Transcript – Episode 8
[Show music begins]
Noah Fried: This is Episode 8 of Alohomora!, for July 29th, 2012.
[Show music continues]
Noah: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 8 of Alohomora!. Regrettably, I was not on the last episode. I had to tackle a unicorn. My name is Noah Fried.
Caleb Graves: [laughs] I’m Caleb Graves.
Rosie Morris: I’m Rosie Morris. And this is Jessica, who is a moderator on our Alohomora! forums, otherwise known as wiseoldbaker. Say hello, Jessica.
Jessica Baker: Hello, everybody.
Noah: Hey, Jessica, can you tell us about that name? Where does that come from? I like it.
Jessica: Well, my last name is Baker, and a lot of people call me “Baker the Baker” because I like to bake…
Noah: Ooh.
Jessica: …and I wanted to be a baker. And then I had other friends who called me “The Wise Old Owl” because I like to read a lot of articles. So, I know a lot of random information, so when they ask me a question I usually had an answer. So, I just combined the two together and got “wiseoldbaker”.
Rosie: That’s cool.
Noah: It has a good flow. And didn’t you write a few essays for the main site, as well? Quibbles?
Jessica: Yup, I wrote “The Emancipation of the Sorting Hat” and – oh, I forgot the other one. It was about the little island they all went to in the beginning of the book.
Noah: Yeah, yeah. You were looking at – you were close-reading the shack.
Jessica: Yeah, the Shrieking Shack – or not the Shrieking Shack, but the shack on the water or something like that. On the rock.
Noah: If you actually check MuggleNet, we made your essay “Quibble of the Week” this week.
Jessica: Oh really? I didn’t see that.
Noah: We did!
Jessica: [laughs] Wow, that’s fantastic.
Noah: Yeah, just so you know, everyone should check that out. wiseoldbaker and many other forum-goers in Alohomora! have discussed the Sorting Hat and how Sorting works. We talk about that on every show, pretty much. But didn’t you say in your essay that we all have to kind of settle down and realize that the Sorting Hat is actually right, generally, with its Sortings? And we can’t be cross-Sorting characters like Hagrid?
Jessica: Well, I mean, it’s not so much cross-Sorting. It just seems like we over-simplify the Sorting situation. We always kind of break apart the personalities but pick out only certain things and throw them into that house, based on that kind of thing. It seems more complex than that. It just seems like – like with Hermione, everybody kind of says, “Oh, well she has – she’s such a Ravenclaw at this point.” But really, she’s mostly a Gryffindor throughout the entire story. Yeah, she’s intelligent. Yeah, she has that book smarts to her. But to me, it doesn’t seem like she really has Ravenclaw qualities, based off of what I read in the books. If that makes sense.
Noah: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I feel like people often go by stereotypes for all the houses, and too quickly.
Jessica: Yeah.
Rosie: We should all trust in the Hat.
[Jessica laughs]
Noah: It’s still an interesting conversation to have.
Jessica: It is.
Caleb: Well, before we jump into our last chapter of Philosopher’s Stone, which – it’s crazy that we’ve already made it through the first book. But we’re going to take a look back at some of the comments you guys gave us about our last episode, from Chapters 15 and 16 of Philosopher’s Stone. So, our first comment comes regarding the topic of unicorns, and this is on our main site from RahRahRavenclaw, someone who’s very spirited. And the comment says:
“I was just thinking in regards to the unicorns. I know it’s looking at the quote from a very superficial level, however the quote does specifically make reference to the lips – “you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips.” What if you somehow injected this into a person? I know it seems really far-fetched but I’m interested to see what others think about the idea. If it never physically ‘touches’ your lips, would you still be cursed? What if you took blood from a unicorn without killing it?”
Noah: Yeah, I thought that was a great thought, and many people talked about that in the forums. And it’s what I was thinking about when I was actually listening. Didn’t Kat bring up that if you didn’t slay the unicorn, could you still drink the blood if it was just dead and you found it? Would you still be cursed?
Caleb: Yeah, she did. And actually, someone else from our forums – the username is ZeoRegrediens – says that:
“I think there is something about actually consuming the blood, taking the essence of something so pure into your body in such a way, that curses you. So, even if you put the unicorn out of its misery – maybe the slaying in that case wouldn’t have a negative effect on you, but I feel that drinking its blood would.”
Noah: Well, that’s just a lot of blood to waste if it’s dead, you know?
Rosie: But I think the RahRahRavenclaw comment was about, what if the blood wasn’t ingested? What if it was injected? So, if someone else with a syringe injected you with the blood, would you still be cursed?
Noah: Or would the injector be cursed?
Caleb: I don’t think the injector could be cursed because the blood never touches them. I guess the question is, does the blood have enough – for lack of a better word – magic about it to know the intent of that person being injected?
Noah: And if the curse lies with the intent or with the actual ingestion. But it seems to me that something like this that has such magical properties – I mean, we already know about dragons’ blood, and it has many uses. Why isn’t there a similar study done with unicorn blood? I guess we don’t know enough about that. But I guess – what I’m asking is, why are unicorns held to a higher standard than dragons? It seems like we’re fine using dragons’ blood.
Jessica: I think the thing is is nobody has a problem really taking blood from a dragon, but a unicorn – since it is representing that kind of purity – people are probably not willing to go up and try to kill it to study the blood.
Noah: Because it has this curse attached?
Jessica: Well, not even just that. Maybe it’s just something that’s symbolic in the sense of, why would you kill something innocent for the sake of science when you can just take for the fact that if you touch the blood, you get the kind of life that’s cursed or whatever? But to kill it, just to study it, they probably just have that ethic against it.
Noah: Possibly.
Rosie: Yeah, it’s a creature of purity and it’s really respected, so you wouldn’t want to kill it or injure it in any kind of way, with the curse or without it.
Noah: Do you guys notice that there’s so much connection to purity and blood throughout the entire series? Even at the end of the last chapter that we’re going to finish today, I believe that there’s some mention of the fact that Harry is so good, and because he is so good Quirrell can’t touch him. And we know that’s because of the love that’s in Harry’s blood. So, there’s kind of a sense that Harry is also this very pure creature – or at least Dumbledore says so – and somehow Harry’s blood is symbolic also with the unicorn. It’s pure and there are dark forces after it, or after its blood. So, Harry is a unicorn.
Caleb: There it is.
[Jessica and Noah laugh]
Rosie: If only we knew.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Yeah, that’s a good point, and also because of the fact that – and we’ll talk about this in other books – but how Dumbledore sort of has to sacrifice this pure creature too, is definitely something to think about.
Noah: Right. Or maybe he doesn’t quite know yet because I think he doesn’t realize about Horcruxes until the diary in Chamber of Secrets, but…
Caleb: Yeah, yeah, that’s true.
Noah: …at a certain point, he will kind of decide to sacrifice Harry for the greater good.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: Next comment?
Caleb: Yeah, thank you guys for those. Those were definitely interesting. The next comment comes regarding werewolves and wizards and unicorns. And this comes from our forums from Phoenix and it’s more on Rosie’s triangle paradox, so the idea that unicorns are greater than werewolves, werewolves are greater than wizards, and wizards are greater than unicorns. The user says:
“I agree that this is confusing, and a very good observation, too! But I think the paradox is solvable if you assume that it is not the same kind of magic that is required to deal with unicorns and werewolves. Do we know anything about how you catch a unicorn? Maybe you can corner it or lure it into a trap? I’m sure it’s something along those lines, since Quirrell seems to be brainy rather than sporty. When dealing with a werewolf, however, the last thing you want to do is corner it. Your best chance is to get away from it, whereas with the unicorn, you have a more or less infinite number of tries – the worst thing it can do is escape. Also, since werewolves are better acquainted with humans, maybe they can anticipate the moves of a wizard better than a unicorn can? In any case, I’m going to play a wizard version of rock-paper-scissors from now on!”
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: It’s definitely going to be a fun game.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: I want to work out the hand movements for it.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Noah: Can we quickly recap? I wasn’t on the last episode. What is the correlation between unicorn, werewolf, and wizard?
Rosie: Sure. I was just wondering, because Hagrid says that he’s never known a unicorn to be injured before, and obviously we see that Quirrell has somehow managed to capture and injure this unicorn. But we also hear, I think it’s Draco saying that – it was something about werewolves, and the fact that werewolves were faster than wizards, but wizards can somehow capture a unicorn, so if they were faster than a unicorn – but the unicorn would be faster than the werewolf.
Noah: Right.
Rosie: So, it was like a whole speed thing.
Noah: Well, wouldn’t you say that Quirrell is kind of not your average wizard? And if Hagrid hasn’t seen it, then probably wizards at large, in general, can’t catch unicorns, especially since they’re so mystical and wispy.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: So, [laughs] maybe Quirrell was influenced maybe by Voldemort’s powers in that section and he was able to move faster than your average wizard.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Yeah, I would say so. I think that’s the exception here, with Quirrell.
Rosie: But I think that is kind of the opposite of what Phoenix is saying. Phoenix is saying that you need to be fast to escape from the werewolf, but you need to be brainy and you need to be clever to capture a unicorn. Kind of outsmart it.
Noah: Oh, I see. I see. Yeah, if we want to spin off a bunch of different games and stuff, that’s pretty cool. I mean, “Rock, Paper, Scissors” is pretty boring.
[Caleb, Jessica, and Rosie laugh]
Noah: As we know.
Rosie: So, we now have “Werewolves, Wizards, Unicorns” as our new version of it.
Noah: Lovely.
Rosie: Let’s see you all playing it at LeakyCon.
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Yeah, I’m still thinking about the symbols for this game. I guess a unicorn can just be a finger.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: You know, for the horn.
[Jessica and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: What about werewolves then?
Rosie: But that could equally be a wizard wand.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: A werewolf is like one hand on top of another, kind of going like, “Rawr!” I know you can’t see it, nobody can see it, but it looks great.
Rosie: [laughs] Maybe they need to be like whole body positions, so a werewolf will be claws…
Caleb: Oh my gosh. Yes!
[Jessica laughs]
Rosie: …a wizard would be a wand, and a unicorn would be a horn.
Caleb: Make this game full-body activity, yes.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: You just represent the actual creature with your whole body. Yes.
[Jessica, Noah, and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: This is what we are going to play at LeakyCon.
[Jessica and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: I can promise you that.
Noah: Oh man.
Caleb: All right, before we get any more crazy ideas on that.
[Jessica and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Regarding our discussion last week around drinking – [laughs] which mostly came up with Hagrid, as per the usual – this comment comes from the main site and it is from nb_potternerd, and it says:
“What is the drinking age in the wizarding world? We know that Butterbeer is alcoholic because Winky gets drunk off of it in ‘Goblet of Fire’, yet students frequently drink Butterbeer. I always assumed there was no drinking age, as the wizarding world is very old fashioned. Only the stronger drinks, like Firewhisky, have a set age.”
Rosie: I don’t think Butterbeer is…
Noah: Well, I think Rosie – yeah.
Rosie: Butterbeer isn’t alcoholic. If it is, it’s like ginger beer or root beer.
Noah: It’s enough such that Winky can get drunk on it…
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: …later on in the series.
Rosie: But not a human or a wizard.
Noah: Rosie, does that make sense? Are there drinks in the U.K. that are maybe slightly alcoholic but are such that anybody can drink them?
Rosie: I guess, like I was saying, ginger beer and I guess to an extent very weak ciders, but not really. I don’t think Butterbeer is meant to be alcoholic to humans.
Noah: So then, do we think the wizarding world is just a bit more alcoholic than the Muggle World? For whatever reason?
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: I think so. I think they are a bunch of old put backs.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Yeah, they are putting a lot back.
Rosie: But we only ever see the young people drinking Butterbeer when everyone else gets Firewhiskey and all the stronger drinks. So, I always just assumed that there was a drinking age and that Butterbeer didn’t count, because isn’t Ron really excited about being able to get Firewhiskey from the…
Noah: The Hog’s Head.
Rosie: The Hog’s Head, because it’s not a very reputable establishment.
[Rosie and Caleb laugh]
Noah: All right.
Rosie: So, there is a moral aspect to not giving younger kids alcohol, which would make Butterbeer not alcoholic.
Caleb: All right. Yeah, that makes sense.
Noah: It would seem so. Or at least alcoholic for house-elves, but maybe they’re reacting to some other part of the beverage. I don’t really know, but…
Jessica: I always assumed it was the sugar in the Butterbeer. I know there is a disease where if you eat a certain kind of cracker somebody could get drunk of the sugar in their blood or something. I always figured that the same thing happened to Winky.
