Transcript – Episode 78
[Show music begins]
Eric Scull: This is Episode 78 of Alohomora! for April 5, 2014.
[Show music continues]
Eric: Hello, and welcome to Alohomora! I’m Eric Scull.
Kat Miller: I’m Kat Miller.
Caleb Graves: And I’m Caleb Graves. And we have a really awesome and super special guest host with us today. She is the author of Harry, A History. She is a podcaster. She runs the Leaky Cauldron and LeakyCon and so many other things. She is Melissa Anelli. Hello, Melissa.
Melissa Anelli: Hello! Thank you for having me.
Kat and Caleb: Thanks for joining us!
Kat: We’re really excited. Yeah.
Melissa: I think I invited myself on to this podcast during London – at LeakyCon London.
Kat: You did, but it’s okay. We wanted you anyway, so that’s good.
[Eric laughs]
Melissa: I did. I’ve never done that before. We were sitting around in the backroom and I heard Kat say, “Alohomora!” and I was like, “Alohomora! I should come on Alohomora!” It was just this awkward, “Oh yeah, I just invited myself on your podcast.” She was like, “No, you should totally do that.” [laughs]
Kat: And six months later it finally worked out.
[Eric laughs]
Melissa: Six months later it happened, there you go.
Eric: You couldn’t have picked a better episode, I don’t think. This one’s going to be a good one.
Caleb: It is.
Eric: Normally, we would ask you to tell us a little bit about yourself, but Caleb’s already done that. [laughs] Did he leave anything out?
Melissa: Ah, well… LeakyNews.
Caleb: LeakyNews.
Eric: Ah, okay.
Melissa: So I’ll try and keep it succinct. It all starts with the Leaky Cauldron, which is the Harry Potter site I’ve been running for a long time. We run the fan conference LeakyCon, which is Harry Potter and the fandoms that surround it. PotterCast is the podcast I’ve been on forever. I wrote a book about the Harry Potter phenomenon, as you said, called Harry, A History. And LeakyNews is the geek website that’s inclusive of more than Harry Potter, which we now run. So that’s the long and short of it, I think. A couple of jobs, you know.
Kat: [laughs] Just a few.
Caleb: Just a few to keep you busy.
Melissa: I don’t like to be bored.
[Caleb laughs]
Melissa: Well, Eric and I were just saying, if it wasn’t a LeakyMug, I think the last time you and I were on each other’s podcasts was 2006 or something.
Eric: Yeah, it sounds about right. It really would have been [whispers] “back then.” I know, that was eight years ago and today this whole episode really for me is about time travel, because we’re beginning the fifth Harry Potter book and that to me in many ways just takes me back. Thinking about it takes me back to 2003 when the book came out. Before we continue, we would like to remind listeners of this podcast to read the first chapter of Order of the Phoenix, titled “Dudley Demented,” in order to get the absolute maximum enjoyment out of the discussion on today’s episode.
Kat: Yay, Order of the Phoenix!
Caleb: Yes!
Eric: Order! I know it’s the fifth Harry Potter book, but for me it was in many ways the first. This was the first book that I couldn’t have right away.
Caleb: Same.
Eric: And it’s the first book I went to a midnight release for. What about you guys?
Caleb: Yup, same thing here.
Kat: Yeah, same.
Melissa: Mhm. The three-year summer. The famous three-year summer that ended in 2003.
Eric: Wow. I didn’t realize I was not alone there. But Melissa, surely, you were in before, weren’t you?
Melissa: No. I read the books in 2000 and in ’01 is when I started really doing a lot. I was in the online world before then, but I was running the Leaky Cauldron or working on the Leaky Cauldron in ’01 and had made that year – that 2000-2003 period was the real incubation period for the entirety of the Harry Potter fandom and what it’s grown into now. All that waiting led to the fan fiction, the bands, the community formation, the website growth. It all really fueled what’s happening now in a completely, incredibly important way.
Eric: Yeah, definitely. I just remember being a kid and reading. The other thing about this book is Harry turned fifteen and I was fifteen. Hey, that’s pretty cool.
Kat: Aww.
Caleb: Yeah, same for me, yeah.
Kat: I’m old.
Melissa: You’re old?
Eric: So, it’s like sharing age with… oh, I’m sorry. [laughs]
Kat: I don’t think you’re any older than me.
Melissa: How old are you?
Kat: I’m almost 32.
Melissa: Yeah, I’m 34.
Kat: Oh. All right, so two years, big deal.
Melissa: Okay, it’s the same.
Eric: I was about to say, “We’ll settle this offline later.”
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: No, you know what? I don’t care. Whatever.
Eric: “I’m older than you are!” “No, you’re older!”
Melissa: Nothing wrong with our ages. Ladies who get embarrassed about that should stop. Your age is your age. It’s a number.
Kat: That’s right.
Eric: It’s just a number, right? And the fact that all of us could come together so long ago and still have the same fond memories of that summer in ’03, June 20th, woo!
Melissa: 21st! June 21st!
Eric: It is Order of the Phoenix. Oh… well, it was Friday night, so it was the 20th into the 21st. The parties happened on the 20th.
Melissa: Right.
Eric: The 21st was for not sleeping.
Caleb: That is true. There was none of the sleeping that day.
[Eric laughs]
Melissa: I remember everybody thought that the solstice was going to be a big deal in the book as well.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: I do remember that.
Melissa: Yeah. And then there was one of the prophecies that said something about the solstice, so everybody was sure that in the sixth and seventh book there was going to be stuff about a solstice, and it never happened.
Eric: Yeah, none of the other books really took that for an advantage.
Melissa: I wonder if she was kind of poking at a fan theory there, just to kind of…
Eric: Yeah. It wouldn’t be unlike her, to say the very least.
Kat: We’ll add that to the list of questions we want to ask her when we’re done.
Caleb: Yes.
Melissa: [laughs] You’ve got to send it to her.
Caleb: Okay. Well, we do not have recap from the previous chapter because it is the first chapter. So instead, since we are kicking off the book, you should hopefully have your book with you and we will read the synopsis of the book together. It reads as such:
“Harry is in his fifth year at Hogwarts School as the adventure continues. There is a door at the end of a silent corridor and it’s haunting Harry Potter’s dreams. Why else would he be waking in the middle of the night screaming in terror? Harry has a lot on his mind for this, his fifth year at Hogwarts: a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher with a personality like poisoned honey, a big surprise on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and the looming terror of the Ordinary Wizarding Level exams. But all of these things pale next to the growing threat of He Who Must Not Be Named – one that neither the magical government nor the authorities at Hogwarts can stop. As the grasp of darkness tightens, Harry must discover the true depth and strength of his friends, the importance of boundless loyalty, and the shocking price of unbearable sacrifice. His fate depends on them all.”
Eric: Wow. I remember getting that part early.
Melissa: Eric, I was just going to ask you if you remember the day that that went up because it was one of the scariest in Leaky Cauldron history.
Eric: Which… sorry?
Melissa: When this synopsis hit the web. Do you guys know the story?
Eric: Was it in its entirety here? Because I feel like there’s maybe just a little bit more, like one or two more sentences on the book itself.
Melissa: Maybe “His fate depends on them all” might have not been. I actually think it was longer.
Eric: Oh.
Melissa: Because… okay, so what happened, there was a publication that just went to teachers that Scholastic put a description of the fifth book in…
Eric: Right.
Melissa: … not ever expecting, because nobody had ever experienced the crazy turnover that the Internet has and the fan rapidness these days, not expecting somebody to scan it and send it to the Leaky Cauldron. So I got on April Fools 2003…
Eric: There you go.
Melissa: … an email with this, and I had been taken by so many April Fools jokes that day that I wrote back to the woman, who had named herself after a Shakespeare character, and I said, “Ha ha, nice, thanks a lot. You know, it’s April Fools.” And she went, “Oh really? I swear this is real; I’ll send it to you.” I said, “Well, here’s my address, sure,” thinking I’d never hear from her again. [laughs]
Eric: Right.
Melissa: Well, three days later, in the mail comes this thing – I mean, it has the Scholastic logo on the front – it’s real. And so we publish it on the Leaky Cauldron, and you have never… we were so scared because we thought, is this okay? It’s from Scholastic, so it’s approved text. Surely it’s okay. So we put it up and I am still hearing stories of the amazement that people felt that it had actually hit the Internet. Now they just assume that things hit the Internet, you know.
Eric: Yeah.
Melissa: So yeah, it was wild.
Eric: I remember getting this before the book came out, so we had this to think about. I mean, it wasn’t too far – like you said, it’s April; the book is in June. But we also got the first paragraph or two of the actual book, him in the flower bed, and that was weird. He’s just laying in flowers. It’s like, oh, okay, this is your hero… [laughs] of the seven book series. He’s laying in flowers. Okay.
Melissa: I like a man who knows where to find a soft spot to lay… in flowers.
[Eric laughs]
Kat: It’s funny because…
Melissa: Really came differently out of my mouth than I thought it would in my head.
[Caleb laughs]
Eric: I have tried laying in flowers and it hurts. Like ever since I read this book…
[Kat laughs]
Eric: … I thought it was okay. It’s like they need one of those disclaimers like, “DO NOT DO THIS IN REAL LIFE. Flowers hurt.”
Melissa: I want to make a disclaimer that I was thinking no sexual innuendo in that previous statement whatsoever.
[Kat and Melissa laugh]
I just meant that it was nice that he could appreciate flowers, but I realize how it could come out, so I take it back.
Kat: It’s okay. We had a whole episode about Hagrid’s parents and how they made Hagrid…
Melissa: Oh God!
Kat: … so it’s cool.
[Eric laughs]
Kat: Our listeners know… our listeners are pretty awesome.
Caleb: Also, in the inside of the book, as always, there is a dedication. And for this book, Rowling dedicates it “To Neil, Jessica, and David, who make my world magical.” And that, of course, is her husband, daughter, and son. Very touching.
Eric: Yeah. Melissa, I wanted to ask you, have you ever met Neil, Jessica, and David? I know you’ve met Jo at least a couple of times. So what can you tell… I know next to nothing. I know they’re very private people. I assume they are just as cool as their mom, but have you ever met them?
Melissa: Yeah. Actually, I met Jessica a couple of times. I think the thing… the time that I spent the most time meeting her, which is minuscule, was the night of Carnegie Hall when she announced that Dumbledore was gay. Beforehand…
Eric: Oh, right.
Melissa: … a bunch of us went back to say hello to her. She invited some people from Leaky back there, and Jessie was there just chilling in sneakers and stuff, and it was just amazing because her mother’s all dolled up about to go on the Carnegie Hall stage – she’s got a gold jacket on and a makeup artist, she’s got the whole thing – and her daughter’s hanging out there in sneakers and whatever, “It’s just my famous mom.” She just seemed very grounded, but she was very kind and anything I ever hear about her now – because now she’s an adult – is that she’s very kind. I met the kids when I interviewed her for the book. Obviously they’re private, so I don’t want to go into too much detail, but they were…
Eric: Right.
Melissa: … really smart.
[Kat laughs]
Melissa: I know that’s not a shock to anyone, but…
Kat: Not at all.
[Caleb laughs]
Melissa: … really smart. Like shockingly smart. [laughs] Not shocking, but you know what I mean. No, they’re cool. They’re people that if they weren’t famous and weren’t rich and were living next door to you, you’d get the feeling that you’d still want to know them.
Caleb: Hmm.
Eric: Yeah.
Kat: That’s good. I like hearing that. That’s good.
Caleb: Yeah, definitely. And one last thing that we can probably talk about before we get into the actual chapter is the first impression we got when we first saw the cover. It has obviously been a long time, but this cover is a lot different than what we have seen in the past. You just see Harry – the front cover, anyway, of the original. Harry is in a room, some room – we don’t know what – and there just looks like some sort of mysterious something swirling about him, and it’s blue.
