or pamphlet or folder off the shelf and flip to the very last page…
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: … and remove the plastic film that says “For emergencies only”, pull that back. This is the worst thing that could ever happen to Harry Potter. Voldemort is back and he wants to talk a lot…
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: … about how cool it is to be back. There is a lot of storytelling. There is a lot of good dialogue and a lot of interactions between Voldemort’s inner circle in this coming chapter and really the coolest thing – and the scariest thing – is that Harry is there to witness it. So, we get to see for the first time what things must have really been like to be part of Voldemort’s inner circle, and there’s something about this scene that really isn’t recreated at all the rest of the series. We see Harry have visions of Voldemort torturing his followers and all the stuff in Book 5 and beyond, but this kind of coming to the first time in thirteen years and the Death Eaters and all the things that happen with them is really a special scene. And so I think it really needs to be appreciated for how special, unique, and “OMG, this is really happening” it is. I think the chapter really perfectly captures how scary it is and also how gleeful Voldemort is.
Rosie: Mhm.
Caleb: Hmm.
Eric: Voldemort – his first act in his body is to cast a spell, I believe. He pulls a wand out of his robes. Not sure if it’s his wand, but it’s a wand.
Caleb: Yeah, I was actually wondering the same thing this time that I had not thought about before, if it’s his wand or not.
Eric: Right. I really wonder, and in the films – of course you can’t really judge by the films – but we’re meant to believe that that’s his wand, that somehow he got his wand back – the one with the bones on it, which I never understood…
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Eric: But really, if somebody has his wand, it would have to have been pulled out of the Potters’ house – the rubble of the Potters’ house. Maybe he does go there later and get it or something, but it probably would’ve been an interesting story where his wand came from. Anyway, he throws Wormtail against the very grave that Harry is tied to, and Harry is able to see Wormtail’s bleeding arm for himself. Voldemort approaches and says, “Wormtail, give me your arm.” Wormtail gives him the stump arm and he says, “No, no, no, the other one.” We find out that Wormtail has a Dark Mark on his left arm and Voldemort uses this to summon the others. My question kind of relates to when Wormtail got his Dark Mark, or would have gotten his Dark Mark. Because really, I’ve always had this issue where couldn’t you tell Death Eaters just by looking on their left arm for the Dark Mark? I mean, it doesn’t appear to be something that can be willingly hidden. In fact, in an earlier chapter, “The Pensieve,” Snape and Karkaroff both tell Dumbledore that their Dark Mark is getting stronger and showing more clearly. So, could it not have been a tool to round up all the Death Eaters previously? Like if you have a Dark Mark, clearly you’re evil and we can throw you in jail.
Rosie: But that’s the key thing, isn’t it? That Snape and Karkaroff’s marks are coming back. They have been either disappeared, gone completely, or faded…
Eric: Mhm.
Rosie: … and they are coming back. So maybe it’s connected to his powers. When he lost powers at the Potters’ house, maybe they all vanished.
Eric: Well, yeah. When Voldemort looks at Wormtail’s [arm], he says, “There it is! It is growing stronger. The others will have surely noticed it, too.” I think it is, in fact, intracately tied to his power. But if it can exist, even when Voldemort doesn’t have a body… you see what I’m saying? I think it still probably would have lingered on the Death Eaters for a little bit after his downfall.
Rosie: Yeah.
Eric: So it should have been a pretty easy tell-all way. I won’t dwell too much on it because there’s plenty else in this chapter, but the Death Eaters come in and it’s kind of funny how they appear. Some of them are behind certain gravestones. One guy appears in a bush. No, I made that up, but…
[Caleb laughs]
Eric: They filter back – and this is obviously very terrifying, so I’m trying to make light of it – but very quickly, the Death Eaters return and Voldemort begins his story. Basically, he talks about the Restorative Drought first of all – the rebirthing potion that we mentioned earlier – and he talks about the bone of his father, about how he killed his own father ages ago – he tells this to Harry. And we find out that… everything we find out in even more detail later is that Voldemort was raised in a Muggle orphanage. His mother loved his father but his father, when he found out what she was, left him. Nothing in there about a Love Potion, though, and I wonder if Voldemort actually knows that part of the story.
Caleb: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, and it makes you almost wonder that he may not know what she did.
Eric: Hmm.
Lucas: I don’t know how he would have been able to find out because they both would be gone. Do you know what I mean?
Eric: Yeah. Well, this of course ties directly into the very beginning of the book where the events happen around the same time. Where the young man appears to be in the village, which happens to be young Voldemort and he kills Tom Riddle and his parents. So, the question is… there must have been some room for interrogation or something because somehow he hears the story of Merope.
Lucas: This may just be my memory failing, but did Tom Senior know that he was under a Love Potion or did he just find out she was a witch?
Caleb: When the Love Potion wore off, because Merope thought he would love her for who she was…
Eric: Yeah.
Caleb: … she stopped using it on him. And then when he found out, he hit the trail and ran off.
Lucas: Okay.
Rosie: But he must have known… for at least a period of time, he felt that love. So he must have known something happened to him.
Lucas: That she was influencing him.