Caleb: Huh.
Noah: It’s possible. And if you have gone to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Butterbeer is very sugary.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Hmm.
Rosie: Isn’t it cream soda or something in Butterbeer that makes it? In Muggle Butterbeer, at least.
Noah: Cream soda, caramel, various sugars…
Caleb: Is it good? I’ve never had it.
Noah: Personally I wasn’t a fan. Kind of tough to drink. But I bet ten-year-olds would love it because it’s so much sugar and stuff, you’re just like, [in a high-pitched voice] “Oh my God!”
Caleb: Yeah.
[Jessica laughs]
Noah: So, I can imagine the kids going to Hogsmeade – they love their Butterbeers.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: But you kind of have to – very, very sweet.
Caleb: Hmm. Yeah.
Noah: Not for the house-elf hearts.
[Jessica and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Clearly. At least not Winky, because that girl’s going nutso all the time with hers.
[Jessica laughs]
Caleb: All right. So, our next comment comes from our newest way for you guys to get in touch with us. It is through our phone number, and someone who left a voicemail. So, we’re going to go ahead and play that now.
[Audio]: Hey guys, this is Patrick from Omaha, Nebraska, and I just wanted to say that on your last episode, Episode 7, you guys were talking about Filch, and it was in context of him sending them off to the forest and all that stuff, and just how in general he is just a pretty bad dude. But I think you guys are sort of approaching it from the standpoint that he is, I don’t know, sort of jealous of the people with magic and all that stuff. But I actually think that, if you look at the way Filch acts throughout the whole series – yes, there are times when he obviously is supporting of the Dark Arts and Snape and all that stuff when Snape takes over the school, but I think also – possibly think of it as, maybe he is coming at it from the perspective of Dumbledore. Not necessarily Dumbledore, but he is supposed to instill, not necessarily fear, but caution in all of the first years and second years – and all of the younger kids, I guess. But maybe it’s one of his jobs to sort of instill a sense of caution and, I suppose, a sense of fear in the kids so that they don’t try to break as many rules.
Caleb: So, the basic idea is that Filch tries to scare the kids so that they don’t get into trouble, by being a real hard-ass.
Noah: Wow. Great comment, Patrick. That’s pretty cool. Yeah, just on that, I feel like it’s true that Filch does have that duty to possibly do that, but I think it’s more just his personality quirk. I think he is just a nasty fella, and he loves to threaten kids all on his own. So, sure he doesn’t want them to spoil school rules, but man, I think he gets some pleasure out of it too.
Rosie And if he is trying to just scare them into behaving, it doesn’t seem to be working very well. You’d think after years and years of trying that, you would learn that it’s not working. [laughs]
Noah: Yeah.
Rosie: He just doesn’t like people and likes to make people miserable.
Noah: Well, given students like Fred and George, I’m sure they kind of make his life relatively miserable at points too.
Rosie: True.
Noah: He wants to scare them when they’re young so that they won’t mess with him later.
Caleb: Yeah, that’s a good point. That makes me more interested in how past caretakers’ interactions with students would have been, if it would be similar to Filch, if they would have taken on that role in a similar fashion.
Noah: Right. I mean, we don’t know if they’re all Squibs or if Filch is unique in that way.
Caleb: Yeah, or even if they’re not Squibs, are they still hard on the kids like that?
Noah: And nasty. Who was the previous caretaker? I feel like we have that name.
Caleb: Yeah, it’s Apollyon Pringle. Yeah.
Noah: Okay, but we don’t know much about him, I’m sure.
Caleb: Yeah, I was thinking that was it, but I was second guessing myself.
Noah: All right, well Filch has a pretty tough job. Does he? What does he do? What is his role when everything can pretty much be magically maintained anyway?
Rosie: He seems to be just a normal cleaner, really, doesn’t he?
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: He wipes up mud and all kinds of potions and things that go awry. Yeah, you’d think you would just hire someone who could magically just get rid of it all.
Noah: Yeah, because even Hagrid seems to have a job where he is gamekeeper. Gamekeeper has its natural – it has regular routine missions I’m sure, but it’s not one of the most luxurious jobs. I’m not sure if Filch is even lower on the scale than that since his work doesn’t even involve magic, though I guess Hagrid’s doesn’t either.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: All right. Well, thanks for that point, Patrick.
Caleb: Yeah, thanks, and we’ll mention at the end of the show how you guys can call in and leave voicemails, but definitely do that because we would love to hear from you.
Noah: Yes.
Caleb: And our next comment comes – we have a couple of comments talking about McGonagall being so strict. We talked about this last episode with her taking so many house points.
Noah: Was that too much, Caleb?
Caleb: I think so. I was very upset as a Gryffindor.
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: But in our forums, Snapescape says:
“The only reason I can think of for McGonagall taking away fifty house points each is that she wants to set the bar high, to stop them from doing it again. Set a precedent in a way, so that the stakes are high in case they decided to go wondering or whatnot in the night again. She’s affirming her authority. Or she’s just feeling particularly strict, and her sour mood resulted in the big loss of points.”
Rosie: So again, exactly like the same idea of Filch scaring them out of misbehaving. This is McGonagall scaring them out of misbehaving in the fear of losing so many points.
Caleb: Yeah. And another comment that sort of takes it a bit further, from cassandra1447 on the forums, says:
“When McGonagall catches Harry, Hermione, and Neville, what if she takes that many points as a way of trying to keep them from wandering about the castle at night again? It seems like an excessive amount to take (plus the detention) but maybe that was the point. She could have wanted to make them very reluctant to venture out after hours again. After all, she knows a Dark wizard is after the Stone and night seems the most likely time for someone to be creeping about, trying to get to the Stone. And if she vaguely suspects it could be Voldemort or a Death Eater, Harry would be a very tempting target if he was wandering around.”
Noah: Yeah, I’d agree with that. She’s definitely looking after Harry and the group, because she knows that he’s getting involved. And then – I don’t think you guys mentioned this on the last episode, but remember the troll?
Caleb: Mhm.
Noah: The troll attack? I know that was months ago, but probably something that dangerous doesn’t stumble into the school very often.
Caleb: Yeah. Still on their mind.
Noah: Yeah, so maybe McGonagall was extra precautious. Maybe even if this is a few months later, because this year has been already kind of dangerous in a – maybe she’s heard whisperings from Snape and Dumbledore.
Caleb: Mhm.
Noah: So, in that way…
Rosie: It seems like an excessive amount of points.
Caleb: Well, I would definitely agree with that.
Rosie: Yeah. [laughs] I do think it’s probably a way of trying to stop them from doing it again more than trying to protect them. The idea of them not being out of bed when everyone else is asleep is, in general, just trying to protect them. It’s not just there to keep them in their rooms and keep them being quiet. It’s there to – there’s no one there to keep an eye on them because everyone else is asleep.
Noah: Yeah, of course.
Rosie: So, in general, they should be sticking to school rules, which are there for a reason. But the excessive amount of points is probably there as a deterrent.
Noah: And also there is the matter that we get the – that we’ve just been introduced to the house point system, and if this hadn’t happened then maybe readers of sequels would just think that the house points were only major in terms of the Quidditch games. And in classes they – you get a few deductions but they wouldn’t matter that much. Now we’ve seen that they can really be taken in large amounts, such that it can change everything. We really learn that the house system is very dynamic in this passage.
Caleb: Mhm.
Rosie: Definitely.
Caleb: Jessica, what house are you in, on Pottermore?
Jessica: I’m a Ravenclaw.
Caleb: And do you feel that’s right for you?
Jessica: Yeah.
Caleb: I was curious because – well, I guess we don’t have any Slytherins, but I was thinking if this happened to you, any of us, McGonagall taking away that many points, would it deter you from still venturing out and trying to be nosy?
Jessica: I think…
Caleb: I know what my answer is.
Jessica: I think I would still walk around and try to be curious. I’d just try to be a little more cautious than running around laughing in the middle of a hallway because I got a dragon taken away or something. I think it would just – I think instead of a deterrent, I think I would probably just be more sneaky. I’d try to get my ninja skills up before I go out and try to wander the hallways at night.
Noah: Bad for your house, Jessica.
Jessica: Yeah, I’m a terrible person. [laughs]
Caleb: What about you, Noah?
Noah: As a Hufflepuff, if I got caught, well I just wouldn’t do it again.
[Caleb laughs]
Jessica: My curiosity is too high for that. If I’m curious about something, I’m going to try to go out and figure out what’s the best answer for whatever peaked my curiosity.
Caleb: Hmm. That’s an interesting perpective.
Noah: What about you, Caleb?
Caleb: I would definitely still go around because – not for the same reasons as Jessica, for – curious to find an answer. I would go just because it seems interesting. Adventurous.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: And if McGonagall took those points from you, you’d sneak off and you’d find her.
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: That’s right, I would.
Noah: Yeah, I’m out of bed. What’cha gonna do?
[Caleb and Jessica laugh]
Caleb: Exactly. Sneak up behind her, drop something.
Noah: Crazy eleven-year-old.
Rosie: Ultimately it just teaches Harry not to forget his Cloak again.
Caleb: Yeah, that’s true.
Rosie: It doesn’t really teach him not to go out, it just – he needs to be more careful.
Caleb: I would probably mess up with the Cloak again. I’m too – I make too many mistakes easily. I would probably lose the Cloak again.
[Jessica laughs]
Noah: I mean, if you really don’t want points taken from Gryffindor, you might just have to take her out.
[Jessica laughs]
Noah: That might be your first move.
Caleb: Whoa, man. Chill out!
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: Student-teacher dating. No matter what realm we’re talking about, that’s not kosher.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: That’s not what I meant by “take her out.”
Caleb: [laughs] Oh, you mean like – okay, I got you.
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: So, now you make me look foolish.
[Caleb and Noah laugh]
Caleb: All right… [laughs]
Noah: Anyways… [laughs]
Caleb: Yeah. All right, so our next comment comes regarding the Potions riddle that Harry and Hermione have to get past, and it comes from our main site, from GingerRavenclaw. And the comment says:
“On the Potions puzzle on Pottermore, I had forgotten what the right potions were, and I didn’t want to cheat using the book. It took me a good 15-20 minutes to figure it out. I later asked my twin sister how she did it, because she hasn’t read the books, and I knew she wouldn’t try to figure it out on her own. She told me that she picked the two bottles she thought were the prettiest. They just happened to be the right ones.”
[Rosie and Noah laugh]
Caleb: I thought that was pretty funny. Also, you need to make sure you get your twin sister to read the Harry Potter books, because…
Noah: That’s important.
Caleb: It is. You guys have gone through the Potions riddle on Pottermore? Well, we talked about this last time, didn’t we?
Noah: Yeah.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: I feel like we did. But you weren’t here. So Noah, did you get through the riddle okay?
Noah: I think I kind of sat with it, and eventually I figured it out. It was a while ago.
Caleb: Okay.
Noah: Oh yeah. You know, hardworking Hufflepuff here.
Caleb: Right, right. I think I just clicked until I got it, probably.
Noah: All right, and now we’re going to move into our special feature dicussion from last week. It was the Unspeakables. We were talking about destiny and fate in the Harry Potter series, and how it mixes with the centaurs and the way they work. So, we have one great comment from the forums from SDA15.
“In your special segment section about destiny (which I’m still on the fence about fate versus choices), you guys brought up about the centaurs stepping up and telling the wizarding world about what they know, which got me thinking: would the wizarding world even take them seriously? We see the way Umbridge views the centaur (near human intelligence I believe is the phrase used) and we also see McGonagall’s views on Divination, which they aren’t positive. I could see a few ignorant wizards seeing what the centaurs and what Trelawney does is the same (which, they are kind of similar) and then not taking what the centaurs have to say seriously.”
Rosie: Interesting point.
Noah: Yeah, it’s interesting. I don’t know if you guys brought this up on the last episode, but the fact that centaurs are these half-breed creatures – they obviously are met with a lot of prejudice, I’m sure, in the wizarding community.
Rosie: They would not agree of being half-breed. They would be an evolution of humanity, rather than less than one. [laughs]
Noah: Yeah, that’s their story. And maybe they are, but they’re clearly not – they don’t have a vote in council in the Wizengamot. You know what I mean? They don’t have a fundamental role in society, as far as I’m concerned. They just kind of hang out in the forest. So, I’m sure Umbridge reflects this larger branch of people who probably do control a lot of stuff and keep them out of political control, just like house-elves and goblins.