Kat: Yeah. You can tell the room is circular, and you see the candles and the doors, and that’s literally it.
Caleb: Yes.
Melissa: Well, do you know what’s interesting? When this came out, I never put this together, but you can tell from… you actually can see on the front that the room is moving or there’s a wind.
Kat: Mhm.
Melissa: And I never put that together until now.
Caleb: Mmm.
Eric: Because the flames.
Melissa: Because of the flames and the smoke. All the smoke has the same movement. And that’s interesting… I never noticed.
Eric: Wow.
Kat: Huh, I never… I mean… yeah, I guess I never thought about that before.
Caleb: Yeah, me neither.
[Eric laughs]
Kat: Wow, look at that.
Melissa: The far candles are actually moving in the opposite direction, which actually is the hidden clue: the room is moving circularly. That’s crazy. She’s so good.
Kat: Wow.
Caleb: Always find new things.
Eric: What door do you think he’s looking at? Is there a reflection in his glasses now, I’m looking for?
Melissa: I bet you… I bet there’s a Love Room
Kat: There is a reflection in the glasses, Eric.
Caleb: Oh my God.
Eric: It’s light. I bet it is the Love Room. No, it’s locked. Maybe it’s the key melting.
Kat: No, it’s that middle room. Whatever that middle room is, with all the doors.
Melissa: Atrium?
Eric: Mhm.
Kat: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. He tries to put the key in with his lock picking system thing to open the door and it melts it.
Caleb: So the back cover, we see some people and at a closer look, we see one of them is Moody, because we recognize his eye. We hope it’s finally the real Moody, since we did not have real Moody and one more…
Eric: Wouldn’t that just be said if he wasn’t? If he got himself kidnapped again?
Caleb: Yeah, right.
Melissa: Worst Auror ever.
[Caleb and Eric laugh]
Melissa: Moody’s awesome.
Caleb: And then we see two other people: some middle-aged dude and some other, a girl with spiky hair, which immediately makes me think, Hey, she’s pretty cool.
[Kat laughs]
Caleb: She turns out to be pretty cool, so it’s all good.
Kat: Did we guess that was a girl? Because I didn’t.
Caleb: Oh, I totally thought it was.
Eric: I think there was some ambiguity there.
Kat: I wouldn’t guess.
Melissa: It’s the heart-shaped lips that are hard to dismiss.
Caleb: Yeah. Right.
Kat: And the shadow figure.
Caleb: Yes, there’s a shadow.
Melissa: Wait, where’s the shadow figure? Oh, there’s the shadow figure.
Eric: In the doorway. There’s somebody in the doorway. Who is that?
Melissa: Oh, there’s actually Sirius there, too, by the way.
Eric: Oh, is it… I always assumed it was Snape.
Melissa: Oh, maybe it is.
Kat: Yeah.
Eric: The nose looks kind of hooky.
Kat: Who is in the door? What is that in the door?
Caleb: I thought it was maybe Harry coming into Grimmauld Place?
Melissa: Yeah, I think it’s got to be Harry because he’s not wearing robes. He’s wearing jeans or pants.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: Hmm.
Eric: Weird. [laughs] I love how this book cover can still captivate us.
Kat: I know. All these years.
Eric: It has all this power.
Melissa: I just didn’t imagine that as Remus. I think that’s Remus, right? We’ve agreed? That’s Remus Lupin?
Eric: Uhh, yeah.
Caleb: Yeah, that would make sense. Especially if it’s Sirius in the doorway.
Eric: We’d have to see if his clothes are tattered, but he’s being hidden by some well-placed flames.
[Kat laughs]
Melissa: Interesting.
Caleb: Hmm.
Kat: Is this anybody’s favorite cover?
Caleb: Oh.
Melissa: Cover.
Eric: See, that’s the thing.
Caleb: No.
Eric: Number 4. Number 4 is so good. The look of glee on Harry’s face in Goblet of Fire, I think, is the number one reason I think that that’s my favorite book cover, and [Book] 5, in comparison, is colorless. It’s one color; it’s monochromatic. And even though it’s cool, and it’s well done, I think coming off of [Book] 4ù was hard, and I think [Book] 4ù is probably still my favorite book cover.
Caleb: Hmm.
Kat: I think Half-Blood is my favorite book cover.
Caleb: Deathly Hallows is definitely mine.
Kat: Because I like the swirly of the Pensieve.
Eric: Deathly Hallows for you, Caleb?
Caleb: Yeah, that orange just kicks you in the mouth. It’s about to end,ù and it’s like everything’s different about that cover, and it’s just like, “Here we go!”ù
Eric: [laughs] There’s for orange for you.
Caleb: “Get ready”ù.
Eric: Oh, man.
Melissa: Yeah, most questions for me, with “In which book is your favorite blah blah blah?”ù usually end for me with Deathly Hallows. That book is just…
Caleb: Yeah, same.
Melissa: Yeah.
Kat: So that’s your favorite book, then?
Melissa: Oh, yeah. By a mile.
Caleb: Mhm.
Melissa: It’s a masterpiece.
Eric: Ooh.
Kat: Well, I personally think that this one is amazing, and it’s my favorite.
Melissa: It is.
Caleb: I do love this one.
Kat: Yeah, it’s a good one.
Eric: Oh no! I’m alone! [laughs]
Melissa: You don’t like it?
Eric: I don’t love it. Let’s just say that. It’s not…
Kat: I’m going to make you love it, Eric.
[Melissa laughs]
Eric: Oh, okay. I’ll take that challenge. I prepared special notes for Kat because I knew she was leading discussion, and I’m going to be able to kick back with some of my…
[Caleb laughs]
Eric: … excellent quotes from this chapter.
Kat: Bring it on, honey. Let’s do it.
Eric: No, but really, in general, just in a general overview, Harry is different. Harry has changed, and I don’t know how I feel about that. This book, tonally, is so different, and it’s actually a good thing, in a way. Harry is growing up.
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: The books are becoming darker.
Kat: Right.
Eric: We always knew that that would happen. There’s no better place than now, but still, I think even in this first chapter, it’s really tough to agree and tough to love Harry the way that we did before.
Melissa: It was a shock. I remember I read the book with 12 other hardcore fans all together, and all of us were… it was really a really jarring brake, and love was a hard word to use. I think love builds with this book, but Harry being unloveable, I think, is something that I love about it.
Eric: Yeah. I can see that.
Kat: So shall we start the 38-week…
[Melissa laughs]
Caleb: We shall!
Eric: Oh, God.
Kat: … discussion, I suppose?
Eric: Should we hold hands? Should we make a pact? We will finish this book.
Caleb: Our lives are going to be so different when this is over.
Kat: I mean…
Melissa: I’m going to give you bad juju of not finishing books.
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: No, no, trust me. We’re finishing it. We’ve already had listeners ask us, and we promised them, so no matter what, we’re finishing.
Eric: I have to say, “I hope it’s warmer when we finish this book than it is when we started it” because it’s 30 degrees in Chicago.
Caleb: It won’t be. It’ll be December, won’t it?
Kat: Well, it’s going to be the last Saturday of December, Eric.
[Caleb laughs]
Melissa: So… not.
Eric: So no luck there.
Kat: No.
Eric: I’m going to have to enjoy this summer period when we get to the middle of the book.
Kat: However, it’ll actually be January because that doesn’t include live shows or breaks.
Caleb: Oh, yeah. That’s true. It’s still going to be cold. [laughs]
Kat: [laughs] It’s still going to be cold, yeah. Sorry, honey.
Eric: But no, this book is definitely… being the biggest book of them all, it’s hefty, but you can really curl up with it and read for hours and hours nonstop.
Caleb: Yes.
Kat: I’m looking forward to that. All right, here we go. It’s Chapter 1.
[Order of the Phoenix Chapter 1 intro begins]
[Sound of summer insects]
Harry: Chapter 1.
[Sound of Mundungus Disapparating and cat yowling]
Harry: “Dudley Demented.”
[Order of the Phoenix Chapter 1 intro ends]
Kat: Okay, so wow. This is just… it just feels daunting now that I’m here, ready to start the first chapter. Excited, though. Really excited. Okay, so you’ve all read the book; you all know how it starts. It’s the hottest day of summer. There’s a drought, and Harry is lying in a flower bed under the window. Okay, that’s… I didn’t expect that. A nice, interesting way to start out the book, I suppose.
Eric: Well, you never really know what he’s doing in a summer vacation. Sometimes he’s doing homework. She had to open up the books a little different[ly]…
Kat: She did.
Eric: … each time, I think.
Kat: It’s true. No, it’s nice to see him being “normal” for the whole 20 seconds of normal that we get.
Eric: Mhm.
Kat: So…
Melissa: “Normal.” He’s got to sneak around under windows, [lying] on dirt, to get any hint of the news.
Kat: Right.
Eric: Yeah, that part of it’s not cool. At least we get the feeling that he’s a little bit more athletic than he was before.
[Kat laughs]
Eric: He’s been going on walks, that sort of thing.
[Kat laughs]
Melissa: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, I think the furthest we’d seen him venture out before – minus the Aunt Marge escape – was when he sat on the bench in the backyard in Book 2.
Caleb: So he’s making big gains here.
Kat: Big gains, right. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, he’s now on to the side of the house. He’s progressed about 30 feet.
[Kat laughs]
Eric: But yeah, he goes for walks.
Kat: So as I mentioned, he’s [lying] under the window, trying to listen to the news, and Vernon and Petunia are just flabbergasted that he would want to listen to the news, and I’m wondering… I was thinking about this as I was reading: Obviously, we know it’s the normal reaction because they think Harry is not normal or whatever, but wouldn’t they think it was a good thing because wouldn’t they think that that would be Harry trying to be Dursley normal?
Caleb: Not them because they think he’s up to something.
Kat: I know, but let’s pretend they’re not psycho. Why would…? [laughs]
Caleb: Well, because Dudley doesn’t like the news, so if Dudley doesn’t like the news, then not liking the news is the norm.
Eric: Yeah, that’s a good point.
Melissa: Yeah, and if Harry can play it off in a dumb “accept the information being [streamed] through your television as utter truth” way that Dudley… but that’s not Harry. They know he’s curious, and curiosity is to be squashed at all costs to the Dursleys. It’s not good.
Kat: The curious angle. That’s true. I guess I hadn’t thought about that.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: That’s true. So as he’s [lying] there, it says [that] little “Mrs. Figg, a batty, cat-loving old lady” ambled by slowly, and I thought it was really cute how it mentions that she keeps trying to have him over for tea.
Caleb: Isn’t it funny?
Kat: Like she wants to be his friend. [laughs] I just thought it was cute.
Caleb: Isn’t it funny reading back Mrs. Figg now, knowing what she is, when the first time you read, you think she’s just this crazy old cat lady who bothers Harry all the time?
Kat: Yeah.
Melissa: Who guessed that she was either a witch or a Squib?
Caleb: I had no idea. I was totally thrown off by the end of this chapter.
Kat: Yeah.
Eric: I have to say, at least, because in the very last chapter of Goblet of Fire, there’s that mention: “Arabella Figg…”
Melissa: Right.
Eric: “Sirius, go get her.” And I’m glad that it paid off so quickly. I mean, there was a three-year gap, but at least…
Caleb: Oh, that’s true. I forgot that happens.
Eric: But by the end of this chapter, you have met her again, twice. So at least that particular plot thread, it seemed… it’s good practice for the beginning of a book. That name would have resonated, and readers would be like, “Oh! That could be it!” So it’s a good way to start the chapter, but her crossing the street, yeah, we definitely… I don’t think any of us could have guessed exactly that she would be part of a network of spies, as it turns out.
[Kat laughs]
Eric: So…
Kat: That involves cats, nonetheless.