Rosie: I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted to admit it.
Caleb: Mhm.
Lucas: Right.
Eric: Yeah. So things aren’t as black and white as Voldemort says, but for all intents and purposes, because his father is dead and was a Muggle, Voldemort is very pleased to have been able to make good use of him in death. So, kind of a shame, kind of ironic, dramatic, poetic irony there – the fact that Voldemort’s father, who was hoodwinked into birthing him the first time, was part of his rebirth – such a crucial part of his rebirth.
Caleb: Hmm.
Eric: Well, actually I misspoke earlier. The Death Eaters are only now beginning to arrive. He touched the Dark Mark and then began the story of his mother, and only now are they trickling in. But when did that take place?
Caleb: They didn’t want to hear the story about his mom again.
Eric: Yeah.
[Everyone laughs]
Rosie: Well, he wouldn’t have told them. He’s never going to admit the fact that he’s got a Muggle parent to his Death Eaters.
Eric: Oh right. Right.
Caleb and Lucas: That is true.
Eric: So only Harry knows now that he’s not pure-blood or whatever.
Lucas: Hmm…
Rosie: And now Wormtail apparently.
Eric: Yeah, Wormtail.
[Eric and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: Wormtail doesn’t count.
Eric: Whatever he can do with that.
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: The Death Eaters arrive and they get on their knees and start kissing Voldemort’s robes. It’s a sign of worship clearly. The interesting thing – and because we can’t be in the Death Eater’s heads during this scene – is they go quiet and J.K. Rowling writes some very interesting things. Basically when Voldemort is talking, things will happen where the Death Eaters who are mostly silent will titter or will laugh or will – a shiver will run through them and you can tell when they’re totally freaked out. So at first they’re in shock and awe. They’re like, “Oh my gosh, he’s really back!” And as soon as he mentions that nobody came to find him, that he’s a little perturbed, that none of his other servants came, they stop and they gasp and they go, “Uh-oh.” It’s kind of comical if it weren’t so scary, just seeing their reactions. Voldemort is a penchant for dramatism, not unlike Sir Lucas, I believe.
[Lucas laughs]
Eric: But I think that we really can enjoy this narrative and how it’s woven through Voldemort’s emotions here.
Lucas: Mhm.
Rosie: Definitely. You’ve got to love a villian monologuing.
Lucas: Oh, yeah.
Eric: He’s very manic.
Caleb: Imagine if Jo had chosen not to really give us this fully fleshed-out scene. I think it would have taken… it would have watered down so much of what’s so critical in the novel.
Eric: Yeah. This has to be probably my favorite Voldemort appearance. Even more so than in the last book, I think. This is really just, [as Voldemort] “Let me tell you the story of what happened.”
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: I forgot how perfect this is in the movie because there’s not… I think a lot of us would agree there’s some weird things in Movie 4, but this scene in particular acted by Ralph Fiennes, I was watching it again recently doing some site work and stuff. I was just going through Movie 4 and this scene holds up. And not only that, but it really is intense and intensely acted by Ralph as Voldemort.
Rosie: Mhm.
Eric: It’s just a really good scene and I think adapted really well.
Lucas: Mhm. He’s downright creepy.
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. Now Voldemort says – and this is a quote here. He was trying to figure out why nobody came to his aid, and he goes through some options and says, “Well, did you think I was broken? … How could you have believed that I was gone for good and broken? They who knew the steps I took towards guarding against a mortal death?” He implies that his Death Eaters know about the steps, about particularly Horcruxes and things. Is this an error on Jo’s part?
Rosie: Mmm.
Caleb: An error that some of the Death Eaters know?
Eric: Well, yeah, he says, “How could you believe I was gone?” You knew what I did to stay immortal.
Caleb: Oh, well, I feel like there’s enough evidence later to let on that at least some Death Eaters know because Bellatrix… they hide one of the Horcruxes in their vault in Gringotts, so it would make sense that she knows.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Maybe he doesn’t tell her the full details, but she knows that it’s important for him.
Rosie: For her to panic in knowing that the trio [has] been in her vault shows that she knows that it’s definitely signicant. It’s one of the key artifacts.
Eric: It’s like Lucious and the diary, and this is funny because Voldemort doesn’t quite yet know what has become of the diary.
Rosie: This is true.
Eric: Lucius will get in trouble for that later, but Lucius didn’t know what it was completely.
Caleb: Right.
Eric: And so he gave it away so carelessly. I think it points to a sign that, in fact, his Death Eaters don’t know.
Lucas: Yeah, this stood out to me, too, that quote. I think it was probably just… I don’t think Jo had probably developed the entire Horcrux storyline, yet, so she didn’t know exactly what she was talking about, maybe. Just like how we talked about Harry’s dreams and how he wasn’t pinpointed. I think it’s her still developing her concept of Horcruxes.
Eric: Mhm.
Rosie: I’m sure that Voldemort has done other things as well, though. The [Sorcerer]’s Stone, the killing unicorns, all of those things. I’m sure he’s done every kind of method possible to prolong his life, other than just Horcuxes.
Eric: Yeah.