Rosie: But then you’ve got the Fountain of – is it Fountain of Magical Brethren, I think – in the Ministry of Magic.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: That is a centaur, a witch, a house-elf, and a wizard, is it, I think?
Caleb: Yeah, but honestly, I almost would wonder if the centaurs – however much they know about it, they may think that it’s just some facade to put up for public sentiment, for the sake of politics.
Noah: Yeah! I bet that’s what it is.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: And I think this is why – what you’re hitting on, Noah, reflects – it parallels a lot of things in real life. How the subjected – these groups that are cast down usually only see those extremists that sort of push them down as the characterization of “the other,” and so that’s why they may be staying to themselves so much.
Noah: Yeah. And do you remember when Bane got so angry that Firenze had Harry on his back?
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: I think a lot of the reason that he got really angry is because they have been called “horses” and “half-breeds.” And they’ve been ridiculed, and it’s not right to do that because then you’re putting the human above you.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: And that’s probably very hurtful to the community.
Caleb: Mhm.
Noah: Whereas Firenze doesn’t even see any of that. He just knows that, “I have to save this boy because I’m going to play a part in his destiny.” So, speaking of that, back to the special feature and the choices versus the destiny argument – and I thought that was really interesting. And I know it kind of parallels what we’re talking about with Dumbledore in the episode before. Didn’t we say that Firenze is kind of different from the other centaurs in that he knows that a certain fate is outlined in the stars, but that on occasion you have to be the change? You have to go in and help things along? He seems to be like a heretic, almost, of their culture.
Caleb: Yeah, he definitely stands apart from the traditional, not wanting to interfere. He definitely – maybe he sees it as, there’s still an influence to be had without shaking things up too much to where you’re completely destroying “what the stars show.”
Noah: Yeah.
Rosie: And if you’re not doing anything, if you’re just watching the stars, then you’re not really living anyway. You’re just watching and observing other people.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: So, I think Firenze, by taking a role, whether it’s messing with what Mars is saying or not, it’s just actually living more, and it eventually gets him a job whether he likes it or not. And I think it’s just – yeah, he’s out there in the world and he’s being a centaur for good, whereas the others are kind of just hiding away and not really being centaurs at all.
Noah: Not really counting. I mean, it really plays into the determinism/free will debate. If you believe in determinism, you believe that everything is kind of set and ordered and there’s nothing you can do to change it, because every event is caused by another event. And we, as people, can’t actually influence much change. We can only be part of this sequence of events. So, that’s to me what a lot of these centaurs have kind of just accepted. But Firenze seems to be…
Rosie: But they’re not even really accepting it. Because if you’re accepting it, then you would just do it and just assume that it’s been pre-ordained.
Noah: Right.
Rosie: They’re just taking themselves out of both theories.
Noah: Ooh. That’s interesting. Because they’re not even taking part. What do you think, Jessica?
Jessica: I didn’t get a chance to listen to this part of the podcast last week, but what did you guys exactly say about the whole – what the centaurs thought on the prophecy? Or what they were trying to say was going on when they kept saying Mars was bright?
Noah: Did we touch on that?
Rosie: I think we were saying that it was – Mars is the god of war.
Jessica: Yeah.
Rosie: So, we were saying that Mars is bright, so war is coming in some form. And that they shouldn’t interfere with Harry’s life because he’s so obviously a figure of – a problematic figure, I guess, in terms of Voldemort coming back, and the war that’s already happened and the war that’s yet to come.
Jessica: Okay. Hold on a second, let me go find my book real quick.
Rosie: Sure.
Jessica: Because I think – I took a Harry Potter class maybe a couple of semesters ago. And I was going to write a paper on the centaurs, and I think I wrote some notes in there. What I’ve got written down so far was all the symbolism that I seemed to have found – well, at least I thought I found in the whole situation – because I think I sent in the recording talking about how I wanted to hear about your guys’ thoughts, and I totally didn’t even get a chance to listen to it yet. But when I tried to write the paper, I tried to look up what the astrological part of what Mars meant in astrology.
Rosie: Sure.
Jessica: And it wasn’t just war. I guess Mars means passion, death, rebirth, and obviously war. But also masculinity, and I think there was one more thing, but I can’t remember it off the top of my head. But I think what Firenze was trying to say to Bane wasn’t that he was completely wrong, but that he was reading the stars in the wrong way. Like maybe everybody thought that a war was coming, or maybe they were trying to predict that Harry was supposed to die that night in the forest. Like Quirrell was supposed to catch him, but Firenze came in and he knocked Quirrell away, and that’s when he took Harry and whisked him off.
Rosie: Yeah.
Jessica: If you look at Firenze’s description, I think they have him with long, blond hair, blue eyes, and a light brown body, like a palomino body or something like that. It could be symbolism, that not only did he just block off Harry from dying, but you can also kind of see him as an angel, trying to change the situation that was going on.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: Ooh.
Rosie: We didn’t talk about that at all last week, about the fact that he is a blond, a light-figured centaur. Whereas Bane is very dark. That’s definitely an interesting point.
Noah: Yes. Dark and aggressive.
Jessica: And then you could also see him as a split generation-wise, too. It’s kind of foreshadowing because Firenze is talking about how he’s willing to work with the wizards to stop the oncoming war, but Bane is talking about how he doesn’t want to do that. It’s like a big generation split, but also a foreshadowing into the future. The only way they’re going to win the war is if they all kind of work together.
Noah and Rosie: Yeah.
Rosie: Very interesting.
Noah: Thanks for all that symbolism, Jessica.
Jessica: You’re welcome.
Rosie: Definitely.
Noah: That was excellent. All right, so moving right along to Rosie’s Posed Question of the Week last week. Thank you for taking that on.
Rosie: That’s okay. I hope I did a good job for you. [laughs]
Noah: You did, you did.
Rosie: So yeah, our question last week was that, if Harry had listened to his teachers and trusted their skills in setting up the tasks to prevent the theft of the stone, would Voldemort have ever been able to capture it? Was Voldemort destined to succeed, or was Harry destined to intervene? Or was it all just Dumbledore’s influence and him interfering – so unlike the centaurs – that inspired Harry to act and face Voldemort in Chapter 17? So, these comments are all from our main site, all from our Posed Question discussion thread in the comments. And our first one comes from LumosNight3, and it says:
“I almost think it was just coincidental that Harry got it. He didn’t really have the intention of going beyond the trapped door to get the stone. He only wanted to stop anyone else from getting it. So, if there is anything about this moment that seems fated, I think it’s that Harry met Voldemort and got started on his journey to understanding their connection, and not that he managed to steal the stone right out from under Voldemort’s nose (or perhaps I should say out from under his chin since he has no nose?).”
[Caleb laughs]
Rosie: Good comment.
Noah: Well, I mean – we’re going to talk about it at the end of the chapter, but it seems as if Dumbledore planned for a lot of this to go down, actually, in answer to two episodes ago, the Posed Question of the Week. I think – I don’t think Voldemort could have gotten the stone without Harry, because it seemed that the mirror was specifically enchanted so that you can only acquire the stone if you only meant to find it. So, doesn’t that mean that Voldemort would have had no chance anyway?
Rosie: I’ve always wondered though, how – it’s not Voldemort looking in the mirror, it’s Quirrell, and Quirrell doesn’t want to use it himself, he wants to use it for Voldemort. So, is that not really answering that specific need anyway?
Jessica: Well, I think since Voldemort is attached to the back of Quirrell’s head, that probably influenced it a little bit.
Rosie: They count as one person, perhaps.
Jessica: Yeah.
Noah: Well, I think Quirrell – by using the stone, I think it’s kind of – we can say that by giving it to Voldemort he was going to aid in the using it for gold and for life.
Rosie: Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this now, though, because that’s all going to come up in…
Noah: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rosie: …our next chapter discussion. So, let’s move on. [laughs] But yes, going back to that comment, I think yeah, you can definitely see a fated moment of Harry starting his journey throughout the entire seven books. It’s kind of a mini version of his ultimate battle. So yeah, thank you for that. The next comment is from Lily Luna 7, and it says:
“There was absolutely no way at all Voldemort could have gotten the stone, not with the Mirror of Erised guarding it. I believe that Dumbledore realized this, and used it as an opportunity to set Harry up against Voldemort. However, I wonder if destiny can be thought of as the most probable outcome of events based on the choices people are likely to make. This would explain why the predictions of centaurs are usually accurate. Destiny is simply what will probably happen, and centaurs are able to read the planets and get a sense of that.”
Noah: I think that’s just a matter of definitions. I think destiny, in its defined term, is kind of like determinism. It is a set thing that’s going to happen. So no, I disagree with that comment.
Caleb: Yeah. I mean, I think maybe what would be more appropriate is how broad or narrow your view on what is fated would be. Is it a specific action or is it the general outcome and then sort of the events in-between – could be different or left up to whoever or whatever. Yeah, I agree with Noah. I think destiny at its core is what will absolutely happen. Just the scope may be a little different.
Noah: Yeah.
Rosie: Sure. Okay.
Noah: Thank you.
Rosie: Our next comment is MarauderRiver14231 – these numbers are getting longer.
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: The comment says:
“I think this can be paralleled to Dumbledore being the only person that Voldemort ever feared. With the other teachers and their tasks to protect the stone, it doesn’t matter to Voldemort. He’ll take on the other teachers all day. But Dumbledore’s task was designed to keep someone like Voldemort out, and I like to have faith that the magic would be powerful enough to keep Voldemort from retreiving the stone from the mirror.”
So, it’s saying that Dumbledore’s task is specifically designed to stop Voldemort, whereas all of the other teachers’ were designed to stop general wizards.
Noah: Well yeah, I think each task had a certain tribute that it was looking for, almost like a sorting test, in a way. You have to prove your bravery, your intelligence, your cleverness, your speed, and skills. So, each one can probably be narrowed down to – the chess was strategy. So, Dumbledore is – I mean, that task probably kind of tells us a little bit about who Dumbledore is himself. I mean, it’s all about going against your desire, doing – I don’t know, could we read something about “for the greater good” in that whole task of the mirror?
Rosie: Yeah, I think so. You’ve got all of these tasks, like you were saying, that kind of test skills, but I think Dumbledore’s really tests morality and tests…
Noah: Interesting choices.
Rosie: …who you are as a person.
Noah: Yes. And it cuts you really deeply because it’s your deepest desire, and as we know, Dumbledore has had to face his deepest desires and wants throughout his entire life. All right, so thank you, MarauderRiver.
Rosie: And our final comment is from – I think it’s meant to be Eule, E-U-L-E. I’m sorry if I pronounced that wrong. And it says:
“If Harry had listened to his teachers, he wouldn’t be Harry.”
[laughs] And I think that’s just completely true.
Caleb: Yeah. Well, that’s a good comment to finish up all of those responses from the Question of the Week. Thank you guys for sending them in. And we are going to transition into discussing our final chapter of Philosopher’s Stone, so I’ll kick it over to Noah.
Noah: Yup, “The Man with Two Faces”. Wow, we almost did it, guys. That’s one book down of heavy analysis.
Rosie: It’s gone so quickly.
Noah: Yeah. Do you want to think about the chapter title real quick? What did you first think when you saw that, “The Man with Two Faces”? I mean, you probably saw the chapter art – at least if you have the U.S. edition – and you can tell it’s Quirrell. But that’s quite frightening, isn’t it?
Caleb: Honestly, I think the first time I read the book, I paid hardly any attention to it, given the way the previous chapter ends. I was so anxious to keep reading to figure out what happened. [laughs]
Noah: Well, what do we think of it now, separate from what we’ll know? Two faces are kind of like good and evil.
Rosie: Two faces also is betrayal or I guess kind of a hidden identity, so all of that really works well with Quirrell.
Caleb: Mhm.
Noah: Yeah.
Rosie: It’s got so many different meanings and they all work.
Noah: Okay, so “The Man with Two Faces”. Harry enters the fire and we find Professor Q-Q-Quirrell. And he’s ready to destroy Harry and to get the stone for Voldemort, because we learn that he has actually been behind this the whole time. I know I had no idea.
Caleb: Nope.
Noah: Okay, so on page 291 we have Quirrell nervously looking at the Mirror of Erised. And we know that this is the last task and we kind of know intuitively that Dumbledore has done this, also because Quirrell says that, “Is this one of Dumbledore’s tricks?” So, what I want to pose to you guys is – think about the fact that Harry seems to know that if he looks in the mirror, he will see the stone. Let me bring up the exact quote. This is what Harry says in his head:
“‘What I want more than anything else in the world at the moment,’ he thought, ‘is to find the Stone before Quirrell does. So, if I look in the mirror I should see myself finding it – which means I’ll see where it’s hidden!'”