Melissa: Yeah.
Eric: That part was left to be discovered.
Melissa: The ragtag spy [who] carries cat food in her purse.
Kat: Yeah.
[Eric and Kat laugh]
Eric: Literally ragtag, right?
Melissa: Not exactly the Black Widow, here.
[Caleb and Eric laugh]
Kat: Well, and that was my next point, is that her name is Mrs. Figg, so she’s married.
Melissa: Yeah.
Kat: Or was married. And… do you think she was widowed in the first war or something maybe? Do you think he’s still around?
Eric: I think she’s married to her… maybe one of the cats is Mr. Figg.
Caleb: Oh no.
Melissa: Well, she’s a Squib, right? So that means that she…
Caleb: Yes, so she could have married a Muggle.
Melissa: Well, she probably either came from wizards or married a wizard because she’s of the wizarding world even though she’s not magical.
Eric: Oh. Good point. That was pretty well thought out. [laughs]
Melissa: [laughs] I don’t know. Do you have to have magical parents to be a Squib? Or can you just… yeah, you do, right? You have to have magical…
Caleb: Yeah, right. Yeah.
Eric: You have to because otherwise you’re [a] Muggle.
Kat: You’re just a Muggle.
Caleb, Kat, and Melissa: Right.
Caleb: So that was why it’s possible… she could possibly have had a Muggle husband, too.
Melissa: Right, she could have had a Muggle husband. I get the feeling that the husband’s not around, though.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: Aww, that’s sad.
Eric: I wonder what makes Mr. Figg part of the old crowd, though, because we know her current status is to basically be Dumbledore’s ears and eyes on Privet Drive, but she’s included in that line in Goblet of being part of the old crowd.
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: I wonder what kind of work… I wonder how she first became acquainted with Dumbledore and them.
Melissa: That’s what makes me wonder if she married a wizard, and he’s gone now, and that’s why she’s living in the Muggle world because she can’t operate in the wizarding world, so she lives in the Muggle world and [has] a perfect assignment: watch Harry Potter, who’s that part of the Muggle world.
Caleb: Very good point.
Eric: I really want to read about that on Pottermore.
Caleb: Yup.
Melissa: I want to read about Mrs. Figg, too.
Caleb: This is going to be her perfect time whenever Order comes around for Pottermore. This is her chapter to get the backstory.
Kat: Is she significant enough?
Caleb: I mean…
Eric: Yeah.
Kat: I hope so.
Melissa: What’s not significant enough? You tell me.
Eric and Kat: Yeah.
Kat: That’s true.
Eric: She’s Arabella Figg; she’s part of the old Order.
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: I felt like this book almost doesn’t have enough of her in it. But being a Squib, she can’t really do a lot, so it’s a shame. But she’s nice and friendly, and just reading Book 1 again makes me laugh because of course, she was the same way. The Dursleys would dump him with Mrs. Figg any time they wanted to go on vacation without him.
Kat: Poor Harry.
[Eric laughs]
Kat: It’s just funny that she was mentioned all the way in Book 1. I just find it funny.
Caleb and Melissa: Yeah.
Eric: And her cats all have names in Book 1.
Melissa: And her cats…
Kat: That’s true. They do.
Melissa: Tufty, Mrs. Paws, Snowy…
Eric: Yeah, I remember Tufty.
Kat and Melissa: Yeah.
Melissa: Mr. Tibbles?
Eric: Yeah.
Melissa: Is one of them Mr. Tibbles?
[Eric laughs]
Kat: Uh-huh. Yup.
Melissa: And something else.
Caleb: Jo was always looking out for her cat lovers in these books.
Kat: She was, man.
Melissa: She was.
Kat: Does she have cats?
Melissa: No. Dogs.
Kat: Dogs.
Eric: Oh.
Melissa: Yeah.
Eric: Okay.
Melissa: Yeah, she’s public about it. She has a Greyhound that she rescued.
Kat: Oh.
Melissa: And a Jack Russell terrier who’s crazy.
Eric: Oh.
Kat: I didn’t know that.
Melissa: Nuts. [laughs] Really, really yappy. Adorable.
Kat: Like most Jack Russells, so awesome.
Melissa: Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. That’s Ron’s Patronus, which kills me. Makes me laugh so hard.
[Eric laughs]
Caleb: That’s what I was just thinking about. That’s really funny.
Melissa: They’ve all got badass Patronuses, and Ron has got a a Jack Russell terrier.
[Kat and Melissa laugh]
Melissa: It’s… but then you think about it, and that’s going to be one of the most persistent Patronuses. You can just see it, going up at the Dementors, ripping at their clothes and stuff. Anyway…
Kat: That’s true.
Eric: Yeah.
Kat: That’s so true.
Melissa: And going into death.
Kat: Okay, so again, as we mentioned, Harry is trying to listen to the news here, and something else that I thought of this time around is… so we know what Harry went through at he end of Goblet. Okay, we know he went through this really traumatic thing, and he is not always the brightest person. So do we think that while… so Harry keeps saying that if something big [were] going to happen, it would be the first thing on the news, and he keeps wondering why [he hasn’t] heard anything. Why hasn’t heard anything? And I’m wondering how much he thought about the events of the end of Goblet and how they affect the rest of the world. I’m wondering… do you guys think that he had any sort of…? “Do you think he’s thought about that at all?” I guess, is point here.
Caleb: Well, do you mean if he’s though about the repercussions for the world beyond what happened at the end of Goblet of Fire?
Kat: Yeah, and also, has he considered any of the “What ifs”? If… “What would have happened if I had died?” where…
Caleb: Oh.
Kat: “Where would this have been…?”
Caleb: I don’t know if he’s though about that, but I definitely think he’s thinking about the repercussions of the world because that’s why he’s listening for the news, to see if Voldemort is out there making things crazy again.
Eric: Well, he fully expects the big, big bang like, “I’m back, bitches!” bursting through the wall Kool-Aid style.
[Caleb and Kat laugh]
Caleb: I wish that would have been in the movie.
Eric: I think that’s the biggest surprise for people reading this book, too, because you expect it for so long to be big and attack-y, but really, it’s a slow burn throughout the whole book, and you learn, of course, once we get to Grimmauld Place that they’re like, “Well, he’s looking for a weapon.” But even the weapon… you’re not even sure how it functions as a weapon even by the end of the book, so there was no huge battle, no… well, there’s a battle, but the weapon is not a weapon, and Voldemort is being silent, and it reminds me of a quote. I just traced it; I don’t know this. I have to say I looked this up but Charles Baudelaire… and the quote that is derived from him is that the finest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world [he] didn’t exist. And that’s what Voldemort is all about, I think, in this whole thing, is that we saw in the end of Goblet that Fudge and Dumbledore were diametrically opposed to each other. Voldemort is back, Voldemort is not back, and Voldemort is playing on that. Whether or not he knows that the government is looking the other way, he is making use of that and staying super, super, super quiet, which is really smart tactically if you think about it.
Caleb and Melissa: Yeah.
Melissa: And Harry is smart enough to realize that it’s not always going to be the big bang. He is looking for unexplained disappearances and strange accidents that Muggles don’t [recognize] as a sign because he was told what happened at the beginning. It was marked by strange absences like Bertha Jorkins.
Caleb: Yeah.
Melissa: It was…
Eric: It’s true.
Melissa: But he hasn’t thought to the next higher level of [that] it is in Voldemort’s interest to quietly rally forces and quietly move before coming out there and causing fear. He doesn’t operate on Dumbledore in Order of the Phoenix level. He’s not a master commander like Dumbledore’s Army here, so…
Caleb: Mhm.
Eric: And you feel… we talked about his mental state in this book in general, but we meet Harry, and it’s been… I think it’s later said “four weeks” that he’s been at Privet Drive, and he feels abandoned, and it really fuels what he does in this chapter: his anger and his thoughts and the fact that he’s listening to this news, but really, the way that he takes the news these days… I think Hermione later points out there was information hidden in the Daily Prophets. He gets the Daily Prophet, he only reads the front page, and then [he] throws it out because he’s so frustrated that he’s alone. But really, there is news hidden in there; he just needed to look carefully enough.
Melissa: Yeah. Subtlety enough for 15-year-olds.
Eric: So I think it’s about the big drama for Harry right now. He’s… if he had been able to be more objective, he would have, I think, uncovered a little bit more. It’s still questionable whether or not Dumbledore has any right to do what he does to Harry.
Kat: Yeah, if he [were] more… what was the word you just used? “Objectionable”?
Eric: “Objective.”
Kat: “Objective”! Thank you. Then he wouldn’t be Harry, so…
Melissa: Yeah.
Kat: He needs to miss stuff, I guess.
Melissa: It’s also a key to this frustration he’s feeling – this “15-year-old boy, things need to happen now” kind of frustration – doesn’t lend to carefully combing the newspaper for things that might add up. That’s not what he’s doing. He’s looking, and he’s getting frustrated. “Why is the information not coming to me from my friends? Information is not coming from the newspapers. I can’t get any information. I’m stuck here.” It’s just all adding to this explosion point that we get with sassy Harry.
Kat: Yeah, it’s the hot-headed Gryffindor in him, I suppose.
Melissa: Yeah.
Kat: So speaking of drama and all that, there’s this great paragraph on page 4 of the US edition. Page 4, wow. I’ll never say that again. I’m going to read it out. It says, “A loud, echoing crack broke the sleepy silence like a gunshot; a cat streaked out from under a parked car and flew out of sight; a shriek, a bellowed oath, and the sound of breaking china came from the Dursleys’ living room, and as though Harry had been waiting for this signal, he jumped to his feet, at the same time pulling from the waistband of his jeans a thin wooden wand as if he were unsheathing a sword. But before he could draw himself up to full height, the top of his head collided with the Dursleys’ open window, and the resultant crash made Aunt Petunia scream even louder.” So first off, ow. Talk about headache.
Caleb: And Jo? She totally plays… I feel like all of us can relate to those kind[s] of moments where you completely whollop your head against something in that…
Eric: I did this yesterday, guys.
[Caleb and Kat laugh]
Eric: I can still feel it. It hurts.
Caleb: Oh, it’s the worst pain.
Eric: It’s bad.
Kat: And a second thing: Does anyone remember reading this and thinking, “What the hell just happened?” Does anyone remember their reaction to this?
Caleb: Well, he pretty quickly starts thinking that it’s Dobby the next couple of paragraphs…
Kat: Well…
Caleb: … so that pretty much was my guess.
Kat: Oh, fine.
Melissa: No, somebody Apparates, right?
Caleb: Well…
Eric: Yeah.
Caleb: Yeah, well, that’s what it was.
Melissa: Wasn’t it Mundungus?
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: It was Dung Apparating away.
Caleb: Disapparating, yeah.
Eric: Which he does again in Book 7, as it turns out, but…
Caleb: Whoops.
Kat: Ho-ho.
Eric: The whole Apparating thing bugs me a little bit because he said it’s the exact sound that Dobby makes.
Caleb: Right.
Eric: But it shouldn’t be, should it? Because wizards and Dobbys Apparating…
Caleb: [laughs] Wizards and Dobbys!
Eric and Kat: Wizards and Dobbys.
Melissa: I like it. Wizards and Dobbys.
Eric: Let’s just face it. They’re all the same. Wizards and house-elves Apparate differently, so it shouldn’t really be the same sound.
Caleb: Oh.
Kat: That’s true.
Caleb: Right.
Eric: Should it? But he hears it, though, and he does recognize it correctly as a magical sound.
Melissa: Well…
Eric: And it’s something that they really didn’t do in the movies. Maybe when Fred and George do it in the movie they make a small pop.
Kat: Dobby makes a small sound.
Eric: But it’s not a crack.
Kat: Yeah.