Rosie: So there may be something else that he might have heard about.
Eric: Yeah, there is evidence for that in this chapter, too. He has a quote where he says, “One or more of my experiments must have worked.” He talks about after he found himself without a body. So there certainly were other steps. I think it’s important that once the Horcruxes were developed, though, and introduced in the series, it became something that was such a high secret that not even his closest folowers knew. Regulus Black wrote in his letter, “I’ve discovered your secret.” And that was a big deal.
Rosie: True, yeah.
Eric: That his Death Eater was able to find that out, so yeah, kind of cool that that was a secret, and another thing that Voldemort says about the people who didn’t come find thim… he said, “Well, maybe you believe that Dumbledore was a greater power,” and it’s nice to get a mention here. Dumbledore is mentioned a couple of times in this chapter, and it’s really good insight into their rivalry and just knowing what we know of the future, knowing that Dumbledore is the one who introduced Voldemort to the wizarding workd to begin with, it really is refreshing or rewarding to be reading this now. This is obviously the end point. This is the falling out. This is Voldemort saying, “You guys all believed in that guy instead of me, and that’s not cool,” so they’re just… they’re complete opposites. Of course, this may be the beginning of the inevitable confrontation that happens between them at the end of [the] next book.
Lucas: I was just reading through this, especially… there was a quote about how to Death Eaters couldn’t believe their eyes when they first saw Voldemort, and I was just picturing in my head, this Death Eater trap that the Ministry or Dumbledore could have set. I just… I figured with potions similar to Polyjuice Potion, Dumbledore would have been able to alter his appearance enough to fool the Death Eaters, and so he understood Tom’s past, and he also had possession of Snape’s Dark Mark, I feel like he might have been able to hack, for lack of a better word, into the Death Eaters’ communications system and throw a net over all the Death Eaters who returned.
Eric: Oh, no way!
Lucas: And then they’d know who really were the loyal Death Eaters.
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I think that’s brilliant. The next day, just go up to Snape and be like, “Let me see your arm. Touch your wand to it; get all the Death Eaters to show up, and then arrest them.”
Lucas: Yeah.
Eric: We’re tearing apart these books.
[Caleb, Lucas, and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: Problem, though, is that you could never do a Polyjuice Potion on Tom Riddle because he doesn’t have any hair left.
Eric: [laughs] Well, surely, his nose is somewhere, right? He discarded his nose.
Lucas: That’s true.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: So are you suggesting pulling out nose hairs?
Eric: No, well, nose has hair. It really is just a bit. It doesn’t need to be hair. It’s hair because hair is convenient and removable.
Caleb: That’s true.
Eric: It could be any bit of him.
Caleb: So just chuck the whole nose in there. Maybe it’ll last longer.
[Eric and Rosie laugh]
Eric: No, I think that was a good point, Lucas. It’s very fun. This is the part where we get to the quote about Wormtail helping him return to his body. So it does appear – and we mention this in the pre-cap, I guess I’ll call it – that this is Voldemort’s body pretty much as it was the first time that he had it, right before he lost power.
Rosie: Mhm.
Eric: And Voldemort talks about settling for just returning to his old mortal coil, his old body. As opposed to seeking immortality with the Sorcerer’s Stone and all that other stuff, he says, “Okay, I’ll settle. I’ll go back to just having my old body.” But it does appear that this terrifying creature as we see this man with scaly white fingers is in fact the old Voldemort. And really, I think there’s enough evidence in the chapter to support [this] because I think I entertained the idea that it was somehow worse, that it was somehow worse than it had ever been. But I think now, upon rereading it, it was his old body.
Lucas: I think that’s a really just popular impression. I know I got that impression, too, that it was bigger and badder than before, but you’re right, there is a lot of evidence that says otherwise.
Eric: Mmm. Wormtail is continually sobbing on the ground, and now it’s finally gotten to the point where Voldemort is going to do something about it. In front of all of the other Death Eaters, he talks about how he rewards his Death Eaters, his faithful servants, and he concocts a silver hand, which we know very well because it’s so, I think, iconic. Really, it’s a silver hand. The first act, the first thing that Wormtail does is pick up a twig and crushes it into powder, which… it’s not just a squished twig, it’s powder. He obliterates a twig.
Caleb: It’s impressive.
Eric: Yeah, with his new silver hand, and I can’t help but be just a little bit disappointed, having read the whole series, that it doesn’t necessarily have a more profound reason for being. Or we really don’t know a whole lot about it. It becomes oddly sentient later, but we just don’t know what the deal is with this hand, and I remember back when I first read the book in two thousand… would have been two, but there were all of these theories. Oh, it’s a silver hand. Wormtail is going to go kill Remus Lupin. He’s a werewolf, and silver’s bad against werewolves.
Caleb: Right, yeah.
Rosie: I remember this.
Eric: All this potential. But my question is “What do you guys think is Voldemort’s… why is he making it a silver hand? Is that just what the materials he has available or why? What is this hand’s point? Can’t he regenerate just a regular hand?”
Caleb: Yeah, I don’t really get it because I mean, why else use silver in the book after you learn about a werewolf? It was set up so much for those two things to come together at some point. I honestly don’t know.