All right, so that’s the end of the quote. So, I was just wondering, didn’t Dumbledore tell us that the mirror can’t really tell us anything of use? So, how did Harry know that he would be able to find it, and do we think the stone was stored in the mirror? Where is the stone before it gets to Harry? There are lots of different questions we can talk about that, but for now, let me give you those.
Rosie: On Dumbledore saying that it can’t show us anything of use, I think that it does tell us something valuable but it depends on what your deepest desire is. I mean, for most people their deepest desire isn’t anything particularly useful. It’s just something kind of purely personal, and purely kind of all about them and all very kind of introspective. But for this, this is kind of Harry’s hero complex coming into play. His greatest desire is nothing selfish, it is something that is truly valuable and truly useful, and therefore the warning that Dumbledore gave earlier doesn’t really apply.
Noah: Right, and he’s able to see that he has it, or it kind of drops in his pocket. So, if he hadn’t been pure-hearted in that moment, not been such – so determined to do this, maybe it was the Gryffindor in him, he wouldn’t have been able to tell where the stone was. He would have probably just seen himself with his parents again. Now, do we think that the mirror contained the stone? Do you think it – where was the stone previous to him looking?
Rosie: We’ve got a great comment from the forums that actually tackles that question.
Noah: Oh cool.
Rosie: Caleb, do you want to read it?
Caleb: Sure. So, the comment comes from padfoot711 on the forums and it says:
“Maybe the stone goes from being vanished to being in the pocket of the person who only wants to find it? If we go into the scientific aspect of magic, like with deskpig…”
Oh my God.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: [continues]
“…we know that vanished objects go ‘into nonbeing. That is to say, everywhere.’ (Professor Mcgonagall). Based on this, if the stone was everywhere (i.e. the particles of it are dissolved into the air), it could just gather into Harry’s pocket from thin air.”
Rosie: So yeah, that theory is basically that the stone doesn’t just kind of magically appear, it – well, it does just magically appear. It’s not stored inside the mirror, it’s stored everywhere in that room, and it kind of magnetically pulls itself back together and into Harry’s pocket from the air, which I think is quite a nice idea.
Caleb: Yeah, I like that.
Noah: You guys don’t think it was actually stored in the mirror?
Rosie: No.
Caleb: I mean, I don’t know. I’m not sure I know for sure. This is an interesting alternative idea, but – hmm, I’m not sure still.
Noah: Now, how – here’s another question. That is interesting. Thank you, padfoot. Do we think that this – how powerful was the enchantment Dumbledore used, and how specific? Because we know he altered the mirror in some way so that it could do this. But could Harry have, say, looked in the mirror later and looked where the Horcruxes were located if he wanted to?
Rosie: When Harry is trying to find the Horcruxes, he’s an older and more complicated being, so he can’t focus his deepest desire quite as much as he does when he’s eleven. When he’s eleven, he’s really just focusing on the fact that he’s got this one, very simple task, and it’s to find the stone, and that’s his deepest desire. But when he’s older, his deepest desire is to defeat Voldemort and to kind of save the world, so he can’t focus in on individual Horcruxes and their placement.
Noah: Yeah, I’d agree with that, but what if, hypothetically, his deepest desire was to find the Horcruxes?
Rosie: Then he would see himself with all seven Horcruxes.
Noah: He wouldn’t see – it wouldn’t be like – he couldn’t see where they were located if his desire was to see where they were located? I don’t know, what do you guys think?
Caleb: Yeah, because – well, ultimately his – I guess is it his desire to find them, or is it to destroy them? Because those are two different things, so…
Noah: How about his desire to find them, to see where they were located?
Caleb: Then – yeah, I mean…
Rosie: I don’t think it works that way. That’s too specific.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: And Dumbledore used a spell specifically to – yeah.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: All right. Well, if anybody in the forums wants to continue this thread of conversation, we’d be interested in thinking about that.
Caleb: Yeah, for sure.
Rosie: Cool.
Noah: Okay, and one more thing about that scene in the mirror – and this was kind of coolly done in the movie, but it’s also in the book – Harry sees himself winking at himself and putting the stone in his pocket. Who was this winking Harry?
Caleb: [laughs] Yeah.
Noah: And where does he live?
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Yeah. I mean, that is – that’s tricky.
Jessica: See, when I read that when I was younger, I always thought about that whole parallel universe thing that people always play on when they do it in kid shows. Like the magic beyond the other side of the mirror or something like that.
Noah: Sure.
Caleb: Or maybe it’s – even though it’s Harry’s figure in the mirror, maybe in some ways it’s Dumbledore winking.
Noah: Ooh.
Jessica: That’s a good idea.
Noah: What’s Dumbledore doing in Harry’s body?
[Everyone laughs]
Noah: Yeah, but it is kind of cool. I was wondering, maybe it’s the personality of the mirror.
Rosie: Or the personality of Dumbledore’s spell on it, that…
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Which all of it, I would say, is a manifestation of Dumbledore.
Noah: Is a manifestation – yeah, I love that. Okay.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: That’s pretty cool.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: Then again, Steve Vander Ark would tell us that this is just the way magic works and we can’t quite read so much into it, but…
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: Okay, so we’ve covered quite a bit. And then – so Quirrell is doing a lot of talking through this whole scene. Harry is bound with ropes, and he’s trying to delay Quirrell as best he can, but then Quirrell says, “You, boy, look in the mirror,” because Voldemort has weakly kind of, [in a high voice] “Yes, yes, make him look in the mirror,” and brought Harry over. So, he sees his image, he finds the stone in his pocket, and then Voldemort wants a face-to-face talk with Harry. Quirrell unravels his turban, and we are faced with a grotesque image: it’s a pale white face, and with two slits nostrils for the nose like a snake, and we get our first look at Voldemort in the series. And I think we also get our first look at a Horcrux. Is Quirrell a Horcrux in a way, and what does that mean?
Jessica: I don’t know, I’d never actually thought about Quirrell being a Horcrux. I mean, if it was, then wouldn’t Voldemort have split his soul more than what was counted later in the series?
Noah: Well, if you think about it, the piece of soul that does infest Quirrell is already a piece of soul.
Jessica: Oh, that’s true.
Noah: So, just by virtue of going to a body and giving it – and using it. Being a parasite, that is kind of like a Horcrux. There’s actually a great quote from Pottermore, let me read that. It’s on Quirrell’s backstory:
“Quirrell is, in effect, turned into a temporary Horcrux by Voldemort. He is greatly depleted by the physical strain of fighting the far stronger, evil soul inside him. Quirrell’s body manifests burns and blisters during his fight with Harry due to the protective power Harry’s mother left in his skin when she died for him. When the body Voldemort and Quirrell are sharing is horribly burned by contact with Harry, the former flees just in time to save himself, leaving the damaged and enfeebled Quirrell to collapse and die.”
So guess what, guys? Harry almost killed Voldemort just there, if Voldemort had stayed in Quirrell’s body long enough for – because if you remember, Horcruxes – they can only live as long as their vessel is alive. So, if – I believe if Voldemort had stayed in there for some reason, maybe he was paralyzed while Quirrell died, I believe he would have died.
Rosie: Possibly, yeah.
Caleb: Yeah. So, that’s – even the Horcruxes?
Rosie: But I don’t think Voldemort in that stage would have escaped.
Noah: Well, he did. He did flee.
Rosie: He’s only a temporary Horcrux.
Noah: Well, temporary I think in being that he’s only…
Rosie: I think that the piece of Voldemort’s soul in Quirrell’s body is the remainder. If you think about shavings of a pencil, all of the – the actual Horcruxes are little bits of soul that are permanently attached to an object. What is left is the remainder which is, again, only small, and therefore is able to kind of latch onto Quirrell but is not a permanent Horcrux. It’s not like it has to survive – it has to be attached to survive. Voldemort is able to leave on his own free will and kind of…
Noah: Yeah.
Rosie: …exist as that part of soul.
Noah: Because it seems like Voldemort’s head, in a way, is here, I would say. You know what I mean?
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: His main – his mommy soul. [laughs] The mommy soul is here, the main one.
Rosie: [laughs] Yeah.
Noah: That’s a terrible term for it, but [laughs] – yeah, and that sort of gives him the ability to leave and enter at will I think, whereas the other pieces of soul can’t do that. That’s why they can – otherwise, if Voldemort – if the soul could just flee all the time, then you’d have seven different spiritual souls being able to kind of act differently.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: But it seems like he himself can become a Horcrux by taking his piece of soul and going in, so that’s very interesting. Now, as I was reading it and thinking about that, I thought of the fact that when he enters Quirrell he becomes a face in the back of Quirrell’s head. Do you think that’s because his spirit is – it has a physical – the physical match to that spirit is a face, or a head? And maybe the other pieces of soul are legs and arms, and…
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: …they have other kind of physical equivalents. Do you understand what I’m saying?
Jessica: So, you mean the soul is actually just a form of a ghost and it’s – he amputated each piece of the body and threw it into a Horcrux?
Noah: Yeah, yeah.
Jessica: All right. Yeah, I can see that.
Rosie: That’s interesting if you think about the manifestations of the different Horcruxes. But that’s a discussion to have in, I don’t know, [laughs] hundreds of podcasts’ time when we get to the right book. But…
Noah: Of Horcruxes, yeah.
Rosie: Or in the next book, we see the Horcrux as a – which I guess would be a bigger Horcrux than the others because it’s an earliest one, and it’s Voldemort as Tom Riddle so it’s a whole personality of a younger form.
Noah: Yeah, but – yeah, that’s true.
Rosie: Whereas other things are like – the locket is particularly – it kind of whispers at your insecurities, so it’s that kind of trickster part of Voldemort. It’s that bit that will see your weaknesses and really target those.
Noah: It’s possible that each soul is not only – maybe it’s a fragment of a body, or it’s maybe a fragment of his personality.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: We might find that each Horcrux is like a different personality of Voldemort.
Rosie: Yeah, that’s what I meant. Yeah, good. [laughs]
Noah: That is really cool. Yeah, so just bringing it back, I saw – why did his face look like that on Quirrell? Because I believe the line is – Voldemort, he says, [imitating Voldemort] “I can only take form when I enter a body.” [back to normal voice] So, the reason it takes that form that it does, this pale face with the slits for a nose, is because a part of Voldemort’s DNA is carried over somehow with his soul that is activated when he enters a body. So, that face would appear in that exact replica on anything, on any human thing it fused with, or at least that’s my theory.
Rosie: Yeah, that makes sense.
Jessica: Wow, that would be extremely creepy then if you took over a rat or something, and the rat’s face [laughs] morphed into his face.
Rosie: [shuddering] Ooh.
Caleb: Oh my gosh.
Noah: Or if it was a horse, and it was just like…
[Jessica laughs]
Noah: …the horse butt. One of the cheeks.
Jessica: [laughs] Like the horse’s eyes just turn into red slit-looking – oh my God, that’s creepy.
Noah: I mean, you could put it anywhere. You could just put Volde-face in…
[Jessica and Noah laugh]
Caleb: Volde-face. And there it is. [laughs]
Noah: Oh, I got you. Oh man. So…
Rosie: I can see the t-shirts already.
Noah: I’m just going to throw it out there. Thinking about living Horcruxes, we know that Quirrell drinks unicorn blood for him. Now, how does ingestion work between a soul and its carrier? How does excretion work?
[Jessica and Rosie laugh]
Noah: Go, Caleb. This is yours.
Caleb: No.
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: I don’t know. I mean – hmm. Well, I’m not going to talk about excretion, but ingestion, that – I don’t know, I guess it’s different…
Noah: As a science man, as a science man, I’m asking you the biological perspective. How would a parasite…
Caleb: I think it’s different because it’s magic. I mean, I think he’s not necessarily needing the nutritional gain of it. He’s needing the power of the unicorn blood. So – I mean, as far as Quirrell, I would say he’s probably digesting and so forth. At least relatively normally. But Voldemort is only getting the power of it that he needs.
Noah: Well, we can assume that Quirrell takes in the blood. We know he’s drinking it. And then that goes into his body…
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: …and gives the effect, and then Voldemort takes from Quirrell’s body, I would assume, that effect. Which, in very, very broad senses, just the way that parasites work.
Caleb: Mhm.