Melissa: I think that it’s different with different people, actually.
Kat: Ohh.
Melissa: For some it’s a crack, for some it’s a pop.
Caleb: Ooh, that raises a very interesting question.
Eric: Yeah.
Melissa: I think Hagrid actually does it without being noticed, which just blows my mind. How does he do that?
[Caleb and Eric laugh]
Melissa: Hagrid, who isn’t even a full wizard. But I think that’s probably because it was a busy street or whatever when he does it. I think it’s probably a function of how advanced of a wizard you are. Mundungus? Probably not that advanced.
Eric: Do you think it could be caused by… just like when a whip cracks, it’s because the sound barrier is being broken?
Melissa: I’d buy that.
Kat: Yeah.
Eric: It could be because they’re interdimensional or whatever.
Kat: That seems feasible.
Eric: They’re transporting.
Kat: Yeah.
Eric: I don’t know. It’s cool to think about a crack because somebody’s just opened up a hole in space and time. Not time, but you know what I’m saying.
Kat: Yeah. There’s another part here. There’s so many things in this chapter that I never noticed before. Maybe because I haven’t read this book in… it hasn’t been that long. 8 months maybe.
Eric: I think we’re going to get this a lot in this book. There’s just so many words.
Melissa: I think we are. Yeah.
Eric: There’s so many words…
Kat: So many words. I know.
Eric: “She put this in the middle of this sentence, what?”
Kat: Right. [laughs]
Melissa: Almost a million words in this book.
Eric: I’m sure. Oh, really?
Melissa: Yeah.
Eric: That’s crazy.
Melissa: Over 900 thousand. I remember the…
Eric: Oh my gosh.
Melissa: … news article.
Kat: Oh my God.
Eric: That’s 890 pages.
Kat: Yeah.
Eric: And I feel like, as a reader, you can’t help but almost…
Melissa: No, I’m wrong. It’s over… I’m sorry, it’s a quarter of a million. What am I talking about? I think it’s a quarter of a million.
Eric: Oh, a quarter of a million.
Melissa: Yeah.
Eric: Okay. But I feel like you can’t help – even as a reader – dozing off three quarters of the way through.
Kat: You’re nuts.
Eric: I’m not just saying…
Kat: I’ve never… no.
Eric: No, if I manage to stay awake through St Mungo’s, for instance, I am sure I will find 300 new things that I didn’t know about Harry Potter.
Melissa: Stay awake? There’s so much that happens in this book. It’s crazy.
Kat: Yeah. Eric hates this book.
Melissa: The one…
Eric: No, I don’t…
Melissa: The one chapter, Eric, I’m with you on, is Grawp. The story of Grawp, the story of the…
Eric: Oh, okay.
Melissa: … giants. I just thought it was going to pay off better. Sorry, wrong chapter.
Eric: No, that’s cool. Yeah, but no, I really don’t hate this book, but there are so many other better ones. Sounds awful. [laughs]
Kat: I completely disagree, but we’ll get there. We have so much time to argue.
Eric: Yes. We will, we will, we will.
Kat: Okay, the thing I wanted to mention that I had missed this time is when Vernon reaches out the window and is grabbing Harry. It says that… shoot, where’s the quote? Oh, “then, as the pain on the top of Harry’s head gave a particularly nasty throb, Uncle Vernon yelped and released Harry as though he had received an electric shock.”
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: How did I ever miss that before?
Eric: Uh-huh.
Melissa: Here’s a question. Is that the piece of soul or is that the spell that stopped Harry from dying still protecting him?
Eric: Mmm.
Kat: Oh. Mmm.
Eric: Well, so we’re all of the opinion that it was an actual, actual shock?
Kat: I think so. Yeah, I think it was Harry’s…
Eric: Because she says “as though an electric surge went through him.”
Kat: Right, but then, “some invisible force seemed to have surged through his nephew…”
Melissa: Right.
Kat: “… making him impossible to hold.”
Caleb: Right.
Eric: Yeah.
Melissa: Whether electric or not, something happened.
Kat: Right.
Eric: Yeah. I know, it’s so cleverly worded. It’s so cleverly written to be… it could be either way.
Caleb: And clearly not recognizable by the Ministry as far as breaking the…
Kat: Right.
Eric: That’s where I don’t…
Caleb: … not being able…
Eric: Yeah, that’s where the whole using magic outside of school, the tracker…
Melissa: No…
Eric: I will never be okay with that in the entire series.
Melissa: This is the protection spell. No harm can come to him while he’s in that household and he’s… Vernon was harming him and the protection spell kicked in. That has to be it.
Caleb: Oh, that’s true. And they would know about it so…
Melissa: And so that’s not…
Eric: But the patronus is a protection spell.
Melissa: No, no, no. I mean this…
Kat: No, Lily’s…
Melissa: … is the spell that Dumbledore placed on the house.
Kat: Oh yeah, that.
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: Oh.
Melissa: The protection spell is a different situation.
Caleb: Yeah.
Melissa: The Patronus is a different situation. Dumbledore put the spell on the house however many years ago. It’s still active. So it’s not him actually doing magic, it’s a latent energy that’s doing whatever.
Eric: So had they actually – let’s say this – had the Dursley’s become physical with Harry before, they would have felt it then?
Melissa: Yeah, and you always got the impression that they had in the past at least…
Caleb: We’ve talked about this so much.
Eric: Yeah, it’s a huge…
Kat: I think they beat the crap out of him.
[Melissa laughs]
Eric: It’s a huge debate on this show, and I don’t personally think they physically abused him. They were all very emotional…
Caleb: Same.
Eric: … which is sometimes worse. That was my argument, is that emotional torture is worse. But if this is, in fact, Lily’s love – I never thought of this – or Dumbledore’s charm, if it’s either of those things this shows that he probably… he can’t be handled in this way.
Melissa: Maybe it was actually … maybe it’s to the point where he’s actually going to sustain damage.
Caleb: Mmm.
Melissa: I don’t think they beat the crap out of him. I think probably a smack or two landed here and there over the years.
Kat: Well yeah, I guess that’s what I meant.
Caleb: That’s fair.
Eric: Food deprivation, bedroom deprivation.
Kat: Petunia swings a frying pan at the kid. Come on.
Caleb: Yeah, but… that’s true…
Eric: She does swing…
Caleb: And this is…
Eric: … and she would’ve hit him.
Melissa: Maybe that’s why she always misses.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: Maybe.
Caleb: And this is a moment where clearly Vernon’s hand is not near release, he chokes Harry to death.
Eric: Very Homer Simpson style.
Melissa: I think Vernon probably did lose control over the years a little bit, because in the time period we’re talking about and the kind of person he is it probably would’ve happened. In England it is, I think it’s a little bit more frequent…
Kat: Mhm.
Melissa: … than maybe in the super PC America kind of thing. But I also think he’s super afraid of Harry.
Caleb: Yeah.
Melissa: And maybe it would have only been something here or there where he couldn’t have really controlled himself and then locked him in a room because that works. He doesn’t seem to sustain damage. Vernon doesn’t sustain damage when he does that, so he locks him in a room and also he doesn’t have to look at him.
Eric: Yeah.
Kat: Right.
Eric: I prefer to think of it as being Voldemort’s soul, just because then that alludes to later… it connects to later in the books…
Melissa: Yeah, maybe.
Eric: … with Harry and Voldemort. Maybe Voldemort’s sitting somewhere reading the newspaper and he’s like, “Ooh, I feel a little irky, I’m going to just grr, get that thought out of my mind.”
[Kat and Melissa laugh]
Eric: And just all of a sudden Harry goes [makes an electric shock sound] like that. Because they can hear when each other’s happy or they know, and all that stuff. Maybe.
Kat: Okay. Maybe.
Melissa: It’s the invisible force line that makes me think it’s the protection spell.
Eric and Kat: Yeah.
Eric: That’s fair.
Kat: That’s a good theory. I like that.
Eric: I can totally see it going either way. And I’d forgotten, or never heard that theory before, so I like it.
Kat: Yeah, me too.
Melissa: I never thought about it before actually.
Eric: There was something you said, Melissa, about America being politically correct or whatever that really reminds me of Book 5. The other thing going on – in this chapter especially I noticed it – is I don’t… the person who is in charge of converting and translating British-speak to American-speak either gave up or was fired…
[Melissa laughs]
Eric: … in between these books. It is so bad. And I was young – and let me be honest – I need my hand held when it comes to British-speak. I still do. And this chapter alone, they’re talking about hosepipes, they’re talking about – or I don’t even think it’s hosepipes, it’s something worse – when they talk about not being able to use the water. And Dudley is always going over to his friends’ for tea which means dinner, right? It’s just dinner…
Melissa: Mhm. It’s a late afternoon meal.
Eric: Yeah, it’s kind of almost better to be ignorant because then you’re thinking well he’s going over for tea.
[Melissa laughs]
Eric: He’s just sipping teacups. But it really means dinner, and so all this British-speak is all of a sudden boom. I think it’s the first time. They’ve been really generous before at changing that stuff like taps into faucets.
Melissa: Yeah. I don’t think it was laziness. I don’t think somebody was fired. I think what it was was that they were so worried about getting it to break into the American and not having it be distant, that they were really active on it in the first couple of books. And once the books were established in popularity, it was like, “Well, will an audience accept it and just learn and just accept some British-ism?” These books take place in Britain, maybe there’s some stuff that if it’s really not confusing. Like, Fred and George talk about keeping their peckers up, which is a nose in Britain…
[Eric laughs]
Melissa: Obviously they changed that for the American books because that’s going to cause a problem. But maybe, my feeling and what I think happened is that they were just like, “Well, this is Britain. If it’s not going to be too obtrusive to the text or it’s nothing offensive, we can just keep it.” And…
Kat: Right.
Melissa: … they kind of got looser about shredding that line. And I actually like it, I prefer to… yeah, it might have caused me having to look something up here and there but it didn’t stop me from understanding the story. You know?
Eric: Yeah. Oh, and it’s hard to argue that in the realm of the Internet, in the year of the Internet, in the time of the Internet, you can’t just look it up. It’s super simple….
Melissa: Right.
Eric: If you don’t understand something. Going back, I’m looking at the earlier books, taps or faucets…
Melissa: Mhm.
Eric: Hermione says something about going to the loo. And you’re like, “What? Huh? What?”.
Melissa: Yeah. Or jumper.
Eric: And the biggest one is Moaning Myrtle. They call her spotty…
Melissa: Yeah.
Eric: … and it means pimply, which is what they change it to. But…
Melissa: Yeah.
Eric: But this book, so that – for me – is fueled into the different Harry as well. Because all these things are happening in this chapter…
Melissa: That’s true.
Eric: Where it’s just like, “Oh, it’s more British and he’s angry.” I don’t like this. I don’t like Britain. Get me away.
Melissa: [in a British accent] It’s British.
Kat: I happen to like everything British. So…
Eric: Okay.
Melissa: [laughs] Gee, Kat, do you like this book?
Kat: I do. I do.
[Melissa laughs]
Kat: Okay, so then as they’re fighting about the sound and why Harry is lurking under the window, we get our first little bit of sassy Harry. And I just have to say that I approve, very much. I enjoy the, “Listening to the news again?” “Well it changes, every day, you see.”
[Caleb and Melissa laugh]
Eric: I don’t…
Kat: And I just think it’s brilliant.
Eric: I don’t approve, at all…
Kat: I’m sorry. I don’t care if you don’t approve.
[Melissa laughs]
Eric: Harry commits real atrocities in this chapter. It’s not genocide, but he actively pursues Dudley – we’ll talk about this later – but basically the way that Jo makes this okay, makes Harry’s behavior okay – in this whole… in this chapter at least, let’s just keep it grounded – is by giving Harry the absolute best lines ever, that he’s ever had. And they’re so funny, you just have to laugh. And that somehow supposed to make it okay to the readers.