Rosie: Maybe Jo changed her mind and decided that she didn’t want to give Wormtail the power to kill all of the Marauders.
Caleb: Mhm.
Eric: Ooh. Yeah.
Lucas: I don’t really know why it would be made of silver, but I do think that it’s not just another regular hand. It is the superhuman hand that can powder twigs because I think it was Voldemort’s backup system. He makes the point to say that Wormtail only comes to him out of fear, so I think he knows that if Wormtail thinks there’s a better deal somewhere he could run away, and it’s kind of what ends up happening. I think that was a fail-safe that was built-in, maybe, by Voldemort because he knew the kind of person Womrtail was.
Eric: That’s…
Rosie: I think it’s also a show of power. He doesn’t give the hand back before the rest of the Death Eaters turn up because Voldemort particularly worked to show that he will reward his loyal servants and gives him this superhuman powerful hand.
Lucas: Yeah.
Rosie: So even the most lowly of his servants can be raised into this position of power by him.
Eric: Definitely. So again, we mention the fact that this is it. We’ve heard in previous books, especially in Book 2 when Harry was trying to figure out who the heir of Slytherin was, and he was… “Oh, it’s got to be Malfoy. His whole… his dad’s got to be in Voldemort’s inner circle, and all the Slytherins are bad,” and all the stuff that Ron says. But right now we see… and Voldemort goes through the circle and names them by name, and we know for a fact now that Lucius Malfoy is, in fact. a Death Eater. And funnily enough, Crabbe and Goyle are, too. Their parents are…
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: … but Lucius in particular. And this is… by way of Lucius we understand how all the other Death Eaters reacted, that they basically have tried to make do without Voldemort. Some of them have renounced him, and others like Lucius have somehow toed the line, where Lucius has managed to remain in such a position in society that it could be useful to Voldemort now. But Voldemort is still not really happy about the fact that nobody came to find him. And so people like Knot, who say, “I’m your most faithful servant”… really, he just browses over them. He’s surprisingly gentle, I guess I want to say, but to Lucius, who says, “I have always remained vigilant. I’ve always looked out for you.” It’s a bit scary, hearing Lucius. We knew what a bad man Lucius was because of what he did to Ginny and all that stuff in Chamber of Secrets, but it just really, really reinforces the idea now that he is, in fact, a really bad dude. And Draco’s father and by extension Draco.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: I’m totally amazed that Karkaroff is the only one [who] didn’t turn up as well.
Eric: Mmm, yeah. Well, there are three missing…
Caleb: True.
Eric: There are three missing.
Rosie: Yeah, but they are Karkaroff, Snape, and…
Caleb: Barty Crouch.
Rosie: … Crouch.
Eric: Oh, don’t spoil it! Come on!
[Caleb and Eric laugh]
Rosie: Sorry!
Caleb: Whoops.
Rosie: But…
Eric: Yeah.
Rosie: Karkaroff is the only one [who] didn’t deliberately turn up for that one reason.
Eric: Wait, for what reason?
Rosie: Being too afraid.
Eric: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, because didn’t we see… I didn’t connect that, actually. Don’t we… because we see him turn in the other Death Eaters in the courts in the previous… in the chapter called “The Pensieve.”
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Mhm.
Eric: Wow. So…
Lucas: And he freaks out when the Dark Mark does start coming back, and he runs into Snape’s classroom.
Eric: Mhm.
Rosie: But he’s apparently the only Death Eater to have betrayed them all in this way.
Eric: Yeah, that is very…
Caleb: Yeah, that’s true. That’s interesting.
Eric: Well, maybe all the Death Eaters who had second thoughts just conveniently got killed…
[Eric and Rosie laugh]
Eric: … in their apprehension. All that…
Rosie: Maybe.
Eric: As we’ve learned. That is a good point. Now, and we did mention three. So it turns out [that] this circle of Death Eaters… [laughs] this is really cool because his inner circle is actually a circle. I thought that was funny.
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: In the film it’s portrayed as well, but people have their places in his order, and so when he is greeting his Death Eaters in this chapter, and he goes to Lucius, and goes to Knot and Crabbe and Goyle he gets to this spot… well, at first he gets to this spot where there'[re] two empty spaces, and he says, “This is where the Lestranges shoud be.” So a little bit of foreshadowing there into Bellatrix. He does say that they will be rewarded beyond their dreams when I break out of Azkaban… when Azkaban is broken out of.
Caleb: So I’m curious – sorry, I want to jump in real quick – because I want… it seems like Bellatrix and…
Lucus: Rodolphus?
Caleb: … husband and the Lestranges that he mentions…yeah… that they get… he says that they’re going to get these amazing rewards, and I don’t know if he ever gets the opportunity to give it to him because maybe it would have come after… if he had successfully defeated Harry. So I wonder what that grand award would have actually been.
Eric: A silver house? Maybe?
[Caleb, Eric, and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: He’s got stock in silver, so he’s just throwing it out there.