Noah: So, that’s kind of interesting. Living Horcruxes are very interesting because you have these two souls sharing a body. I guess because Quirrell has the head, as it were, of Voldemort, he’s there all the time. But we know that Harry has no idea, even though that there’s a piece of soul inside him, too.
Jessica: So, question here. If Voldemort is making Quirrell drink the blood, is Quirrell the only one that is cursed, or does Voldemort take on that, too?
Noah: That’s an interesting question.
Caleb: I would say it’s only – well, because we know it’s Quirrell that’s actually drinking it, I think it’s only Quirrell that gets cursed.
Jessica: All right.
Noah: But then Voldemort takes it, eventually, to strengthen him. So, isn’t it – doesn’t it still…
Caleb: Yeah, but I think it’s still like – he’s getting that as being part of Quirrell. I think that Quirrell gets the punishment for it, solely.
Jessica: So, Quirrell is…
Noah: Wow.
Jessica: …like the filter between the power and the curse of the unicorn blood for Voldemort?
Caleb: Yeah, that’s an interesting way to put it.
Jessica: All right.
Rosie: I think…
Noah: Voldemort, he lucked out.
Rosie: [laughs] I think that if Quirrell had been, maybe, stronger, or if Voldemort had kept swapping between people’s bodies, they would never have needed the unicorn blood. As the Pottermore quote said, “Quirrell is greatly depleted by the physical strain of fighting the far stronger, evil soul inside of him.” So, it’s Quirrell that needs the blood to be stronger and to still support Voldemort, but Voldemort himself does not need the blood, because he’s already living a half-life. He’s already just surviving in some form.
Noah: Well, I know that’s true, but are you sure, Rosie? Because I feel like Quirrell wasn’t necessarily near death, but it seems that Voldemort was using it to feed him, to strengthen him. You think it was to strengthen Quirrell’s body?
Rosie: Yeah, because essentially that’s what he’s using as him.
Noah: As him, oh yeah.
Rosie: He’s got the thoughts but he’s not actually – he doesn’t actually have physical form. So, if he wants strength, it needs to be Quirrell’s strength.
Noah: All right, I understand.
Jessica: That makes sense.
Noah: You know, StarKid really explored it in their theatrical piece.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: What it’s like to live with Voldemort on your head.
Rosie: Definitely.
Noah: That really happened. Quirrell had to go to the bathroom. Voldemort sat there…
[Jessica and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Oh my God.
Noah: [laughs] That happened, guys. I’m just saying. So, anyway…
Rosie: I’m sure he left the turban on at that moment.
[Caleb and Noah laugh]
Noah: [imitating Quirrell] “Don’t watch, my master.”
[Jessica and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: Whoa. Okay, we’re going to move on.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: So, then Quirrell/Voldemort has this piece with Harry. Harry says, “Never! I’ll never join you. My parents were brave.” And then Quirrell is burned alive, kind of. Harry latches on to Quirrell because he realizes that he has a form of protection which we know to be Lily’s love. And even though Quirrell knows that he’s going to die doing this or he’s endangered, he keeps going at it. Why he goes to strangle Harry first instead of using magic, I’m not sure. But at a certain point – does the wand fly out of his hand? Is that why he stops using magic to kill him? Or he’s trying to get the Stone, right?
Caleb: Hmm, yeah. I have to look, because I can’t honestly remember the wand leaving his hand.
Noah: For whatever reason, he – oh, this is bad. I have to remember, why does the spell not work? He’s about to use his curse and then I think Harry attacks him. Am I right?
Caleb: I’m on the page. I’m scanning.
Rosie: I don’t think he ever tried to use magic. He was – Voldemort shouts, “Seize him!” because Harry is about to run away.
Noah: No, there’s a line that – Quirrell raised his wand to use a deadly curse, but then Harry out of instinct attacked him.
Caleb: Okay, here it is:
“‘Then kill him, fool, and be done!’ screeched Voldemort.
Quirrell raised his hand to perform a deadly curse, but Harry, by instinct, reached up and grabbed Quirrell’s face.”
And then he screams. So…
Noah: Yeah.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: Now, would that spell have killed Harry? I guess not, right? Oh wait…
Caleb: Hmm. I don’t know.
Noah: Let’s think about this. We know that it doesn’t kill him after the blood is taken, because the love is still on Earth. That’s why he’s not killed, because Voldemort has the blood in him. But…
Rosie: Potentially, it’s like it would have been enacting the King’s Cross and the Forest scene from Deathly Hallows but seven books earlier.
Noah: No, but it wouldn’t, Rosie, because the only reason that that happened was because Voldemort had taken Harry’s blood and the love into his body, and that was alive on Earth and it tethered him to life. But since Voldemort hadn’t taken his blood yet, I don’t think he would have been able to – the King’s Cross sequence wouldn’t have initiated. I think he might have died there.
Rosie: I always thought it was just kind of physical touch. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong.
Noah: All right, so anybody in the forums, if you’d like to let us know about that, that’s still a bit of a mystery. But for whatever reason – no, Harry out of instinct grabs Quirrell’s face and burns him, and…
Rosie: “His only chance was to keep hold of Quirrell, keep him in enough pain to stop him doing a curse.” That’s the line.
Noah: Right. And he was right, and it saved his life, and then he hears voices in his head: “Harry! Harry!” And it’s actually, we now know, Dumbledore coming down and actually takes the hand off Harry – takes Quirrell’s hand off, and we just have Harry going into unconsciousness. So, here’s my thought: there’s a big time jump right to Harry now in the hospital wing.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: So, what transpired between Voldemort and Dumbledore in those moments while Quirrell was dying? Do we think anything?
Jessica: I think maybe Voldemort just kind of flew away. He probably knew that Dumbledore was coming, so he probably just – I don’t know how a soul would go, but just disappeared and hid away from Dumbledore.
Noah: And then how did – all right, that’s possible. I know in the movie he just kind of floats away, but I’m just saying there’s a chance here that there was some kind of exchange between the two old nemeses – nemesi.
Jessica: I mean, if you take it in that kind of possibility, maybe Dumbledore was trying to talk some sense into Voldemort, or maybe he was trying to taunt him. [laughs] I could see…
Noah: [laughs] Can you imagine?
Rosie: I think Quirrell was close enough to death at this point that there isn’t enough time. I think Voldemort has to leave him straight away, and then when he does, he loses all physical form so he physically can’t talk to anyone.
Noah: This is true. So, then – guys, I just want to hear your opinion. We’re going to get a bit more into the chapter. Harry wakes up to sweets and to Dumbledore calmly telling him how it all went. But do you feel like there was a bit of odd – nobody seemed to care that Quirrell had died or that – I guess they didn’t know everything about the story, but even the teachers didn’t really seem concerned. I mean, imagine Dumbledore taking this burned body back – because we know Quirrell died from this – I assume burying it and hiding it away, because we can’t have everyone knowing that Voldemort is back. So, did you find that Quirrell was gotten rid of in a weird way or was this just kind of commonplace?
Caleb: We don’t really get much of a reaction for any of the teachers after Harry comes back, because it’s like Dumbledore is there, the trio are there, and then it’s the closing feast. So…
Jessica: Well, maybe Dumbledore tried to pass it off like Quirrell was the bad guy, because the fires – you had the logic thing about the fires and he could have probably just said, “Oh, Quirrell got stuck and tried to get out and burned and died,” and everybody just passed it off as, “Oh, he’s a traitor.”
Noah: Well, that’s the thing. Do they know he’s dead necessarily or do they think he’s maybe been sent to Azkaban? Because everyone knows that Quirrell was behind it and that Harry saved the day, but…
Caleb: I think they know he’s dead. I don’t know if they know the finer details of how it all happened, that he got burned alive because Harry grabbed his face, but I…
[Noah laughs]
Rosie: I think a large amount of the lack of response that’s in the book is because this is a book that’s designed for six, seven, eight-year-olds. It’s a children’s book that if we really went into the horrific detail about everyone’s reactions to this guy dying, then it would be too horrific for us to celebrate Harry’s victory. Does that make sense?
Noah: Yeah, it might have been. She could have taken it a much darker way, you know?
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: And maybe seventh-years are discussing – they know the finer details of the story and they discuss it and they’re like, “Damn! That kid! We have to – someone has to watch that kid. He burns people.”
[Jessica and Rosie laugh]
Noah: So, Harry wakes up in the hospital wing and Dumbledore is right there with Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans and basically tells Harry, “I will answer any of your questions, my dear boy. You’ve gone through so much turmoil.” And Harry just calmly asks, “Why did Voldemort try to kill me when I was a baby?” Dumbledore says, “Alas, Harry, I can’t tell you that. Sorry. You’re just going to have to wait five books.”
[Caleb laughs]
Noah: “But I can tell you that to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” And Harry takes that to heart. But what do we think about this line here given so early in the series?
Caleb: Just the line about his remarks on death?
Noah: Yeah. Should we finish the quote?
Caleb: Yeah, because he sort of continues talking about death in the context of the Stone, and he remarks on how as much money and life as you could want would be given to you by the Stone, these are the two things most human beings would choose above all. “The trouble is humans do have a knack for choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.” Which, actually thinking about it now, is sort of interesting because he can sort of speak from personal experience. Maybe not necessarily about money, but trying to do too much with life, his own quest to try to get the Deathly Hallows.
Noah: Right. And also, in terms of Quirrell, almost like an obituary to him, maybe as a man who wanted power in life…
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: …and money through greed, and he just – he got it in the end. And also Voldemort. But yeah, from Dumbledore as well. And we know the series is all about death and Jo’s mother actually passed away while this book was being written.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: But it does seem like an interesting way to finish this first book about death and we know how young this audience is.
Caleb: Yeah, I think it’s at a very poignant time and it sort of sets up, as you mentioned, that whole theme that persists through the rest of the books.
Noah: Yeah. Quite right, Caleb. So, Dumbledore has a heart-to-heart with Harry, and Dumbledore explains for the first time that it was Lily’s love that actually protected him from Quirrell and Voldemort. And we now know that that love actually comes out as a protective layer, or something substantial that protects Harry. I’d really love to go into detail about what this actually is. It’s going to come up time and time again. But guys, any ideas on what kind of spell this is? Does Harry have a force field? Or is it something in his blood? I mean, the line from Dumbledore is that Quirrell literally couldn’t touch something that was so good and pure. So, bringing up that unicorn again, is Harry this pure? Or is it this love from Lily that is making him so pure?
Jessica: I think it might be the love from Lily. Because Harry is a child at the time so you can kind of make a connection between childhood and unicorns, but I really always thought it was just Lily’s love in his blood that kind of put a protective layer onto him so something so evil couldn’t touch him.
Noah: Right, it was certainly the love. But it seems like having been loved, Harry then becomes good. And that is really interesting when you think about Voldemort. He wasn’t really loved by his mother. I’m sure he was loved by his mother when he was born, but then she was gone and it didn’t really impart on him. And he was also born from a loveless union. So, the very beginning of the series we have love as this very good thing, and if you – to live without it is to be unhuman. To be evil, as a matter of fact, and that’s very interesting. And we know that Harry will eventually continue this love. He takes it from Lily and he uses the spell to eventually protect everyone in Hogwarts, but it’s interesting how that equates to good and goodness and purity.
Rosie: Definitely.
Jessica: I’d have to agree. [laughs]
Noah: Well, thank you.
[Jessica and Rosie laugh]
Noah: Well, Harry leaves the hospital wing for the end-of-year feast and Slytherin wins the house cup, and then they all go back to – then Harry goes back to the Dudleys – the Dursleys.
Caleb: That was a quick jump there.
[Caleb and Noah laugh]
Caleb: I mean, there’s some important stuff there with the trio and Neville getting the house points.
Noah: Oh right, right, right. The house points. Never mind.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: Actually, Gryffindor won the house cup. Now, I – reading this again, I felt a little – I tend to do this, but I felt bad for the Slytherins. I mean, they were going in – they knew they had won.
Caleb: Please, they had won plenty of times before. I’m over it. No.
Noah: Sure, but…
Caleb: No.
Noah: Yeah, but a hundred and fifty points?
Caleb: They got a hundred – they got too many docked in the first place from McGonagall.
Noah: That’s true.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: That’s true. Dumbledore probably had to give her a talking to after that.
Caleb: I’m sure.
Rosie: Plus, if you’ve just defeated the darkest wizard of all time, you’re going to want more than fifty points.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: All right, they deserved it.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: And Neville’s ten points in the end were classic. It’s fine. [laughs]
Caleb: Yeah, reading it again, that line that he gives for explaining Neville’s points just – it resonates a lot. I love it a lot. I love that line.