Melissa: What is he doing bad?
Eric: That he’s picking on people. It’s like he has the coolest lines…
Kat: He’s not…
Melissa: Is Harry picking on people here?
Eric: Dudley.
Caleb: Whoa.
Eric: I mean…
Melissa: Yeah…
Eric: Vernon…
Melissa: Dudley’s had it coming.
Eric: Vernon…
Kat: Not here.
Melissa: Vernon’s also had it coming.
Caleb: Yes.
Kat: Yeah.
Eric: They all have it coming which is why we root for him.
Melissa: Right.
Eric: But it still – this sassy Harry – it makes me a little uneasy is all.
Caleb: I don’t know about that…
Kat: Are you telling me that you wouldn’t say that to somebody?
Eric: I’m saying, no, if I had that line in my head, it’s a great line. But it’s almost… we were talking earlier about how Harry’s not very perceptive. He looks at the front page of the news and throws it down when everything’s hidden in between the words. The same thing applies to his dialogue. He has never been this sharp. He’s never been this cool.
Melissa: Well, but that’s… he’s growing up. And what I loved… when this started to come out, honestly, the first thing that I loved about this book was Dark Humor Harry and the sharp contrast it draws to Bright Humor Ron.
Kat: Mhm.
Eric: Mmm.
Melissa: Ron’s humor is just light, and hilarious and it’s…but Harry’s almost funnier. But it’s always dark, and sarcastic and it’s got that edge…
[Eric laughs]
Caleb: Love it.
Melissa: You know?
Eric: Yeah.
Melissa: And it was like, wow, Harry you can be funny. Awesome.
[Eric laughs]
Melissa: And I think it also helps you a little bit with the fact that he… dude’s a moody teenager, he’s not fun to be around. Maybe we can enjoy some of the things he’s saying on a wit level. [laughs] But yeah, I don’t think she’s excusing… I don’t think she’s saying he’s acting like a great guy right now. But I think we can understand why he is acting the way he is acting.
Eric: Mhm.
Kat: I like it, I approve. Just to completely reiterate.
[Eric and Melissa laugh]
Melissa: Kat’s line every time. “I like it, I approve.”
Eric: It’s in this document, all caps, “Kat approves.”
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: It is, it’s true.
Melissa: It’s every other line, “Kat approves.”
Eric: I’m surprised you didn’t develop a seal of approval to just paste as an image in this document. You should do that for that for this book.
Kat: I will.
[Eric laughs]
Kat: And editors, come up with a sound. [makes whipping noise] Or something…
[Eric imitates whipping noise]
Kat: And that’s going to happen every time… Kat approves.
[Sound of thud and cat yowling]
Eric: A stamp sound.
Kat: Yeah, and we never use sound effects, but I feel like, for some reason, it’s appropriate. So…
Eric: Oh, great.
Kat: Yeah.
Eric: Well, it’s a new book. Bold new territory.
Kat: It is bold new territory. [laughs] So Harry knows. So we’ve got stuff here from Aunt Petunia. She’s saying, “I don’t believe you. I know the owls are bringing you news. I know you are up to something funny.” And we know they don’t get along. Okay, I know that. Let’s put that aside. Why has Harry never thought to talk to Petunia before? Not necessarily about how he’s feeling or anything. But just to… how has it never slipped out, I guess, in front of her? He knows that she grew up with Lily and that she must haven been exposed to the wizarding world in some way. Did he just never think of it, or care to think of it, or what? Putting their crappy relationship aside.
Caleb: I just don’t think she’s ever really opened herself up for Harry to even consider it.
Kat: Mmm.
Melissa: Maybe he tried a couple of times and got denied.
Eric: Mmm.
Kat: I would hope so.
Melissa: Also, it wouldn’t make a good book.
[Eric and Kat laugh]
Kat: No, I mean, obviously true.
Eric: We have to believe… because of the way the Dursleys leave Harry, because that scene has to happen. It’s just like you have to accept the possibility, or the rationale, that they never were that close and she never gave Harry a chance. Otherwise it wouldn’t have happened.
Kat: The way the Dursleys leave Harry, you mean at the end?
Melissa: In [Book] 7.
Eric: In [Book] 7.
Kat: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah.
Kat: So you think she was setting that up the whole time?
Eric: Yeah, I think so. Because I think there is another opportunity about Dudley, I mention that again. But, I think there is an opportunity for Harry to get closer to the Dursleys, but I think, in the summer months, ever since he’s got Hogwarts to keep his morals high, he doesn’t try almost as much. Because this is like, “I have to get through my summer and then I get to be with my friends.” It’s really just like, “Ah man, the relations, and they were so mean to me as a kid.” He is kind of moody, and when he’s fighting with Vernon, too, I’m thinking the same thing like, “Okay, this is how a teenager fights with their guardian, I guess, in a way.”
Kat: Mhm.
Eric: It’s defiant. It’s very defiant.
Kat: I think the funniest thing about what you just said is the fact that you think Hogwarts keeps Harry’s morals high.
[Eric and Melissa laugh]
Eric: Oh, I must have meant something different. His happiness, his mood.
Kat: Okay. That makes more sense. That makes more sense.
Melissa: Oh, yeah.
Eric: I’m terribly sorry.
Kat: It’s okay.
Eric: Thanks for paying too close attention to this.
[Melissa laughs]
Kat: As always.
Eric: When I use long words it just screws everything up.
Caleb: Kat, your Ravenclaw is showing.
Kat: I know, my Ravenclaw is showing. I know. Okay, so as we talked about before, it mentions that Harry knows that somebody magical was near him, and we find out later that it was Dung. But I like the little theory that has come about – God, I don’t even remember when, at this point – the cat that was under the car, I like that that was a little lookout. I think that was funny.
[Eric and Melissa laugh]
Kat: No, I do, I think it’s really cute because my cats sit and look out for me. I don’t know.
Melissa: Moochka is totally spying on me for some secret cat organization, I know it.
[Eric laughs]
Kat: Exactly! That’s what I mean. Come on, clearly. So then Harry starts to think about what a crappy summer he has had, and how everybody is out there having fun without him. Ron and Hermione are together and they’re having this blissful, lovely summer. And his jealousy and, I guess, superiority- because as much as Harry wants to think he doesn’t think he is better than other people, I think he thinks he is a little bit.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: So is that Harry or is that Voldemort… having these feelings? Is it both? Are they influencing each other?
Eric: I think both and Harry and Voldemort separately are often consciously thinking about the graveyard, for opposite reasons. Harry is like, “That was such a traumatic experience. Cedric died, I survived this big thing, Voldemort is back.” Voldemort is thinking, “Hey, I came back and I let Harry slip out of my grasp again.” So the fact that the graveyard is in Harry’s dreams… that he is thinking about this constantly, almost, about how he prevailed and yet everybody is ignoring him… I think that’s the connection is that they are both… they were so impacted by that event that it’s on both their minds all the time. And so the scar, maybe some of it is because it’s transferring, like we learn in this book. But I think that’s really what it is.
Melissa: Yeah, I agree. It’s a huge moment in Harry’s life, it’s undeniable. And Voldemort, I mean, God, Harry Potter got away again! He failed! He’s pissed!
Eric: Yeah. If they were more aware – if Voldemort were more aware – I think he probably wouldn’t let Harry forget about it. Just to torture him more.
Melissa: Yeah.
Caleb: Yeah.
Melissa: Good point.
Kat: Sick bastard.
Melissa: Yes.
Kat: So then, Eric, this comment was specifically for you because of the discussion we had at the end of the last book.
[Melissa laughs]
Eric: Oh, great. I’m sure I have a rebuttal.
Kat: I’m sure you do, because of the discussion we had at the end of the last book about Thestrals. And so, Harry is having dreams about Cedric, and this is the acceptance stage of grief, when he is working through it and he is finally accepted the fact that Cedric is dead. He is dreaming about it, it’s dead, it has happened. So now he can see the Thestrals because he has likely been through the other phases as well. Not necessarily in order, as we talked about, but this is the point, I think, where Harry finally is over the edge of being able to see the Thestrals.
Eric: I don’t know. Saying that somebody needs to have dreams about it…
Kat: No, no, no, that’s no…
Melissa: He doesn’t have to have dreams.
Kat: He doesn’t have to have dreams.
Caleb: Yeah, you do have to come to terms with it.
Eric: Melissa, just to clue you in, I think that the thing is when Harry leaves school at the end of last year…
Melissa: He doesn’t see them.
Eric: Yeah, the horseless carriages are coming up the hill and he doesn’t see them. And we’re like, “But wait a minute, he has just had to recount his story fifteen times.”
Kat: No, you were like. To be clear. You were like.
Eric: Yeah, I was… oh, no it was me alone. It was me. [laughs] Sorry. Yeah.
Melissa: Well, Jo was coy about this. She said, “Yeah, I recognize that.” And she said, she’s made comments like, “Well, to explain that to myself I’ve said this is why.” She realizes it’s a bit of a hiccup, but it’s a fair explanation.
Kat: Eric does not accept Jo’s explanation.
Eric: No, no, no, no! No, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do. I think that the Thestrals are better placed to be introduced in this book.
Melissa: That’s convenient.
Eric: I just think she shouldn’t have mentioned the carriages. But that’s just a mistake. But that’s okay!
Melissa: No, because it’s not a mistake! Because she can’t start at the end of the book… the end of Book 4 is really not the place to start being like, “Oh, and by the way, there’s these monstrous things!”
Eric: [laughs] Exactly.
Melissa: Yeah. She could have avoided the mention altogether, true. But maybe she realized later, like, “Crap, I mentioned the carriages. Ah! Got to explain this.”
Eric: That’s all I meant to say.
Melissa: That’s part of writing, though. Nobody… it’s cool.
Kat: I choose to believe that it was very intentional, regardless.
Melissa: I don’t think that’s true. But, you know… I don’t know, I think she has said, “Well, to explain it to myself… this is what I said.”
Eric: Yeah, that’s… there’s a quote, we actually quoted it recently because it was part of our supplemental…
Melissa: And that’s what it was?
Eric: Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It was that it hadn’t really sunk in, I think is the word that she used.
Melissa: Right.
Kat: Right.
Melissa: I think that she recognized that it was a little bit shifty, but that’s…
Eric: But I think four weeks in isolation with nothing to do but think of Cedric? He is going through the steps like if he were on a treadmill.
[Caleb and Kat laugh]
Eric: Boom, boom, boom, they’re all down. And so by the time he returns to school…
Melissa: I don’t know, because it’s not about if you have isolation. The stages of grief are really more about the experiences that you come in contact with that allow you to process. I think in the status of the school after Book 4, after these events at the end of Book 4 where he’s trying to deal with this new reality that Voldemort’s back… his friends are all looking at him like he is this weird caged animal that’s just been let out. The school doesn’t know what to make of him; they all think he is going to explode any moment. Dumbledore is telling everybody not to talk to him. They go to this thing where he talks about it suddenly. This is not the best processing situation. I think the quiet time he had at the Dursleys’s to just be by himself and get his brain together was maybe a better area for that.
Eric: It makes sense. It does.
Kat: I agree.
Melissa: Glad I could bring you guys together on that. [laughs]
Kat: Yeah, right, exactly. [laughs]
Eric: I would say we met in the… well, we didn’t meet in the middle. I think we all came to an agreement that while it may seem like a hiccup here or there or the other thing, that the explanation is satisfactory, and it is what it is, ultimately.
Kat: That sounds like I won.
Caleb: Everyone wins and everyone gets a prize.
Eric: Okay, you won.
[Kat laughs]
Melissa: I see how this works now. Kat says one thing, Eric says the other, Caleb says you’re both right, it’s fine.
[Caleb and Eric laugh]
Kat: That does happen quite often.