Eric: With a silver pet dog? I don’t know. But it does beg the question… except this is foreshadowing. This is my point is “Doesn’t the mass breakout of Azkaban happen in Book 6? So way back in Book 4…
Caleb: No.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: The mass break out is in…
Caleb and Rosie: Book 5.
Eric: Oh, is it [Book] 5? Okay.
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: [Book] 5 is so massive.
[Caleb laughs]
Eric: For some reason I thought it was [Book] 6. But anyway, he basically says, “I’m going to break out of Azkaban. I’m going to break all my followers out, and they’re all going to come back and be joined in this circle, and it’s going to be nice. We’ll sing ‘Kumbaya.'”
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: That is something that I think Harry really could have imparted on Dumbledore, I think. And maybe I have to… obviously, we’re getting to the point where Harry eventually tells Dumbledore what he saw, but this is important. Voldemort reveals not only that there’s going to be a breakout of Azkaban but [also] that they’re going to get the Dementors back on their side. He says in this chapter, “The Dementors are our natural allies. And they will return to us.” I mean, hello! Is that red flag? That’s scary. And furthermore, he mentions the giants. He mentions bringing the giants and the assortment of creatures back on his side, and it’s just so lucky that Harry is here to hear this.
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: Because this is very important stuff, but it really heavily alludes to what ends up happening in the next couple of years.
Rosie: Yeah. But it’s also why we see them in the next books because we see Dumbledore send off Hagrid and Maxime to the giants because of this, and we see him desperately trying to get Fudge to realize that the Dementors are going to swap sides, and Fudge just won’t listen, so I think Harry does address both of those issues. We just unfortunately never get to the stage where they prove helpful.
Eric: Fudge just really ruins it all.
Rosie: Yeah.
Eric: Now Voldemort gets to the spot where there'[re] six vacancies in his line, and three of them are dead. He knows this. And he actually doesn’t name the remaining three, who, Rosie, you said were Snape, Karkaroff, and his most loyal servant…
Rosie: Little Crouch.
Eric: … Barty Crouch, Jr. He calls them… well, he says one was a coward, and he will be killed, another one he believes he’s…
Rosie: “I feel has left me forever.”
Eric: Yes. Yes, which…
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: [whispers] Snape. [back to normal] And then his most faithful servant, which ends up being Barty Crouch, Jr. So that completes the circle; everybody’s happy. But of course there is Macnair. Did you guys… I don’t think there was any evidence before, suggesting that MacNair was a Death Eater. He was obivously just as mean.
Rosie: No. I loved that he was there.
Eric: He was just this big mean dude who was totally happy to kill Buckbeak in the last book, and all of a sudden… but no, Jo has got him in Voldemort’s circle. He is a Death Eater.
Rosie: Of course he is.
Caleb: Yeah, I liked the addition. It was clever.
Lucas: Mhm.
Rosie: It’s just another reason to hate him. [laughs]
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: Oh, gosh. Well, and now it’s story time. [laughs] Because he says, “I suppose you all want to know the story of how Harry defeated me and how I was defeated to begin with,” and it’s long story, and really, you just should read it. I’m sure our listeners already have because we warned them to. It’s a really great story. It’s wonderful to hear Voldemort tell it as well; it’s just scary. But there are a few facts that I cannot help but notice may be incongruent with future books, and so Voldemort is talking about Lily’s protection. He’s talking about the curse that he sent to Harry that rebounded upon him, and he attributes it to Harry’s mother’s protection by dying for him, but – I may have mentioned this previously – do you guys think… because I think it’s strongly unlikely that Lily Potter is the first person to have ever jumped in front of another human being to prevent their death in history. So would this not have been a more obvious protection that she has given Harry?
Lucas: Maybe it has before, but maybe just not to the most feared wizard on Earth. Maybe it just wasn’t ever as publicized because somebody tries to kill somebody, and then they both end up dead.
Eric: Oh.
Rosie: And you have to remember that the [Killing] Curse isn’t used as much as we actually see it used in this war. It is an Unforgivable. I don’t think it would necessarily be used on children as much as we see it in this book. So maybe Lily is the first one to jump in front of a son, being Avada Kedavra‘d That precise situation might be very rare.
Eric: I can see that, I guess. I thought it was a dangerous precedent, though, to say, “Anybody who jumps in front of somebody else can save them.”
Rosie: Yeah. The whole thing with Harry in the last book is a bit more worrying, I think, than this one.
Eric: Yeah. Yeah, okay. That’s fair. But it’s also possible that Lily… because this is another one of those times when Voldemort says, [as Voldemort] “It was ancient magic. I should have known.”
Rosie: Yeah.
Eric: It’s possible that Lily had some kind of pre-spell that may have helped invoke the protection. And then, there’s the prophecy to consider, which hasn’t been written yet, but which says that, “He will mark him as his equal,” that sort of thing. Furthermore though, really the question I have is a timing question because of the situation that ends up being in Book 7 with Harry being a Horcrux and this, that, and the other thing. Again, we don’t know and we will never know exactly what the process is to create Horcruxes, I feel like this comes up from time to time though because Voldemort was immediately ripped out of his body. He immediately had nothing to cling on to, couldn’t even hold a wand. And so, my question really is, at what point was Voldemort going into that evening with the intention of creating a Horcrux? Or was… even if it was accidental, had he started the Horcrux procedure? Because from what I gather is he tried to kill him and boom, it was gone. So what exactly happened there, I guess? I think we’ll always be asking the question.