Noah: “It’s good to be brave to your enemies, but to be brave in the face of your friends -” man. That’s what he said.
Caleb: Real talk.
Noah: Yeah. So, these last chapters kind of went very quickly.
Caleb: They did.
Noah: And suddenly we find Harry has taken the train back to King’s Cross. He says goodbye to the Weasleys. The Dursleys turn up and then the book ends – the chapter ends with a line about how Harry was getting ready to threaten Dudley because the Dursleys don’t know he can use magic. Now…
Caleb: Well…
Noah: That is the ending of the book. What do – I’ve never thought about it, but what do you guys think of that as an ending to that book? The fact that he’s going to – it’s very clever, because we know where it’s going, right?
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: Now, does it…
Caleb: I mean – go ahead.
Noah: Go on. No, I…
Caleb: I just think – I really liked it because it’s the first book in the series. It’s a light-hearted, comical, amusing ending, and it leaves on a good note.
Noah: Yeah, it’s very light.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: Certainly.
Jessica: Not only that, it just seems like a sense of – what is it? – vindication for Harry since at the beginning of the books we meet the Dursleys and see how they treat Harry. Now he has a weapon to kind of fight back.
Rosie: Yeah, that’s exactly what I was going to say. I was going to say that it really shows how Harry has changed since the very beginning. He now has that kind of personality and power to stand up to the Dursleys in some way, and have fun with it. He’s still the young boy, but now he’s the young boy with magic.
Noah: Probably contributing to Dudley’s later mental damage, unfortunately.
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: They work it out in the end.
Noah: Oh yes, they do. They do. But that, ladies and gentlemen, is the end of our chapter discussion of the entirety of Book 1 in the Harry Potter series.
[Triumphant music plays]
Caleb: Woo! Yeah!
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: Well done, everybody. And Kat, wherever you are listening, you did great.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: So, I hope you guys will all join us for Book 2.
Rosie: So, now that we’ve read through the entire book and we’ve really seen all the nitty gritty details about all of the different chapters, let’s try and think about some overarching theories that we might have going into Chamber of Secrets. So, to start with, we’ve seen that yeah, maybe Snape wasn’t the one helping Voldemort and he wasn’t the one trying to get the Stone, but there is definitely something evil about Snape, isn’t there? It’s not just Harry’s imagination.
Noah: We get that last line at the end, right? One look confirms that Snape still hates Harry. [laughs]
Caleb: Yeah, so evil in the sense that you know going to – as you get ready to read the next book, there is going to be some sort of animosity that makes Harry’s life a living hell at Hogwarts to continue. But evil – well, that remains to be seen, I think.
Noah: I think we should have realized that when the whole Book 6 of Snape killing Dumbledore came out – I think we should have realized, looking at this book, that Snape again is actually for the good, you know? Because these books do tend to kind of circle around each other, and all the patterns and stuff. You’re going to have the first book parallel to the last book.
Rosie: There was something really fun about being part of the fandom before we had that, before Half-Blood Prince came out, when everyone was like, “I don’t know. Is Snape good? Is Snape evil? What’s the truth about Snape? What is his story with James and Lily?”
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: There was always that big question mark that we really wanted answered, and I think Jo managed to answer it in such a beautiful way.
Caleb: Yeah, it was the lingering question, I think, until we figured it out and even then – well, obviously when we get to Half-Blood Prince – even when that event happens, you still don’t even know until the very end of the last book.
Rosie: Definitely. And having that set up from such an early moment – like the first chapter, you’ve got that question about Snape – well, not first but the first time we see him in Hogwarts – you get that kind of, “He doesn’t like me. Why? Is it because of something – is he good or is he evil?” That whole question is there throughout the entire book, and it lasts right up until that one defining moment where – which ultimately results in Harry naming his child after him.
Noah: Which was crazy.
Caleb: Mhm.
Rosie: Yeah. [laughs]
Noah: But I think there’s also something about the fact that this is written all through Harry’s perspective. The fact that we always have Snape’s glare looking at Harry, it means that he’s also kind of looking at us, the readers. He’s this – he’s always – from the the tall table up in the corner. He’s got some knowledge, some info, and for some reason he hates us, and we know it’s all going to tumble into more story. We’re going to find out more about it in later books.
Rosie: Definitely. And it was a brilliant way of doing that in the movies as well, the fact that Alan Rickman knew the truth and could actually kind of portray that throughout his role as Snape.
Noah: That’s right.
Rosie: He always knew more than everyone else in the cast, and you could really see that in his acting.
Noah: Yeah. I’d say he is one of the biggest subplots, wouldn’t you say?
Rosie: Definitely, yeah.
Caleb: Yeah, I think so.
Jessica: Oh, for sure.
Noah: What’s our next theory?
Rosie: Cool. Our next theory is all about Dumbledore, and much like our Question of the Week last week, the idea that Dumbledore knows the truth about everything. He’s kind of the Albus of Oz character. He’s playing behind the curtain and controlling everything from behind the scenes.
Noah: I mean, he is. Does anyone have the book open? There’s a great quote from Harry where he’s talking to [Ron] and Hermione in the hospital wing, and he just basically describes how Dumbledore ruled everything. Does anybody have that open?
Rosie: “‘He’s a funny man, Dumbledore. I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance.'”
Noah: That’s it, that’s the one. So, Harry basically says in this quote that – he basically asserts that, “I think Dumbledore set this up. He wanted me to find the Stone and get to Voldemort to face him because I’m kind of owed that after my parents.” So, if that’s the case, Dumbledore put Harry through a lot of danger. It wasn’t just Harry’s doing. He basically orchestrated this entire thing, because I don’t think Jo would have written this scene unless that was the truth, you know? She wouldn’t have…
Rosie: I don’t think he orchestrated it. He wouldn’t have planned on Voldemort coming back, but he definitely tweaked and shaped it to be the way that he wanted it to be.
Noah: But now we know that he knew Voldemort was at Hogwarts, right?
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: Because it says that Harry – all right, so how long did he know that?
Rosie: That’s a good question. [laughs]
Noah: Yeah, exactly. I don’t know. But it sounds like at least when Harry was going down into the trapdoor he knew just what Harry was going to face down there.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: So, it’s possible that he made those tasks a bit easier for such that Harry and the trio could go through.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: I don’t know, that…
Rosie: We had a bit of this discussion last week where I was asking why Snape didn’t tell Dumbledore on them. [laughs] There were so many comments on the forums telling me about how I was wrong and how I forgot about “The Prince’s Tale” later on where we actually see Dumbledore and Snape talking about Quirrell and talking about their suspicions. So, it’s definitely true that Dumbledore and Snape were both keeping an eye on Quirrell, and they both kind of knew that he was a dark wizard and probably they knew that Voldemort was there. Whether Snape or not knew it was Voldemort, we don’t know.
Noah: All right.
Rosie: But they definitely knew to pull the strings.
Noah: I mean, I doubt it, but if he knew that Harry was a Horcrux – I very much doubt it – could he have been trying to kill Harry here? Two birds with one stone? Voldemort and Harry in one? Maybe that’s too crazy. I don’t think that’s true.
Caleb: Yeah, I think that’s a bit much.
Noah: Yeah.
Rosie: Yeah. [laughs] That goes completely against…
Noah: I mean, Dumbledore does run down to save him.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: So, I’m probably wrong.
Rosie: One of the biggest theories at the time, or at least for a long while, was that Harry and Dumbledore might be related in some way. Lots of people thought that Albus could maybe be Harry’s grandfather. Because we obviously don’t have Harry’s immediate family, we thought there might be some kind of connection there, which is a nice idea but unfortunately didn’t come true.
Caleb: Yeah, I never really could buy into this because I always would have figured that the surrounding wizarding community would have known.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Because they know who Lily and James are obviously, and I don’t think it’s something that really could have been kept from Harry.
Jessica: Especially because Dumbledore is such a well-known kind of person. I’m sure that if he was his grandfather Harry would have found out, probably from Hermione.
Caleb: And we know it would have had to have been James’s father because obviously it couldn’t be Lily’s.
Rosie: And we know that they are called the Potters when Sirius talks about them. So, I really want to know more about James’s family. I’m so – I really want to know more about all of that kind of stuff that is the details of the book that we never kind of get to see.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: I think we’ll probably get it.
Caleb: I hope so.
Rosie: I hope so, too. I think that would probably come into Prisoner when Sirius is talking about it.
Caleb: Yeah. That could work. Yeah, that would be great.
Rosie: Yeah. We’ll have to wait and see.
Noah: I mean, we did talk about the fact that Dumbledore becomes the parental figure many times in the series, especially when the Cloak comes about. He acts for James and kind of gives the Cloak to Harry. So, if not an actual family member, Dumbledore certainly loves Harry as almost like a father, looking after for him.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: Definitely.
Noah: Oh, I do like this next theory.
Rosie: [laughs] Yeah, the next one was definitely also a huge fan theory at the time, and that was the question of whether Dumbledore and McGonagall were in a relationship. Whether they were married or whether they were kind of secretly dating behind the scenes, which of course…
[Caleb laughs]
Rosie: …got a huge stop put to it as soon as someone asked the question of Jo and she said, “No, Dumbledore is gay.” So, of course that put a stop to that theory. [laughs]
Caleb: I just like to think that they go into London and shop together.
Noah: Get some nice hats.
Rosie: Definitely.
Caleb: Yup.
Noah: Well, are we sure that McGonagall didn’t put any moves on him, you know?
Caleb: I mean, she might have back in the day. So…
[Jessica laughs]
Noah: He’s only, what, a hundred years older? Come on.
Caleb: I don’t think he’s that much older.
[Jessica and Noah laugh]
Caleb: Geez. Trying to give the man too many years, Noah.
[Jessica laughs]
Rosie: But I do now have the idea of Dumbledore and McGonagall being like Will and Grace, or someone.
Caleb: Yes. Yeah.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Sitcom. [laughs]
Jessica: This is funny. I’ve never actually heard of this theory, probably because this is my first foray into the Potterverse community…
Rosie: Sure.
Jessica: …but I always thought Dumbledore and McGonagall had like a father/daughter relationship.
Rosie: Oh interesting.
Caleb: Yeah, that’s true.
Rosie: Yeah.
Noah: Definitely more likely given certain truths about his orientation.
Caleb: Yeah. She’s really probably – I mean, Albus is probably the only person that Minerva is really close to after she loses her husband. She doesn’t have any family left really, so he’s really her only friend. I think as time goes on she gets really close to Harry…
Noah: Absolutely.
Caleb: …especially towards the end of the book when Dumbledore is gone, which just gets me emotional thinking about that scene. But – I’m going to move on.
[Noah laughs]
Caleb: I think – so there is definitely that – yeah, they are obviously really close and it’s a good relationship.
Rosie:: Definitely.
Noah: It makes me wonder why he didn’t tell her about the Horcruxes. Isn’t she the closest person he has at Hogwarts? One of the closest?
Caleb: I think he tells more to Snape than her.
Noah: Oh wait, that’s true. Yeah.
Caleb: Yeah.
Jessica: I think it might be just kind of one of those safety things. If you don’t know, you can’t get hurt or something like that. Whereas Snape is more of a pawn. He is kind of protecting McGonagall by telling her nothing, instead of…
Caleb: Yeah, that’s true.
Noah: Oh.
Caleb: Because he knows if anything happens, she’s the one that’s going to have to step up. The dangers that could present the school if she had information, those sorts of things.
Jessica: Right.
Rosie: And she’s so close to Harry as well. If she knew that Harry would eventually have to die, would she try and…
Caleb: Oh my gosh!
Rosie: …do something else to try and stop it?
Jessica: I think she would have.
Caleb: Yeah, absolutely. Oh my gosh, I can’t even imagine. If she would have known that? Wow.
Jessica: Especially because when Harry’s body first shows up, isn’t she the one that screams and cries in the passage? I don’t have the book…
Caleb: Yeah, that may be right.
Noah: And Snape is – he is both courageous and he can make the right decision.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: He knows – he can separate himself enough because he’s done it so many times to…
Caleb: Well – and plus the only person he ever really cared about is already gone, and he’s acting to really just save the world and really that’s all he has to lose there.
Noah: I mean, he does protect Harry through the series.
Caleb: Yeah, yeah. That’s true.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: I guess inherently he – well, not inherently – but he does just do a better job of making those tough decisions.