Melissa: Does it?
Eric: No, no. I win all the other arguments.
Kat: No, no, uh-uh.
Melissa: So Caleb is Harry.
Kat: Definitely not.
Eric: Okay, okay, okay, let’s move on.
Kat: Fine. I’m a Ravenclaw, I like to…
Eric: We know, we know.
Kat: I know you know. Okay. So also as we mentioned before, Harry is begging for a fight here, with Dudley. Oh my God, I almost always call him Dursley instead of Dudley.
Melissa: Me too, I do that too.
Eric: Oh, you abbreviated DD. We used to do that for Dumbledore all the time.
Kat: I do, but you’re right, I didn’t think of that.
Eric: It never makes sense for us to abbreviate it…
Kat: How’s that?
Caleb: Dud.
Eric: … Dumbledore DD.
Kat: [laughs] Now it says Dud, is that better?
Eric: Yeah, that’s better.
Kat: Okay. And it just… when I was thinking about this moment, it just made me think about Tom Riddle and how he was picking on his classmates and stuff.
Caleb: Yeah, that’s a really good point.
Eric: But guys, here’s where I just have to say my piece for this chapter. Dudley does the right thing.
Melissa: Mhm.
Eric: Dudley walks away.
Melissa: Fair enough.
Eric: This is how you handle… this is how you’re supposed to handle confrontation…
Caleb: Because he’s scared of the magic!
Kat: Right. That’s the only reason he walks away.
Eric: Look, he even holds back on the Cedric scenario.
Kat: What?
Melissa: Yeah, whether you’re scared of the magic or scared if this guy has a gun, you should walk away.
Eric: Yeah. It’s how you handle this confrontation. Harry physically – sure, Harry doesn’t get into with the group, when Dudley’s with his group of friends. And he’s like, “Look at that, Sirius.” He points out the hypocrisy in Sirius and Petunia as well, with her magazine, and the couples who won and all that stuff. So he’s very angry. He walks up to Dudley and starts calling him out and starts saying Big D and this, that, the other thing, you punch ten year olds, blah, blah, blah. Dudley doesn’t want to get into it for whatever reason. He keeps walking and Harry keeps talking. He makes the jokes, like pig in a wig – not pig in a wig – pig who stood up, two things at once, all this stuff. He is verbally assaulting Dudley and Dudley is not having it. It takes Dementors and all the stars in the sky to go out, for Dudley to throw a punch.
Melissa: Can we just be clear, though? Yes, in this situation, yes, and that’s because Harry has a much bigger weapon that he’s scared of. Dudley goes around and beats up children. We cannot award goodness points to Dudley.
Kat: Right.
Eric: We are told that he beats up children.
Melissa: No, he does.
Kat: He does.
Caleb: Yup.
Melissa: He does.
Kat: Because he even mentioned that… yeah, he does.
Caleb: Because the group talks about it right before…
Melissa: Yes.
Eric: Well…
Melissa: Yes, good for him, for not provoking a fight that he is sure to lose. Good for him, for having a kernel of good sense in his brain.
Caleb: Yeah.
Melissa: But you go around and you beat up children? You get no points.
Caleb: I think the bigger problem that you actually pointed out, Eric, that I did not think about is that Harry spends a lot of this chapter calling out other people for how they messed up and trying to show that he rises above it. And while I don’t think that… I don’t have a problem with what Harry does to Dudley in general, I think. But I think that there is a flaw in the way that he’s trying to assert himself above these people…
Kat: Rationalize it.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: Really.
Melissa: Do we think, though… I agree that Harry is not being an A-1 individual here, but do we think that’s what the book is trying to say? I don’t think she’s saying that he is being… that Harry is being… I don’t think she’s condoning Harry’s behavior right now. She’s just showing what this hurt, tortured, terribly damaged kid is doing to try to deal with all this.
Kat: Yeah, me too.
Caleb: Yeah, I would agree with that.
Kat: That’s why I appreciate it.
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: Well, I remember being, again, fifteen and reading this book for the first time and just feeling so off about it. The one time where I felt that she was admonishing Harry and being, “That’s not cool,” is when Hermione says it, later. She’s, “Man, you’re really hard on us, Harry.” That moment, I’m thinking, “Okay, the now the reader is supposed to realize that Jo feels it’s wrong.” But in this early chapter, I feel like everybody’s supposed to cheer him on, and I didn’t…
Melissa: I don’t know. I’m not with you on that. I don’t think we’re supposed to cheer him on. I think we’re just supposed to be witness to the emotional phase he’s in right now, which is a really, really sucky one.
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: Well, it has to do with the best lines, though. It has to do with what he says to Dudley. And I’m thinking these are the funniest things. I wish someone else were saying them under different circumstances.
Melissa: Does a funny line always make you right? Or make you the person to root for?
Eric: I think it’s…
Melissa: I don’t think it does.
Eric: I think it endears the reader to you.
Caleb: I think, probably a…
Melissa: Yeah, maybe.
Caleb: … younger reader is more likely to react that way, Eric. But now, as older perceptive readers, I think it creates a different idea.
Eric: Yeah, definitely reading it now, you’re like, “Man, Harry’s in so much pain,” and you kind of only have eyes for Harry.
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: Because he’s in so much pain. But what he does to Dudley, I just don’t think it’s okay.
Melissa: It’s not. It’s not. The way he’s acting to Dudley is terrible. But that’s what she’s trying to show. He is itching for a fight. He’s frustrated.
Caleb: Yeah.
Melissa: He’s not getting any information. He’ll take it out wherever he can, and right now it’s Dudley. And if she had shirked from that, I think it would have felt less real.
Caleb: Yeah, and I think to do that she had to have Dudley hold back to show the reverse contrast of what usually is happening.
Kat: Right.
Eric: Yeah. No, I think it’s part of what makes this chapter such a good start to a book, and even if however I feel about Harry, however I feel about the book, the fact that she dove right into it. It’s not a gradual decline from niceness for Harry’s part. He is actively seeking out, actively taunting his relatives and people who are close to him. So the fact that she jumps right into it is actually very, very strong to do.
Kat: And also guys, on this time around… I actually just literally twenty seconds ago picked this out, because I clearly read right over this before. Mark Evans.
Caleb: Dear God.
Kat: The name that caused so much problems.
Melissa: Mark Evans. Oh, Mark Evans.
Kat: Oh God, do you remember that?
Melissa: Oh my God, do you remember the thing that she wrote on her website when that happened?
Caleb: Yup.
Kat: I do.
Eric: Yeah, she was really upset about it.
Kat: Someone have that? We should read it.
Melissa: Yes.
Kat: Do you want to read it since you found it?
Melissa: Sure. “What is the significance, if any, of Mark Evans? I couldn’t…” This is the poll question that everybody voted for her to answer. That shows you how popular it was.
Eric: I remember that.
Melissa: “I couldn’t answer the poll question before now because I’ve been making arrangements to take my family into hiding.”
[Eric laughs]
Melissa: “It takes time to arrange fake passports, one-way air tickets to Bolivia, and twenty-four hour armed security. Why should I resort to such desperate measures? Because after you’ve heard this answer, I’ll have to disappear for my own safety.”
[Kat laughs]
Melissa: “Now, before I get down to it (you can guess what’s coming, can’t you?) I am going to put up a feeble preemptive defense. Firstly, you were all spinning highly ingenious theories about Mark Evans, so I thought that you would welcome the chance to hear the truth about him. Secondly, I tried hard not to raise hopes or expectations by adding the crucial words ‘if any’ to the question. Thirdly… there is no thirdly. I’m just killing time. (Takes deep breath.)”
Eric: She’s hilarious.
Melissa: “Mark Evans is… nobody. He’s nobody in the sense that Mr. Prentice, Madam Marsh, and Gordon-Dudley’s-gang-member are nobodies, just background people who need names, but who have no role other than the walk-on parts assigned to them. (Checks that Neil has immunized the dog and that Jessica has packed her Gameboy, and continues.)”
[Eric and Melissa laugh]
Melissa: “I’ve got nobody to blame but myself. Sirius Black, Mrs. Figg, and Mundungus Fletcher were all mentioned in passing well before they burst onto the stage as fully-fledged characters, so now you’ve all become too clever, not for your own good, but for mine.”
Eric: Ahh.
Melissa: “The fact is that once you drew my attention to it, I realized that Mark Evans did indeed look like one of those ‘here he is, just a casual passer-by, nothing to worry about, bet you barely noticed him’ characters who would suddenly become, half way through Book 7, ‘Ha ha! Yes, Mark Evans is back, suckers, and he’s the key to everything!'”
[Kat laughs]
Melissa: “‘He’s the Half-Blood Prince, he’s Harry’s great-aunt, he’s the Heir of Gryffindor, he lives up the Pillar of Storge, and he owns the Mystic Kettle of Nackledirk!’ (Possible title of Book 7 there. Must make a note of it).”
[Caleb and Kat laugh]
Eric: That’s where that joke comes from!
Melissa: Oh my God. I love her. “Then why – WHY – (I hear you cry) – did I give him the surname ‘Evans’? Well, believe me, you can’t regret it more than I do right now. ‘Evans’ is a common name; I didn’t give it much thought; I wasn’t even trying to set up another red herring. I could just as easily have called him ‘Smith’ or ‘Jones’ (or ‘Black’ or ‘Thomas’ or ‘Brown’, all of which would have got me into trouble, too). What else can I say? Many of the theories you presented were highly plausible. If you knew how often I checked the FAQ poll hoping that one of the other questions might edge into the lead… well, that’s that. The car with false license plates is at the door and I’ve to glue on my goatee. Goodbye.”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: There you go.
Melissa: I love her. Those were good days, weren’t they? When she was just… ah, man. That website was awesome.
Eric: I was thinking, even though she doesn’t tweet basically at all, 140 characters is not really her style.
Kat: She’s been tweeting a lot more lately, man.
Melissa: She has, actually.
Eric: She embellished this so well.
Kat: She did.
Melissa: She has.
Kat: Oh, and I forgot to tell this story before. This is totally a random place to tell it. A friend of mine literally bumped into J.K. Rowling in London three days ago.
Melissa: That’s awesome.
Kat: Literally walked out of a store, J.K. Rowling was walking into the store, and literally bumped into her…
Eric: Yeah.
Melissa: I appreciate that.
Kat: … and was like, “Holy… you’re J.K. Rowling.”
Melissa: What? Did she say that to her?
Kat: No, I don’t… she said that in her head.
Caleb: I probably would have said it out loud.
Melissa: I would have said that to her.
Kat: But Jo signed something for her… and this is so cute. So Jo had glasses on and took them off and she goes, “Shall we find someone else to take the photo, or should we take a selfie?”
Caleb: No! Oh my God. My heart.
Melissa: [laughs] Jo said “selfie.” Oh, the world has changed.
Kat: Ah.
Eric: Well, Jo keeps up with all the words added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Kat: She does. I just thought… I was like, “Oh, she says ‘selfie.'” I don’t know. It was one of those weird…
Caleb: Oh my God.
Melissa: She does have kids. But still, it is.
Eric: I would have opted for a selfie. I know there’s ten million people in London, but I would have just been like, “I got a selfie with Jo.”
Kat: Oh, no. Selfies are way cooler. She took a selfie. They took a selfie.
Melissa: A selfie with J.K. Rowling is… yeah, that wins. Completely.
Eric: Oh.
Kat: And the picture is adorable. She’s wearing a leopard print scarf and she looks awesome.
Caleb: I’m surprised she was just out and about like that.
Kat: Yup. And my friend just happened to have a Harry Potter book on her.
Melissa: That’s hilarious.
Kat: No, legitimately.
Eric: Wow. Wow.
Kat: She was out shopping for… she’s moving to Florida in a month and she was out shopping for a new Hogwarts t-shirt.