Rosie: I think it would make sense that there’s some kind of ritual that you would do before the specific murder to be able to use that murder as a Horcrux creation thing, so that might have already taken place before he went into the Potters. But yeah, there’s not really any time to then make a Horcrux out of Harry, but that little piece of soul might have drifted off and needed something to cling on to, which just turned out to be Harry at that point.
Eric: Mhm.
Caleb: Yeah, I agree that, yeah, that there was some… that’s why I’m confused because I agree that there would need to be some sort of something you do before hand and so… and on the other hand, I do not think that, obviously, Voldemort intended to make a Horcrux because he wanted to kill Harry. So I don’t know what happened there.
Eric: Well, I think you’re right. I think it was accidental, obviously, but maybe it could be, again, a signal of how flakey Voldemort’s soul already was from having made the other Horcruxes…
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: … that it just [makes exploding noise] it just attaches.
Caleb: Maybe so.
Rosie: I don’t think he would have ever intended to make Harry into a Horcrux. I think he would have used that murder as the creation method…
Caleb: Yeah, okay.
Rosie: … of the Horcrux and then Horcrux would have been something else.
Eric: Well, he would have, but again, it’s because of Book 5 events. We’re here in Book 4 where this is written and in Book 5, we learn about the prophecy and we find out that Voldemort would have wanted to make a Horcrux out of Harry, right? Because this is the key…
Caleb: Okay, yeah.
Rosie: No! No, no, no, no, no!
Caleb: Not out of him, but using, like Rosie said, his murder…
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: Oh, using… oh yeah, that’s what I meant. Out of his murder. Sorry. He would have wanted to make a Horcrux because this was suppose to be the kid that was suppose to bring about his downfall.
Rosie: Yes.
Caleb: Right, okay that makes sense. That solves my minor brain fart that I was having there.
Eric: Okay.
Rosie: Yeah.
Eric: The whole reason we’re discussing this though, is because this is where it comes to play, really. This is Book 4, Voldemort has just come back, and this why I think it’s so important as a part of the whole series, the fact that this is the middle book too, that Voldemort is articulating what he thinks was the cause for all these things. And that’s why we’re spending so much time talking about it…
Lucas: Yeah.
Eric: … because I think it really is the no going back from here.
Lucas: I think what happened is like Rosie said. He was planning on using the murder, so maybe he had brought what he had planned on being the Horcrux with him and then when he was ripped from his body, I think it’s in the movies, the way they explain it is that his soul just latched on to the only living thing and that’s probably, like a magnet, is why it went into Harry is the way I see it.
Rosie: Mhm.
Eric: Yeah, I mean…
Rosie: It clung to life in any way it could.
Eric: Yeah, and I think the whole, “And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal,” I think I like that line because it’s like there’s nothing more equal than a share of your soul.
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: It’s like, “Mark him as his equal.” Well, okay, give him part of himself, I get it. So, I like the prophecy for that reason, but otherwise, I don’t like the prophecy at all, but we’ll talk about that plenty.
Rosie: The equal thing, though, is more about the fact that Voldemort chose Harry over Neville. He chose the Mudblood, the half-blood even, over a pure-blood wizard as his equal.
Caleb: Right.
Eric: It really works on several levels.
Lucas: Mhm.
Rosie: It really does. It’s a great prophecy.
Eric: Now, we do find a very interesting first hand account. This is the coolest part of what happened to Voldemort after he left his body because in case it’s just sinking in, at this point in the book, in this point in the chapter, you’re realizing that this man we are seeing is not a memory, is not any less than the exact being that tried to kill Harry. This is actually him. And hearing him talk about inhabiting Quirrell, hearing him talk about even before that, possessing small creatures and it shortens their life, and little details like that really enrich and really make this story so great about Voldemort clinging on to some semblance of existence. He said, “Second by second, I forced myself to exist, to continue existing,” and it really makes me think there must have still been a tremendous amount of will power required, even with all those Horcruxes that he had created. You really need to want to survive in order to survive.
Rosie: Mhm.
Lucas: Yeah, he was desperate.
Eric: Yeah, he absolutely was very, very desperate, and hearing this first hand account – again, readers, just I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did – he actually goes and says that the worst part of it, when he was at his worst, was after the situation with Quirrell because lo and behold, he was holed up in the forest. He expected to be found by one of his Death Eaters, but ten long years went by before that happened, and eventually he met Quirrell, who he could manipulate and that whole thing happened, but after that situation he returned to the forest and now he said was at his lowest point where he had very… no hope whatsoever that he would ever be found again.
Rosie: Why would he return to Albania?
Eric: It was his home!
Rosie: Just stay in Scotland.
[Eric and Rosie laugh]
Eric: I mean, I don’t think it was a conscious thing completely in a way. I think it’s weird. Who could say, really, what he found in that forest? Only… and really, if anything, you’d think, well there were rumors that Voldemort was living there.