Rosie: I think an answer to these two theories – the one about Harry and Dumbledore being family, or Dumbledore and McGonagall being in an relationship – the idea that Harry goes to Hogwarts and the one thing he didn’t have is a loving family. So, there he finds Dumbledore, who could be a father or grandfather figure, McGonagall, who kind of takes over the role of mother figure as well as – Molly does as well, Molly Weasley. You get Sirius eventually, who is his godfather. You get Snape, who is kind of that moody uncle that no one really likes.
[Everyone laughs]
Noah: Yeah.
Rosie: You got this whole kind of family all at Hogwarts.
Caleb: And Hagrid, the older brother that will pass him a drink even though he’s underage.
Rosie: [laughs] Definitely.
Noah: Or the drunken uncle.
Caleb: Yeah, there you go. That’s better.
[Everyone laughs]
Noah: No, that’s very true. Cool.
Caleb: Well, those are definitely some good theories. Yeah, I hadn’t even thought about some of those for a long time, so I’m glad you brought those up. Share with us your thoughts on those and other major theories from the book that we may have overlooked, because we would be interested to sort of ponder those as well.
Noah: Yeah, and remember that the Book 1 discussion is never over. You can always go back to the forums and talk about it even if we move on to future books.
Caleb: Absolutely.
Jessica: I’m totally looking forward to reading those conversations. [laughs]
Noah: Chamber of Secrets?
Jessica: No, The Philosopher’s Stone to see what other theories people bring up.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: Oh yeah.
Caleb: Because there’s probably a few that I can’t even remember that were totally big at the time. Yeah.
Noah: Yup.
Caleb: So, the last big thing we’re going to cover for Philosopher’s Stone is – we’re going to look at the covers of the books from many different countries, which I think is going to be really cool, to just sort of do a quick run-through of the graphical covers of all these books because they are obviously not all the same. So, we went through all the covers – well, I guess maybe not all of them – but a lot of covers from many different countries. So, as we’re kind of going through these, feel free to do a quick Google image search so you can make sure you’re seeing the same thing we are.
Noah: Well, I mean we can probably make them available in the show notes.
Caleb: Yeah, yeah, we will. That’s true.
Rosie: Yeah, I think we’re going to post them all on the forums for people to see.
Caleb: Good call. So yeah, we’ll make them available for you to see. The first one we are looking at is the cover of the Denmark edition of Philosopher’s Stone. So, this one is kind of interesting because – I mean, it appears to me at least, they are using pretty much using the movie version of Harry Potter. It looks very much like young Daniel Radcliffe there to me.
Noah: Yeah.
Caleb: So, maybe this would – maybe this came out a little later. But there is also – there is a – he has a broom. Harry has a broom, and it shows Hogwarts in the background and some cavern, something going under Hogwarts, obviously to represent deep where the Stone is hidden. So – and there is some lightning going on up at the top.
Noah: Yeah, it looks like Harry is casting some lightning.
Caleb: Yeah.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: That’s interesting.
Caleb: So, first years can cast lightning spells.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: It’s like Lumos Maxima Maxima.
[Jessica laughs]
Caleb: Yeah. So, this one pretty much chooses to, I guess, focus on Hogwarts and what is beneath Hogwarts, as well as featuring Harry’s coming into his magic, I guess.
Noah: Also, if you zoom in on the right, next to the castle, there is this little mountain. I’m not sure what it is. If you zoom in, there is an angry French face. Or not French, but there’s a human face on the mountain.
[Jessica laughs]
Caleb: Wow.
Jessica: I can see it.
Caleb: And all of our French listeners are now upset with us.
[Jessica laughs]
Noah: It’s not – oh my goodness. I’m sorry.
Caleb: I don’t – wait, where is the face again?
Noah: It’s right next to the castle, on the right.
Rosie: I don’t think it’s meant to be a face. I think it’s just lines of stone and then a line of trees to be the mouth.
Caleb: Oh.
Noah: Rosie, I think it was meant to be a face.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: I don’t know.
Noah: [laughs] If you look there’s a mustache. We’ll see if there are any faces in the next images, for sure.
Caleb and Rosie: Okay.
Noah: This is just my – I take an art analysis course at school, so…
Caleb: So, the next cover we took a look at is that of the French version, and we have right at the front three students: Harry, Hermione and Ron, with Hedwig in his cage. The faces look very – just obviously French. I think it is interesting how the different countries – the artwork sort of reflects the people. But we have Hogwarts in the background, and a witch – it looks like a witch.
Noah: It does. I think because witchcraft was just kind of tied to witches and stuff. And even looking at the hats, they have that kind of witch look.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: So, maybe in this first round of Harry Potter they were – maybe France associated it more with modern myths of witchcraft and stuff, instead of…
Rosie: Yeah, it looks much more traditional, much more like…
Caleb: Mhm.
Rosie: If anyone’s ever read the Jill Murphy series, The Worst Witch – I know that a lot of people in England will have read that – it looks a lot more like a traditional idea of a wizarding school.
Noah: Yeah, doesn’t it? And they are all in their cloaks.
Caleb: So, maybe this is sort of a scene we could expect from Beauxbatons.
Rosie: Maybe.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: But in blue.
Caleb: Yeah, exactly.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Not the black. All right, and the next cover we took a look at is from Finland, and this one is pretty interesting because we have the main scene as that of the large chessboard with Harry, Ron, and Hermione at the forefront. The thing I found most interesting is how they drew Hermione. Her hair just seems a little too dark to me. What do you guys think?
Jessica: I think this is probably the first book cover or first picture I’ve seen of Hermione where her teeth are actually pretty big, like described in the story.
Caleb: Yeah, that too.
Noah: Yeah, everyone is pretty oblong. There’s actually some red in her hair.
Caleb: Mhm.
Noah: I see. But I’m really looking at the chess pieces in the American – when you think about the movie and in the books, they’re kind of faceless, but…
Caleb: And regal in this one, yeah.
Noah: They have character, and they’re kind of goofy looking, actually.
[Jessica laughs]
Noah: It’s interesting.
Caleb Yeah, I want to hear them talk so badly…
[Caleb and Jessica laugh]
Caleb …because I just want to hear the voice that’s going to come out of those.
Jessica: Right?
Noah: I can imagine that queen smacking Ron in the face.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: And that’s kind of what went down as opposed to a big stone hand brutally hitting Harry – sorry, Ron – to the floor.
Caleb: Yeah. [laughs]
Jessica: I like their outfits, too. It looks like one of those weird jester-looking kind of outfits.
Caleb: [laughs] Yeah. So, that one was an amusing one, I thought.
Noah: Yeah, certainly.
Caleb: The next one is the Italian version, and I’m not really sure what’s going on here because…
[Jessica laughs]
Rosie: I have no idea why they are mice or rats or whatever they are meant to be. [laughs]
Caleb: Yeah, what’s up with my brother the mouse here?
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: Because we have a chess board, it’s not the life-size version because I’m assuming this is – is this Harry looking over it? It’s hard – I can’t imagine who else it would be. So, it’s Harry overlooking a chessboard that is not life-size, and he’s chilling with a mouse. So…
[Jessica and Rosie laugh]
Noah: I feel terrible because I was actually just in Italy, and I picked up this copy of Philosopher’s Stone in Italian, started to read it, realized I couldn’t read Italian…
[Jessica laughs]
Noah: …and I asked my buddy why there were mice. And he told me the answer, but I forgot.
Caleb: What?!
[Noah laughs]
Caleb: You’ve got to hit him up. We’ve got to know.
Noah: His name is Gregorio. He’s a great guy. He might be listening.
Rosie: Italian fans, let us know.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: Why are there mice on this cover?
Caleb: Yeah, because…
Noah: I think he told me…
Caleb: …I’m sure there’s an interesting reason.
Noah: I think he told me that this scene is actually at the Dursley house, and for some reason the mice symbolize that area. There’s some mention of a mouse, maybe. And those figurines are the figurines he sees – that he’s playing with in the very beginning.
Caleb: Hmm.
Noah: Or maybe I’m thinking of movie canon right now. I don’t know, but if there is an Italian listener out there who can clear this up for us that would be very, very helpful.
Caleb: Definitely. All right, so the next one is the Spanish verison. And this one seems very plain in that there is not a lot going on, because we pretty much just have Dumbledore here who has a book and a staff, and there are some stars going on.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: But yeah, so…
Rosie: He looks cheerful though. It’s very happy.
Caleb: He does. I wonder what he’s reading, though? Is he reading Hogwarts, A History, maybe?
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: Perhaps.
Caleb: Perhaps reciting one of those weird lines to the students at the opening feast? I don’t know.
Noah: Is it Hogwarts, A History in Spanish?
Caleb: Yeah, that’s true.
[Noah laughs]
Caleb: So yeah, actually thinking about to calling out the Italian listeners, all of our listeners who are from different countries or could be associated with these countries, we would especially love to hear your opinions on any of these books because that would be really insightful.
Noah: Especially considering translations often change words with new meanings, and we’re interested in your insights…
Caleb: Right.
Noah: …about – we are going to talk about it in a later episode but the fact that in the United States it is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, in the U.K. and elsewhere it’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Sometimes words have a great – words have great weight on the meaning of how we interpret things. So, if we could compare different cultures and different translations that would be excellent. And there was actually an episode of MuggleNet Academia, our other podcast, where it covered translations of the series and differences there. I think that might have been the last episode, and you can find that podcast on MuggleNet. We feature that every other week or so, a new episode comes out.
Caleb: Yeah. So, the next one is probably my favorite cover. It’s the Ukrainian version [laughs] and there is so much going on, on this cover. It’s brilliant.
Noah: This is like abstract art right here.
Caleb: Yeah. So, we have Harry at the front, who is on a broom, in his Gryffindor robes, playing Quidditch, about to catch the Snitch. On the right we have the Hogwarts castle. On the left we have Dumbledore who becomes a castle. Is that a castle? His lower half below the broom?
Rosie: It looks it, and his hat is as well.
Noah: And the upper half is his hat.
Caleb: Yeah, and his hat is part of a tower. So, that’s really interesting that Dumbledore sort of is Hogwarts. I don’t know.
Noah: That kind of goes with what we have been talking about. He’s this ever present force.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: Much more than a character, kind of part of the landscape everywhere.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: Definitely.
Noah: So, it really comes out in this picture here.
Caleb: And we have pretty much almost every important character littered throughout the forest. We have Ron holding a chessboard. We have Hermione holding a bunch of books. We have a bunch of Hogwarts students. We have Snape, Norbert, Professor McGonagall. Farther…
Rosie: I love the tiny little Hagrid…
Noah: Look at that little Hagrid.
Rosie: …underneath Harry’s knee.
Noah: Yeah.
Caleb: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Hagrid is there, too. And then farther in the background we have a unicorn and a centaur, who seem to be chatting it up.
Noah: Yeah, they are just hanging out.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: So, chilling. Yeah, there is so much going on in this cover. I love it. It’s my favorite. I love it.
Noah: All right. That is Caleb’s favorite, the Ukraine.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: Excellent.
Caleb: Nice work. So, then we come to some of the ones that we’re at least more familiar with, and the original U.K. version has Harry with his – looks like a Gryffindor scarf, but I guess at that point he really shouldn’t have a Gryffindor scarf. But he’s got his bag on, and he’s in front of the Hogwarts Express, and…
Noah: About to get run over, possibly.
Caleb: Yeah, he might be.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: And it shows the 9 3/4 which – I’m wondering – maybe you can speak to this, Rosie, because you would have seen the cover before you read it.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Would you have noticed that and been like, “Wait, what? Why is it 9 3/4?”
Rosie: That’s true. I never did, I don’t think, notice that before. I think I just kind of leapt straight in and read the book.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: But it does kind of – everything about it looks magical, doesn’t it? Just having the old steam train, the purple smoke with stars in it…
Noah: Yeah.
Rosie: …even the smoke at the bottom with the stars…
Caleb: Mhm.
Rosie: It all just makes you want to read.
Noah: And you look at the stardust…
Rosie: Especially with the boring old train next to it.
Noah: …coming out of the exhaust at the top and the bottom of the train.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: But doesn’t Harry look nerdy? [laughs]
Noah: He does.
Caleb: Yeah, and there’s definitely the contrast between the Hogwarts Express train and the other train that’s to the right.
Noah: Good point.
Rosie: Definitely.
Caleb: So, that’s interesting.
Noah: And…
Caleb: So yeah, we threw in – Rosie, I’m going to let you take these because these are U.K. editions.
Rosie: Sure.
Caleb: So, why don’t you take them?