[Eric laughs]
Melissa: Of course. As you do.
Kat: Right. Just totally… I didn’t know the level of jealousy went that far.
Caleb: Wow. Yeah.
Kat: Good story.
Melissa: That’s fantastic.
Eric: Where were we?
Kat: I don’t know. I’m sorry; that was totally…
Eric and Melissa: Mark Evans.
Melissa: That he beats up kids and it’s not okay, and he doesn’t get points for walking away from a fight he’s sure to lose.
Kat: Right. Mark Evans.
Caleb: There you go.
Eric: Okay, okay. [laughs]
Kat: I think we wrapped up Mark Evans pretty well.
Caleb: We have.
[Eric laughs]
Kat: Jo’s comment did, anyway, didn’t it?
Eric and Melissa: Yeah.
Eric: Well, I liked that she acknowledges that that’s one of her tricks, to hide names.
Kat: Mhm.
Eric: But that it just wasn’t the case and Evans is apparently common, so hey.
Kat: What year is that quote from?
Eric: Well, the book came out in June ’03.
Melissa: Right, but…
Kat: Must not have been that much long after.
Melissa: Yeah. It was probably right after.
Eric: Yeah. I’m thinking it was ’04 or ’05 maybe.
Melissa: You’re probably right.
Kat: Yeah. Okay, so Mark Evans. That’s done.
Eric: But good for Mark Evans for being cheeky.
Kat: Okay, so moving on. After Harry and Dudley have their fight and… see, Dudley does fight back a little bit here because then he starts making fun of Harry for having dreams about Cedric.
Melissa: Mhm.
Kat: So he is not innocent in this, Eric.
Eric: He really holds back. He really, really holds back.
Melissa: Also homophobic. Also that.
Eric: Little bit. Little bit of an overtone, yeah.
Caleb: Yeah.
Melissa: Not that we’re surprised, but…
Caleb: Totally.
Kat: Right, right. Not at all. But there’s this great paragraph that completely changes the entire tone of the whole chapter, and again, I’m going to read it. It says, “Something had happened to the night. The star-strewn indigo sky was suddenly pitch black and lightless – the stars, the moon, the misty streetlamps at either end of the alley had vanished. The distant rumble of cars and the whisper of trees had gone. The balmy evening was suddenly piercingly, bitingly cold. They were surrounded by total, impenetrable, silent darkness, as though some giant hand had dropped a thick icy mantle over the entire alleyway, blinding them.” Oh, just… oh, I thought it was amazing! I don’t know. Just because we’re having all this “fun” – it’s mean-spirited fun but it’s fun – with all the sassiness, the fighting, the back-and-forth, and then all of a sudden it’s very serious. Boom. The hammer is dropped.
Caleb: Boom.
Eric: I wish the Dementors didn’t come now because if we would have had to have seen Harry with the Dursleys over maybe the next seven days or eight days, none of you would feel… all of you would agree with me on this point of Harry’s behavior because he would have just continued to be brutal. If the book continued to show the next week in Harry’s life on Privet Drive, not have anything interesting happen to him, he would no longer be the hero of the story.
Melissa: But I’m not saying that he’s not brutal and he’s not wrong. I don’t think that’s the question. I just don’t think it affects how good the book is. I think it makes the book better.
Kat: Mhm.
Eric: I can see that.
[Eric and Kat laugh]
Kat: Yes. So Dementors, yeah. My point was about that paragraph; did anyone think that Harry had done that?
Caleb: Uhh…
Melissa: At first. I was like, “What is happening?”
Eric: Yeah. Yeah.
[Melissa laughs]
Eric: Harry discovered the – how many are there? – fourth Unforgivable Curse.
Melissa: [laughs] Yeah, right.
Kat: How to turn off the world, basically?
Eric: Yeah. He leveled a city block, I think, with his Dark Magic.
Kat: So of course, Harry very quickly realizes, probably, most likely what is going on here. And I thought it was nice that he actually tries to save Dudley. He says, “No matter what you do, keep your mouth shut,” [laughs] which I thought was kind of funny because is that really going to stop a Dementor?
Caleb: Nope.
Kat: No. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, that was confusing. It’s not going to, right?
Kat: No, definitely not, but I just thought…
Caleb: “Dudley, keep your mouth shut! Then they can’t kiss you and you might live!” No. Sorry, Harry.
Melissa: Maybe it is. Yeah, I mean, obviously the Dementor is going to overpower him, but maybe in the book, unlike in the movie, you really do have to open your mouth. It’s going to pry open his mouth, no matter what, but let’s just not take any chances. Keep your stupid mouth shut.
Kat: Right. I just thought it was funny that that was the one thing Harry thinks to tell him.
Melissa: I know.
Kat: “Don’t turn around!” I know he says, “Come back! You’re running in the wrong way!” But he doesn’t say anything like, “Think happy thoughts.”
[Melissa laughs]
Kat: Or “Keep running! Don’t stop running!” But no. It’s “Shut your mouth.”
Eric: You almost don’t want to think about happy thoughts because the Dementor would find them quicker, to take them from you. I mean, if you’re a Muggle, if you can’t cast the Patronus charm… you need a happy thought to cast the Patronus charm, but all your happiest memories are being sucked away, right?
Caleb and Melissa: Yeah.
Kat: That’s true.
Eric: In fact, don’t Dementors ingest happy thoughts?
Kat: Yeah, which is why Dementors have always been one of those points of contention with people.
Melissa: They feed on you.
Eric: Because they only leave you to wallow in your sadness and your terrible experiences.
Caleb: While they’re nomming on the happiness.
Melissa: They’re like a cause of depression. They’re not a result of depression.
Caleb and Eric: Right.
Kat: Yay! We all agreed on something!
[Caleb and Eric laugh]
[Sound of thud and cat yowling]
Eric: We all have stamps of approval.
Kat: Right, few and far between. So then, as I mentioned earlier, when Dudley punches Harry his wand goes flying… and I thought this was a great moment where Harry can’t find his wand, so he just says, “Lumos!” and the wand actually lights up.
Eric: Yeah.
Kat: And he’s not touching it. So do we think this is…?
Eric: Wandless magic.
Kat: Is this a freak thing? Does it only happen for Lumos? Does it happen for other things? How far away can you be? What do you guys think?
Caleb: This is tough.
Kat: It is tough. I don’t know.
Caleb: My initial thought is that it’s only going to work on these very, very low-power spells like Lumos, and the wand still has to be close and it has to be still a moment where it’s almost like adrenaline is going and that helps it happen still. I think that a lot of things are happening here and it’s very rare that it happens. It will only happen with these very low-key spells and whatnot and so forth.
Melissa: I think that also… J.K. Rowling talks a bit about wandlore and the sentient way the wands are and the way that wands connect to their owners, and Harry’s is particularly keen to him. It’s more than most other people because of the split of souls, because of the share with Voldemort’s wand, so now it’s double power… your wand almost does become an extension of yourself, and so when you’re in extreme need, yeah, your wand is going to react if it really has that mental connection.
Caleb: Mhm.
Kat: Like in the moment in Deathly Hallows where it shoots back at Voldemort.
Caleb: Right.
Melissa: Yeah. But it’s not something that you can will, I don’t think.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: And it probably wouldn’t, like Caleb was saying, work with any spell, super…
Caleb: You couldn’t do the Cruciatus Curse with it, I would say.
Melissa: Probably not.
Eric: Oh, no. I think maybe it was only Harry’s wand that would do this because he’s so connected to his wand and the phoenix and all that stuff.
Melissa: Probably.
Eric: It’s certainly possible, although… it’s cool. It’s like calling your phone when you lose it.
Melissa: Yes.
Eric: It’s like getting…
Caleb: Oh my God! Please let that happen!
Eric: Yeah, just having Lumos and your wand lights up. I mean, how cool is that?
Melissa: It’s pretty great.
Caleb: Or your keys.
Kat: [laughs] Exactly. And then I started thinking about, in this part with the Patronus Charm, why Harry can’t do it. Because this is the one spell that he doesn’t really ever have trouble with after he learns it. It just comes pretty easily to him. So is this Voldemort kind of spilling out again? The bad, the dark? Or is this just his mood?
Caleb: I don’t know. I feel he’s very… there are a lot of things going on. He’s thinking about Dudley. “Where is Dudley? Is he hurt? Is he going to be okay?” He’s not totally focused. It’s not just he and the Dementor. There are these factors going on and he has to really stop and think, “What is that memory that’s going to get the stag out?”
Melissa: Yeah, and his status right now is probably lower than it’s ever been since we’ve known him and he’s dealing with a death. All his good stuff has… he’s not hearing from his friends, his family has abandoned him, he feels really alone. But the stuff that he calls on to call up those great memories and to call up those bright Patroni… it’s not there right now, and so yeah, I totally buy why just he can’t do it right now.
Eric and Kat: Yeah.
Kat: I would agree. But of course, he does eventually get out the Patronus and the Dementors…
Caleb: When he sees Ron’s and Hermione’s faces, that’s what’s the happy memory.
Kat: I know.
Eric: He fortunately is able to remember… or he is able to forget that he’s mad at them.
Caleb: Yeah. [laughs]
Melissa: Yeah. Thank God, right?
Eric: He’s like, “I have friends! And they suck. But I have friends!”
[Kat and Melissa laugh]
Melissa: But they just suck temporarily. This will surely work out.
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, they suck temporarily. They’re always awesome.
Kat: Right.
Melissa: They just seem to suck right now.
Eric: People like me. [laughs]
Kat: Oh God.
Melissa: Gosh darn it!
Kat: That’s such a Harry Potter thing to say.
Eric: Yeah, gosh darn it. I know the Wizengamot later on is like, “Hey, you can do a full Patronus? What?” And so it’s still a big deal, but he did have a lot of practice all through Book 3.
Kat: Mhm.
Eric: In fact, if you were to take the incantation and do a find command and find out how many times it appears in Book 3, oh my God. It’s big.
Melissa: And by the end of Book 5, most of the Order is doing it just as well as him and it just gives you the idea, well, if people would be taught this correctly…
Caleb: Yeah.
Melissa: … it wouldn’t be so shocking…
Eric: Yeah.
Melissa: … for people to know how to do the freaking Patronus. You’d think a community that had survived the war – they survived – would put more focus on this…
Kat: Mhm.
Melissa: … but Voldemort did curse the job, so there’s that.
Eric: I think it really does go back to the government denying what happened happened. For instance, Dementors being placed at the prison. Well, Dementors did rebel the first time. They rebelled and now they’re just back at their old jobs, but really, if everybody…
Melissa: [laughs] Sorry! This makes laugh.
Eric: … if the government were smart, they would be doing the Patronus Charm.
Melissa: They’re back at their old jobs thing cracks me up. Like they’ve clocked in for their morning shift and…
Eric: I think Dementors must have a time card.
Melissa: [laughs] I like that.
Eric: But I think that they would teach the Patronus more regularly, more widespread, but the thing is it’s not good for a whole lot of other things. It’s super surprising that the Order has found this way to send messages via Patronus, but the… really the only real use is for, it’s for Dementors and Lethifolds, I think, is the one creature in Fantastic Beasts where it says, “Patronus is particularly good on this.”
Melissa: Yeah.
Eric: So it’s like a shield. It’s a shield guardian, but unless you’re in wizard prison, you will never come in to contact – under normal circumstances – you will never come in to contact with Dementors.
Melissa: Yeah. You’d just think they would make a standard defense – here we go again – a standard defense curriculum, which they just don’t have.
Eric: Oh, yeah. Well, no. It’s like when Harry, in this chapter, is trying to – is about to jinx Dudley and I’m sitting there reading and I stopped when I was reading and I pointed at the words on the page and I said, “Really? What spell is he going to use? What’s he going to jinx Dudley with?” Because he doesn’t really know anything or he does, but it’s in the background. I really wanted…
Melissa: Well, he knows it from [Book] 4, though.