Rosie: Yeah.
Eric: In fact, it seems quite obvious by the way he says it in this chapter that people knew he was there because that’s where Wormtail goes to look for him. But Wormtail – and this is where we hear Wormtail’s story, too – was smart enough and strong enough and resourceful enough to find out from, I guess, his fellow rat friends that there was a place in Albania where none of the rats went.
Rosie: His version of follow the spiders.
[Caleb, Eric, and Rosie laugh]
Eric: Yeah, so we find out about Wormtail’s journey and this really gives more credit to Wormtail. This is Wormtail’s biggest achievement is really finding out where Voldemort is and as Voldemort details, he was able to use snake venom and unicorn blood – I guess they went and killed some unicorns – as well to create the rudimentary body that eventually grew into the big body with the rebirthing potion. So just very interesting stories. I’d love to get your guys’s thoughts on what really happened and Voldemort at his weakest here. What do you guys think?
Lucas: To me, it seems almost out of character for Wormtail because he… we don’t really know that he was the traitor when Voldemort does fall and yet, he is the one who turns into a rat and stays loyal, which I don’t think is an extremely overwhelming character trait of Peter.
Rosie: No, yeah, it’s really surprising that he does go and follow these rumors and find Voldemort. It would be so easy for him to just go to America and start a new life.
[Eric laughs]
Rosie: No one knows who he is.
Caleb: That’s what everyone does.
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: I can just see him on a sitcom on the learning channel. Or not a sitcom, a reality show.
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: Having his own reality show. “Witness Protection” and whatever.
Rosie: There’s really no reason for him to go off to Voldemort.
Caleb: Right.
Eric: Well there is, though. There is. It’s said in this chapter that he feared his friends’s wrath, the wrath of Remus and Sirius.
Rosie: But how would they track him down?
Eric: Don’t you think they’d be determined…
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: Well, Remus and Sirius are both free now is the thing, and so they’re both able…
Rosie: True.
Eric: … to follow him. In fact, I just may have stumbled upon another plot point. Why aren’t… well, I guess Sirius is still on the run, but why doesn’t Remus go right after… seeing as how he’s the person who let Wormtail go to begin with, even though it wasn’t his choice, why isn’t Remus totally devoted in this book to tracking down Wormtail? But…
Rosie: Where is he at this point? Has he gone off to live with the werewolves?
Caleb: Yeah, that’s what I was thinking is if he’s off with the werewolves now.
Eric: But he would… he may have gone back to his kind because it’s all he knew, but he’s not a spy at this…
Rosie: Dumbledore definitely asks him to go with him at some point, but I wouldn’t imagine that happened until after Voldemort had risen.
Eric: Right. I don’t think there’s any reason for…
Rosie: What does he do for this book? [laughs]
Caleb: He’s sitting in a dark room alone…
[Eric laughs]
Caleb: … trying to figure out his life.
Lucas: Maybe he is looking for Wormtail, but it took Wormtail more than a year to find Voldemort. I think it might just be he’s still on the lookout and then, Voldemort comes back and he’s like, “Well, too late for that.”
Rosie: It took Wormtail less than a year to find Voldemort. This is Book 4 and …
Eric: Oh, it took him a couple of days, really, didn’t it?
Lucas: Oh wow! Yeah, that was just a brain fart. Yeah. You’re right. [laughs]
Eric: No, it took him… well, yeah. So I guess Remus should still be out there. It would be really cool if Lupin were to just show up at this graveyard going, “Found you!”
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: And starts taking him down. But anyway, apart from that very interesting question, I think it is said… and Voldemort does say that he feared the revenge of his friends and so he went and sought out Voldemort, who is obviously bigger and badder than Sirius and Remus combined. So that’s why he went back to Voldemort. But I was going to ask does it… I mean, it’s kind of brave what Voldemort – or what Wormtail did, isn’t it? Kind of brave? At all? A little bit? Gryffindor?
Caleb: It’s brave in a way. You can question his motives for doing it, but it definitely had to take a lot to go out there and do it.
Eric: Yeah. I’m trying to somehow, for the fifteen thousandth time find out why Peter was in Gryffindor.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: Maybe he just asked to be. [laughs] I don’t…
[Caleb laughs]
Eric: Because that seems to be a loophole. But essentially, really, story time ends and Harry finds out… and Voldemort wants to prove once and for all… well, first of all he can touch him, and that is said. It’s like, “Guys, look, I couldn’t touch him before. It was a real inconvenience, but now, because of this re-birthing spell, look at what I can do.” And it’s great in the movie. It’s great in the books. Harry’s scar is on fire, but Voldemort touches him right away and there’s no issue at all. And it’s…
Caleb: Such an impactful moment.
Lucas and Rosie: Mhm.
Eric: It’s very, very worrying.
Rosie: I find it amazing that Voldemort doesn’t realize about the Horcrux thing at that point. I imagine the pain is something about the Horcrux wanting to rejoin Voldemort…
Eric: Ooh!
Rosie: … like a magnetic thing.
Caleb: That makes sense.