Rosie: A couple of years ago, they decided to kind of reboot the entire of the Harry Potter covers for children, and they replaced them with these signature editions, which is a white cover with the golden Harry Potter signature on the top and a key image from each of the books, and for Philosopher’s Stone it is the queen with a sword, the chess piece, attacking the knight. And it’s just a very simple image, but quite effective I think, still, but not quite as nice as the first cover. And then, we’ve also got the adult edition, which came out I think towards the Goblet of Fire time. They brought out all of these adult editions in one go, and it’s a very simple, photographic cover, which shows a photo of the Philosopher’s Stone itself, a gemstone that’s supposed to be a blood red gemstone, which is the Philosopher’s Stone. And I’ve always really liked those adult edition covers. They’re really bringing the magic to life, I think.
Noah: Rosie, I got to say these U.K. covers are – they kind of have a subtlety to them that the other covers don’t.
Rosie: They do, don’t they?
Caleb: Hmm.
Noah: Yeah. I wonder if that says something about that – your culture. I mean…
Rosie: I don’t know. I guess we like to use our imagination, and we like to read the stories and get our pictures from there rather than having it all presented to us on the front. We like to just show one very specific scene.
Noah: Right. All right, cool.
Caleb: Hmm.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: So, moving on to the U.S. covers, Caleb and I will take over that.
Caleb: Yeah, you go for it, Noah. I talked about all the other countries, so you can take these.
Noah: All right, we have up front the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone cover, with a noticeably different title. We’re going to talk about that on our next episode, maybe, or two episodes? But, just looking at the artwork, we have Harry in this iconic cover flying through two of the pillars, getting ready to catch the Snitch. Probably not very canon, but this would more likely be the Remembrall if he was flying through the castle. But in any case, he’s getting the Snitch, his glasses are askew. We have a unicorn running majestically in the back, and we have three-headed dog Fluffy in the castle just behind, so we know there’s some danger. And thinking about the back cover, we don’t have it here right now, but I believe Dumbledore is on the back and either Quirrell or Voldemort skulking towards the Forest. I just love the colors on this cover. Very vibrant. And it might not be immensely detailed but very bright colors that certainly attracted me as, I guess, a twelve-year-old, thirteen-year-old.
Rosie: Sure. I never realized before how perfectly StarKid managed to get their costuming. The outfit that Darren Criss wears as Harry throughout at least the sequel – I think the first one as well – is definitely that outfit, isn’t it? It’s the yellow top with the red stripe.
Noah: Oh!
Rosie: Well done, StarKid, for getting that so perfectly.
Noah: [laughs] And he’s also got a cape. Has Harry always had a cape that we didn’t know about?
Rosie: I don’t know, I think that’s just supposed to be just magical or Quidditch. But yeah, makes him a superhero.
Caleb: Yeah, it’s very heroic-esque.
Noah: I like – that’s a good addition, but you don’t get that cape in any other parts. I think that might have been Mary GrandPré and Scholastic trying to grab some of the superhero passion in the United States, maybe. Who knows? But it kind of speaks to – I would say it speaks to American culture. We like – we have high-flying Harry in danger and with lots of colors. That is America right there.
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Yeah, I agree. Very gaudy.
Noah: Oh man. And – oh, some mysterious force, it might have been Dumbledore, put the back cover of the cover on the…
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: In our doc. So, we have an owl, we have Dumbledore, a key floating in the back. Yeah, I just love this U.S. cover. It’s excellent. And Caleb, if you want to take the anniversary edition.
Caleb: Yeah, so in 2008, Scholastic released an anniversary edition for Sorcerer’s Stone. So, in this one we have Harry waving his wand, throwing up some orange sparkly dust going everywhere. And behind him is what we have deduced to be Ollivander and Hagrid. So, it’s – this is probably the scene in Ollivander’s where Harry is finally getting his wand, and Ollivander seems very intrigued, probably because he knows this momentous event of Harry being chosen by the wand that is the brother of Voldemort’s wand. So, it’s definitely a very different take than the original Scholastic cover.
Rosie: It’s much more reminiscent of the English ones, where you would take a scene and really kind of illustrate that.
Caleb: Yeah. I don’t like it as much, honestly.
[Noah and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: I like the original Scholastic. Maybe it’s just because that’s what I’ve always had, but I don’t know. I don’t think this scene is – it’s certainly important for the series. Maybe that’s why they went with it. But I don’t think it’s the best representation for the book.
Rosie: Yeah. The cover is a lot darker. [laughs]
Caleb: Yeah.
Rosie: But look at the chair! Look at the details of it. The chair is covered in old, discarded wands that aren’t the one that Harry eventually goes for.
Noah: Oh, look at that.
Rosie: It’s a really beautiful image, but perhaps not the best at selling the book.
Caleb: Yeah.
Noah: No, I see what you mean. That is beautiful, and really, the stardust coming out of the wand is – and if you look at the jacket and all of it, very colorful. It’s like the magic, whatever it touches, creates different shades on all the figures. It’s cool.
Rosie: Yeah.
Caleb: Well, that pretty much covers the covers that we wanted to talk about. So, as you take a look at these as we’re talking about them, let us know which one is your favorite, which one you think represents the story best, and especially, like we mentioned earlier, if you are from one of these countries or have one of these covers or know the translation, let us know what you think about those.
Rosie: Jessica, what’s your favorite?
Jessica: Mine? I like the Ukraine one. I’m going to have to go with Caleb on that one.
Caleb: Yeah!
[Rosie laughs]
Caleb: Good call.
Jessica: It just seems like the whole story is right there on the front of the cover.
Rosie: Yeah, it is a really good one.
Caleb: Mhm.
Rosie: I’m going to have to go with the original U.K., though. Original and best.
[Jessica and Rosie laugh]
Noah: Well, I’m going to have to go with the original U.S. The coolest.
[Caleb and Rosie laugh]
Jessica: Now, with the U.S. edition, the U.S. cover, what edition is that back cover on? Because mine doesn’t look like that.
Noah: Really?
Caleb: Yeah, mine doesn’t either. Mine is a faceless hand holding a candle, is that what you have?
Jessica: Yeah, with the green drapes tied up with the rope.
Caleb: Yup.
Jessica: Yeah.
Noah: Oh wow. Were there two back covers released?
Jessica: Yeah.
Caleb: I guess so.
Jessica: My book is from…
Rosie: There are two for England as well.
Noah: Huh. Well, maybe there’s a panel. There’s a panel and a back.
Caleb: No.
Rosie: Interestingly, for the original U.K. cover, the original print run is different. They were supposed to have Dumbledore on the back cover, but they have a different wizard that no one quite knows who it is. Whether the illustrator just got it wrong [laughs] or whether they just decided to have someone a bit more special, I don’t know.
Noah: Now, that’s a mystery.
Rosie: But my sister owns the original back cover and I own the more recent one, so we have both editions in our house.
Caleb: Hmm.
Noah: That’s incredibly mysterious.
[Rosie laughs]
Noah: Yeah, any thoughts on the covers, put those in the forums. And we’ll be sure to put these in the show notes, so if you’re listening to the episode, hopefully you’ve gone through and seen them with us.
Caleb: Yeah, and you can give us some artwork. If you designed your own cover, that would be really cool to see.
Noah: Yeah, yeah.
Caleb: Different people’s takes on it, because we love to feature you guys’s awesome artwork.
Rosie: Definitely.
Noah: Yeah, I’m actually the fan art head, fan art supervisor over at MuggleNet.com, so send all artwork to fanart at staff dot mugglenet dot com or noah at staff dot mugglenet dot com, and I’ll get it and then I’ll be happy to feature it everywhere. So, this is a prime opportunity to show your artistic talents. All right, now it’s time for the Posed Question of the Week. I am back to deliver it. You did a great job, Rosie, last week, but here we go, the last one for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. As we were discussing before, it was the scene where Quirrell was facing Harry, and everything he did, he was getting burned by Harry, just by touching his skin. So, Voldemort ordered him to use his wand, and he was about to use a curse, but Harry cleverly put his hands on his face, stopping Quirrell. Our question is real simple: What would have happened to Harry if Quirrell had been successful and used the Avada Kedavra spell? We really would like to know, would Harry have been destroyed or would Lily’s love have protected him in another way, in some way? Would he have got another King’s Cross experience? Personally, I think he wouldn’t, but what do you guys think? We’re throwing it to you, and we’re going to have that question on the front page of our Alohomora! site.
Caleb: Great. We’re looking forward to those responses. And we want to take the time now to give a special thanks to Jessica for joining us this week as our guest host. I hope you had a good time. You definitely put in some good thoughts, so…
Jessica: [laughs] Thanks guys for letting me come on the show. Appreciate it.
Noah: No, of course.
[Jessica laughs]
Noah: Did you enjoy it?
Jessica: Oh, it was fun. [laughs]
Noah: I bet it was.
[Jessica laughs]
Noah: Once again, she’s wiseoldbaker in the forums. She’s chatting everywhere. And she’s also written a bunch of essays for us, and please continue to do so because I am the one uploading those, and those are always great fun to read.
Jessica: I’ll keep that in mind. [laughs]
Noah: Sweet.
Rosie: Great. And if any of you out there listening to the show right now would like to be on it, in one of our future episodes, you can do that by being a real presence on both of our forums and our archives. You can submit anywhere, and you can really just share your thoughts with us. But if you really want to be on the podcast, we want you to send us an e-mail at alohomorapodcast at gmail dot com with a short recording of yourself telling us something interesting you’ve discovered in the Harry Potter series that you think that we should talk about, and we’ll take a listen and get back in touch with you. Please remember that you do need to have appropriate audio equipment when you are recording, though. We’ve had a lot of comments from you guys about how much we’ve improved our audio quality, and that’s all down to finding better equipment, so thank you guys for appreciating that. And just help us out by finding some good microphone and recording equipment to do that, as well.
Noah: Yup. And just a reminder that you can follow us on Twitter at our handle, which is @AlohomoraMN.
Caleb: And we just want to give one last reminder to make sure you are following us on Twitter because our next show will be released during LeakyCon, which is really, really soon, and we’ll all be there. And we’re going to be doing something special at LeakyCon and if you’re not folllowing us on Twitter, you won’t be in the know. So, make sure that you jump on that and follow us for updates.
Noah: And you can also follow us on Facebook, Facebook.com/OpenTheDumbledore, and you can also listen right on that page. All you have to do is click on the “Podcast” tab, choose an episode, and enjoy. And you can also follow us on Tumblr at MNAlohomora.Tumblr.com. And don’t forget about our phone number, where you can respond to us via voicemail. We’ll play your voicemail message just like we did for Patrick, and that’s at 206-GO-ALBUS. The number exact is 206-462-5287. Just make sure that your voicemails are in response to comments from the show just before. Please keep in mind this is a U.S. phone number, so for our international listeners, you will be charged if you call. Make sure to also check out our website, Alohomora.MuggleNet.com. We have great forums there. You can post artwork, essays, and connect with fans who are also listening to the show. And that’s also where we’re going to notice you, and we may invite you to be on the show. You can also send us e-mail for any messages regarding the show, any comments you have, to alohomorapodcast at gmail dot com.
Rosie: Don’t forget that you can also subscribe to our iTunes feed, or subscribe or favorite our Libsyn channel.
Noah: Yeah, and be prepared, if you want to, review us on iTunes, because that’s always really great. We love to hear your feedback directly there because that’s one of our biggest media portals. So, I believe that ends the show, Episode 8.
[Show music begins]
Noah: I’m Noah Fried.
Caleb: I’m Caleb Graves.
Rosie: And I’m Rosie Morris. Thank you for listening to Episode 8 of Alohomora!
Noah: Open the Dumbledore!
[Show music continues]
Noah: One sec. Guys, there’s a fly in here. I’m going to kill it.
Caleb: Oh my God.
[Jessica laughs]
[Rustling noises in the background, Caleb sighs]
Rosie: But what if that fly was Rita Skeeter? Oh no!
[Jessica laughs]
Caleb: And Noah’s run as an animal protectionist ends here.
[Jessica laughs]
Noah: It’s all right.
Rosie: Yeah, think of the unicorns, Noah! [laughs]
Noah: What happened?
Caleb: Nothing.
[Jessica and Rosie laugh]
Noah: Okay.
[Thumping noises in the background]
[Jessica and Rosie laugh]
Caleb: [sighs] I don’t know what’s happening.
Noah: One second, guys. I’m sorry. I almost had the fly.
[Rosie laughs]