Eric: Yeah.
Melissa: He… at the end of [Book] 4, he learned a lot of stuff, more than we even saw him use.
Caleb: Yup.
Kat: Point me!
Melissa: Yeah, Point me! I don’t know. Point me is a freaking great spell! I like it.
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: I mean, it is and I would use it consistently.
Melissa: We all do on our Maps app on our phone.
Caleb: Yup.
Kat: That’s true.
Eric: What is this?
Melissa: On your Maps app on your phone? That’s the Point me spell.
Caleb: Yup, that is.
Eric: No way.
Melissa: When you press the thing to show you which direction you’re facing so you can figure out which way you’re going.
Eric: Is that on Apple Maps? Or…
Caleb: Google Maps.
Melissa: Both.
Eric: Oh, no kidding.
Caleb: Oh yeah, that’s true. It is on both.
Melissa: It’s on both. It just has the little arrow.
Eric: I must not be using full… I use Google Maps every day. I must not be getting the full functionality.
Melissa: You need that tutorial.
Caleb: Silly Muggle.
Kat: Obviously. Okay, so we wrap up the chapter with Harry picking Dudley off the ground…
Caleb: Who almost gets his soul sucked!
Kat: Almost gets his soul sucked and Mrs. Figg comes up and she says, “Oh my God!” I put my book away because I don’t have the quote. She mentions…
Caleb: Well, Harry starts to put away his wand when he sees her.
Eric: Yeah.
Kat: Right. And she’s like, “I’m going to kill Mundungus Fletcher!” And it just…
Caleb: “Don’t put it away boy because…” And so that’s the clue, oh my God, she recognizes the wand. What? What? Why? What’s happening.
Eric: The wand…
Kat: Right.
Eric: … for what it is and she’s cool with it. She’s like, “Don’t put it away, idiot boy.”
Caleb: Yeah.
Eric: She says that.
Melissa: And Harry’s like, “I didn’t think I’d taken any hallucinogenic drugs today, but I guess I was wrong.”
Kat: Right!
[Caleb and Kat laugh]
Eric: The more you know! [laughs]
Melissa: The more you know. [laughs] Yeah, exactly.
Eric: “I’m actually high right now, whoa!”
Melissa: “The cat lady’s a witch, crap!” Even though she’s not, but that’s in Harry’s mind.
Caleb: Yeah, but you think… yeah, that’s a good point because I think probably most of us would have assumed right then that she’s just as magical.
Melissa: Right.
Caleb: We wouldn’t have thought the Squib route.
Eric: Mhm.
Kat: Right.
Eric: But yeah, by all accounts – and it’s a great way to end the first chapter of the book, again, because you get Figg, you get the same person who was mentioned the last chapter, the last book. So it does feel… in that way, it’s the biggest continuation point of the story continuing. Everything else is different, it’s changed a little bit and still cool, but what makes it feel real is that the story’s continuing and there are Dementors and he just did this spell that we’re all familiar with and we just know, it’s itching, the story’s about to blow up.
Kat: It is.
Melissa: Well, the next chapter is when she says, “That awful boy,” right?
Kat: Yeah.
Melissa: When everybody knew she wasn’t talking about James?
Eric: Yeah.
Kat: Yeah.
Melissa: Ah! So much good coming! So much good stuff!
Kat: There’s an entire book of good stuff.
Caleb: There is.
Melissa: Except for the Grawp chapter. You can’t… go ahead, Kat. Convert me on the Grawp chapter.
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: When we get there, I’ll let you know.
Eric: We have to have you back on for the Grawp chapter.
Melissa: I mean, it’s better than most books you will read in your life still. Just in the pantheon of Harry Potter, it’s low on my favorites list.
Caleb: I do have to admit, I do love Order. It is my second favorite in the series, but I always want to rush through things with Grawp whenever I get there.
Melissa: If it had culminated in a more satisfying way, I wouldn’t. I would go back and be like, “Aww, I missed all that!”
Caleb: Oh.
Kat: Yeah.
Melissa: But, yeah.
Kat: Fair enough. That’s fair enough. But…
Caleb: Hey, we did it! First chapter of Order!
Kat: It’s done! That’s it.
Melissa: Day-yo!
Eric: That was “Dudley Demented.”
Kat: Ba-dum-bum.
Eric: And speaking of “Dudley Demented,” that brings us to our Podcast Question of the Week, which is as follows. In this chapter, Dementors arrive in Little Whinging and both Harry and Dudley are attacked. While more information about non-magic humans and Dementors is revealed later in this book, we want to know what Dudley’s experience in this chapter was all about. Did Dudley relive a moment of terror from his own life? If so, what was it? Or was his attack simpler and did it really just involve cloudiness? So tell us your thoughts on the Alohomora! website and we look forward to reading them on the next episode. Hmm, very well, that is our first Podcast Question of the Week for Order of the Phoenix.
Caleb: Yes.
Kat: Yippee!
Caleb: All right, well…
Melissa: This was fun!
Caleb: Yeah.
Melissa: I haven’t done this a long time.
Caleb: That’s… yeah, thank you so much, Melissa, for coming by. It was a great discussion and it was great having you here.
Melissa: Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to see you guys this summer. Going to be fun!
Caleb: Yes, we can not wait.
Melissa: We have so many announcements coming, it’s just… we’re losing track. There’s a lot of stuff happening. So…
Caleb: Yeah, we won’t badger you about things going on, but just in general, how is the planning and the getting ready for LeakyCon going?
Melissa: Every year we feel like, “Well, we’ve got this. We’ve done this.” And then, we feel so stupid a few months in for ever thinking that.
[Kat and Melissa laugh]
Melissa: I mean, we do. We have the general gist of it, but every year we try and create the thing from scratch. You’re never going in to something that’s just like, “Well, this is how you do it.” We always try and follow the mood of where things are and where they’re going and create things, like a tailor made experience and that’s why we had the fandom “La Vie Boh√®me” from last year, which seemed to fit the whole theme of…
Kat: That was so dope, by the way.
Eric: That was great.
Kat: I don’t think I ever told you that. That was amazing.
Melissa: It was honestly… we were like, “Are we really going to get this done?” And about three weeks later, I saw Anthony. We were in New York and I just looked at him. I was like, “We did that!” And he just laughed at me like, “Yes, we did.”
[Caleb laughs]
Melissa: It was very, very… yeah. It’s one of my greatest achievements.
Kat: That’s how I sell friends of mine on LeakyCon. I show them that and they’re like, “Okay, now I have to go.”
[Eric laughs]
Kat: No seriously. No joke.
Melissa: That’s awesome. I just… so many times… LeakyCon is a very different experience. We’re not… oh, I’m about to do my whole pitch, but it’s not meant as a pitch. It’s meant as a bit of an explanation. You go to a lot of these conferences and the popular notion these days is that you walk in and it’s popular for a reason, it’s a totally valid business model, and this is not a slam on it, but it’s just not what we primarily do, it’s not what we are. It’s not what LeakyCon itself is about, which is you go in and you pay a certain amount of money for an autograph or a photo and that’s the crux of the conference and that’s great because you walk in, you know exactly what you’re going to walk out with, what you’re paying your money for if that’s the value that you’re looking for, but it’s not what LeakyCon does. But because the model of conference building has grown up around that, explaining this to people when we’re trying to get them to come is always a challenge. And so, what we do is try and explain how it’s immersive and how it’s… how the fans have a really fantastic experience and that video – that “La Vie Boheme” – I swear to God, just like you said, has been our greatest tool.
Kat: Mhm.
Melissa: I was just talking somebody today who I’m really hoping is going to end up coming and really wants to come and we’re just trying to work out schedule stuff and they looked at the video and they were like, “Wow, this is… we have to do… this is great.” [laughs] So the video that we’re talking about is the, we did a parody of “La Vie Boheme” with Anthony Rapp who played Mark in Rent and every person who was at the conference in a special guest capacity dressed up in all kinds of geeky paraphernalia and it was crazy.
Kat: Awesome.
Melissa: And so, that kind of thing certainly it’s not where conferences came from or what they usually do. We just can’t help ourselves. We have a stupid idea, we have got to do it. And I actually with my team, we’ve come up with quite, I think, a good one to do this year. So I don’t know about topping. I don’t think you can ever top that…
[Caleb laughs]
Melissa: … or I don’t know what topping looks like, but I think that what we’re planning for the opening this year is going to be something special if we can get it done. And Book 5 is relevant to it, I’ll say that.
Caleb: Ooh!
Kat: Oh!
Eric: Ooh!
Caleb: Perfect.
Kat: I’m in! What can I do? I’m in.
[Caleb laughs]
Eric: We’ll be in the middle of Book 5.
Caleb: We will be.
Melissa: Ah!
Eric: It’s… so LeakyCon, July 30? July 31 through August 3?
Melissa: Neville’s birthday through Ester’s birthday.
Eric: Neville’s birthday? It’s somebody else’s birthday too, isn’t it?
Melissa: July 30, but…
Caleb: July 30, yeah.
Eric: Ah, there you go. July 30 to August 3.
Melissa: Neville never gets the press, man. He never gets the press.
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: He should. He should.
Melissa: Oh yeah.
Eric: Well, as we mentioned, we have plenty… we have a weekly show, so many weeks between now and LeakyCon. To find out how you can be on the show just like Melissa, well, start your own conference.
[Caleb and Melissa laugh]
Kat: There it is!
Eric: Be webmistress of… be your own international bestseller.
Kat: Write a book. That’s right, yup.
Eric: Yeah, but of course, it’s much less difficult except you do need to go to the “Be on the Show” page at alohomora.mugglenet.com. You can read the list of requirements there. You’ll need some audio equipment and that sort of thing to record your track. All the simple stuff and it’s all listed, once again, at alohomora.mugglenet.com – or click on “Be on the Show.”
Kat: In the meantime, if everyone out there listening just wants to keep in touch with us, you can find us on Twitter at @AlohomoraMN, facebook.com/openthedumbledore, on Tumblr at mnalohomorapodcast. Of course, our phone number, 206-GO-ALBUS, 206-462-5287. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes. And follow us on Snapchat, MN_Alohomora and Audioboo, the ever trusty Audioboo, at alohomora.mugglenet.com. All you need is headphones, an Internet connection. Leave us a message for free and you might hear it on the show.
Caleb: So after you’ve left us an Audioboo, make sure to check out our store because no matter if it’s really cold like where it is for Eric or really hot like it is for me or somewhere in between, there are things that you can check out. [laughs]
Eric: 88 degrees.
Caleb: We have T-shirts, tote bags, sweatshirts, flip-flops, water bottles, travel mugs, and so much more. There are over 80 products to choose from. Also, something else you can check out that is totally free are ringtones that are based on the music we play for the show and those are available on our website.
Eric: And of course, finally, we have the Alohomora! app, which is available for OS and Android. It is available seemingly worldwide, prices vary. On that app you can find transcripts, bloopers, alternate endings, host vlogs, and more and with the release of this episode, I will be getting nostalgic with everybody.
Kat: Woo-hoo, that sounds fun.
Caleb: Can’t wait.
Eric: Start of a new book. So it’s the big one.
[Show music begins]
Eric: Once again, I’m Eric Scull.
Caleb: I’m Caleb Graves.
Kat: And I’m Kat Miller. Thank you for listening to Episode 78 of Alohomora!
Caleb: Open the Dumbledore!
[Show music continues]
Eric: … comes up with and it’s so powerful. And people mention that later… sorry, one second. My Radium is doing this thing.
[Kat laughs]
Eric: Wait for it.
[Sound of thud and cat yowling]
[Kat laughs]