[Eric laughs]
Rosie: But Voldemort doesn’t feel it at all. Why does he not have some kind of reaction to the fact that he…
Eric: Because he has direct contact with the other part of his soul, right? Doesn’t he?
Rosie: Yeah, and just doesn’t notice. [laughs]
Eric: Aww!
Rosie: Not the smartest wizard.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Okay, I’m taking my copy of Goblet of Fire and I’m putting it in the shredder right now.
Caleb: Ooh.
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: But really, as an extension of this, he is going to give Harry his wand back and he is going to free Harry of his chains because he wants to prove that he, Voldemort, is in fact stronger than Harry Potter. And this is… thus concludes…
Rosie: A fatal flaw.
Caleb: Yeah, what a really good move there, buddy.
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: Yeah. Well, apart from giving away your whole plan for the next three years…
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: … to everybody – there could be a traitor in their midst. If Snape were there, he’d tell everybody everything anyway.
Rosie: That’s true.
Eric: But really, I think it’s cool. It’s kind of noble of Voldemort to be like, “Hey, I’m going to fight you properly.” Of course, we get great lines like “Bow to death,” but more on that later. Really, the essential part is he wants to prove that he is, in fact, stronger than Harry and he wants all of his Death Eaters to witness it. And that really is where the chapter ends.
Lucas: Yeah, he’s definitely just getting ready to put on a show, because he’s super… he’s overconfident in killing Harry.
Rosie: Yeah. If your super villain starts monologuing, you know that the hero’s going to win.
Caleb: [laughs] Yeah.
[Eric laughs]
Rosie: It’s just always going to happen.
Caleb: Hubris, my friend, doesn’t become you.
Eric: Well, the hero doesn’t necessarily win.
Rosie: Well, he doesn’t lose.
Eric: [laughs] I guess that’s a point…
Caleb: He escapes. He gets away. He doesn’t die, so he wins that way.
Rosie: Yeah. Exactly.
Caleb: All right. It is now time for this week’s Question of the Week. After he rises, Voldemort mentions to his Death Eaters that they know the steps he has taken to keep living. But how far does this knowledge extend? Do the Death Eaters know about the Horcruxes? Do they possibly only have a limited knowledge? Or maybe only a few Death Eaters really know the truth? Were there other steps he took that they knew about? And if so, like what? And that is the question we are throwing to you guys. Give us some responses.
Eric: [as Arnold Schwarzenegger] Give us your responses! [laughs]
Rosie: They are brilliant responses. We’ve had so many amazing comments, as usual.
Caleb: Definitely. And it’s like Rosie mentioned earlier in the show… I don’t know if we mentioned this on the show or the pre-show…
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: … but it’s definitely happening. Where people are feeding off of one another. There’s so much discussion going back and forth these super long threads of people replying to one another. That’s so fun to read.
Eric: We love to see that. Love, love, love, love.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: And we couldn’t possibly put all of that into the show, so make sure you’re reading other people’s comments as well.
Eric: Yes.
Rosie: But all that remains to be done is to thank our guest. So thank you very much, Lucas, for being on the show. We hope you’ve enjoyed it, and Happy Birthday once again.
Lucas: Thank you. The pleasure was definitely all mine.
Eric: If you would like to be on the show, like Lucas was, you should head over to our website and check out the “Be on the Show” page. And our website is alohomora.mugglenet.com. We do recommend as a requirement [that] you do need appropriate audio equipment. More on that on the website.
Caleb: And if you would like to stay in touch with us, you can do that on Twitter at @AlohomoraMN, on Facebook [at] facebook.com/openthedumbledore, [and] on Tumblr [at] mnalohomorapodcast. Give us a ring at 206-GO-ALBUS (206-462-5287). You can subscribe to our show on iTunes and leave a review. It’s the month of February and even though Valentine’s is over, we would appreciate your love.
[Eric and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: So do that on iTunes. We also have a Snapchat, which the username for our Snapchat is mn_alohomora. Finally, you can reach out to us and leave your comments through Audioboo, which is right on our homepage. You can leave us a message directly and it could be played on the show. It’s free – all you need is a microphone.
Rosie: And don’t forget our store as well where you can get T-shirts – short and long sleeved – tote bags, sweatshirts, flip-flops, water bottles, travel mugs, and much more coming soon. We have over 80 products to choose from, and you can also find ringtones for free on our website.
Eric: And don’t forget the Alohomora! app, which you can locate via our website to download and to buy. It is available seemingly worldwide. Prices vary. On the app you can have access to transcripts, bloopers, alternate endings, host vlogs, and sometimes a variety of other easter eggs and content that we can push via the Alohomora! app. So go check that out.
[Show music begins]
Caleb: All right. Well, thanks for listening, everyone. I’m Caleb Graves.
Eric: I’m Eric Scull.
Rosie: And I’m Rosie Morris. Thank you for listening to Episode 71 of Alohomora!
Eric: Open the Dumbledore!
[Show music continues]
Eric: HAL, open the Dumble bay doors!
Rosie: [laughs] What?
Eric: Oh, it’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. I’m done. Goodbye, everybody.
