Transcript – Episode 92
[Show music begins]
Caleb Graves: This is Episode 92 of Alohomora! for July 12, 2014.
[Show music continues]
Caleb: Hey guys, welcome to another great episode of Alohomora! I’m Caleb Graves.
Michael: I’m Michael Harle.
Kat Miller: And I’m Kat Miller. And our special guest host today is none other than Miss Megan Barrow. She runs Magical Menagerie, another Harry Potter news site, and also Matthew-Lewis.com, am I right?
Megan Barrow: Right.
Kat: Right. So welcome to the show.
Megan: Thank you.
Kat: Absolutely. Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Megan: Well, I am a super shy person, so it is a miracle that Caleb and Kat have convinced me to guest host.
[Caleb laughs]
Megan: And I am… I’m not sure what my House is. I think I’m a Gryffindor but Pottermore sorted me into Ravenclaw, so I’m kind of a mix of both of those.
Kat: A Ravendor.
Megan: Yes.
Caleb and Kat: A Gryffinclaw.
mhm
[Caleb laughs]
Megan: I think I like Ravendor better.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Ravendor. Okay. [laughs] Fair enough.
Caleb: So Megan was also at the special media preview event with Kat and I in Orlando not too long ago. Megan, what was your favorite part about Diagon Alley?
Megan: Oh, I think just walking in and seeing how big it was, like you weren’t even in a theme park when you walked in. It’s just insane.
Kat: Yes. I’ve seen some tweets from people who have been there over the last couple of days, and they’re like, “When you leave, you forget that you’re at a theme park.”
Michael: Yeah.
Kat: Because the buildings are so tall you can’t see the outside world, so you forget that you’re in Orlando and you truly, truly think that you’re in Diagon Alley. Which is so legit it’s not even funny.
Caleb: It’s so cool to see all the pictures and tweets and posts from people the past… today and yesterday because the grand opening was yesterday when we’re recording this, and to see it mimic what we experienced just a few weeks ago is just really funny.
Kat: Yeah. For those listening, if you haven’t seen it, we put together a post of our selfie reactions to walking into Diagon Alley for the first time, or seeing things for the first time over on MuggleNet, and it’s pretty hilarious, so you should definitely go check that out. And while you’re waiting to do that, or going to look at that, we’re going to remind you to read Chapter 15 of Order of the Phoenix, “The Hogwarts High Inquisitor.” In-qui-si-ter, in-qui-si-tor, however you want to say it.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Because that’s the chapter we’re covering this week, so be sure to read it for maximum…
Michael: No matter how you pronounce it.
Kat: Exactly. No matter how… you know I pronounce everything wrong.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: You know I do.
Michael: But of course, before getting into this week’s chapter, we’re going to recap last week’s discussion from Chapter 14, “Percy and Padfoot.” But before I get into that, I want to make sure and do a very quick shout-out to two lovely ladies that I ran into at my local Albuquerque comic expo, Kiki and Rose, who were super awesome. They were the only other two people in Harry Potter costumes at that convention.
Kat: Yeah! I saw your special feature on the app.
Michael: Yeah. They were very awesome ladies to run into and I wanted to make sure and shout-out to them for having such a nice chat with me, because me and my friends basically chased them down when we saw them…
[Caleb and Kat laugh]
Kat: Had they heard of the show or MuggleNet or anything?
Michael: No. I think they knew about MuggleNet, but they didn’t know about this show. But I let them know and all that jazz, and I thought it’d be nice if I could give them a little shout-out on the show. Because there just wasn’t that much Potter representation there, so the fact that those two went out in House robes was pretty awesome.
Kat: Well, let’s hope they are listening now and aloha, ladies.
Michael: I hope they are. But let’s go back to Chapter 14, “Percy and Padfoot,” and some of the comments that you listeners left on that episode. The first one comes from surprisinglyswishy in response to the discussion about Percy’s letter, and this was from the main site. There was a lot of discussion on both the main site and the forums about Percy’s letter.
Kat: I know who’s going to have an opinion on this.
Michael: Oh yeah, so do I. Who could it be?
Caleb: I can imagine.
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Michael: surprisinglyswishy says,
“I’d like to stick up for Percy a bit here and say that it really does sound as though the Minister set out a sugar trap for him. Percy gives quite a few name drops: ‘I only just heard (from no less than the Minister of Magic himself…) that you have become a Hogwarts prefect!’ ‘From something the Minister let slip when telling me… I gather that you are still seeing a lot of Harry Potter.’ Percy’s still a complete prat, but it sounds like Fudge was doing his best to manipulate him here. I wouldn’t be surprised if Fudge had been the one to insinuate what might happen if Ron dropped Harry and joined Umbridge… and what would happen if he didn’t. From Percy’s perspective, the Minister of Magic was showing concern for his little brother, while everyone else in his family has been blacklisted. He seems to really want his little brother on his side, and this horrible, completely misguided letter was well-intentioned at least.”
And this was actually a pretty predominant view on both the main site and the forums.
Kat: Hmm.
Michael: So I wanted to get you guys’ read on that with the letter, if Percy was actually trying to be a good brother here or if he was just being a jerkface.
Kat: I’m going to let Caleb go.
[Michael laughs]
Caleb: Well, I still hate Percy with all of my being…
[Michael laughs]
Caleb: … but my thought on this – this person definitely puts out a good thought about this. But one of my core beliefs, as just Caleb belief …
[Michael laughs]
Caleb: … is that your past or certain circumstances may do something to explain your behaviors but it does not justify it.
Michael: Mhm.
Caleb: And I think this plays… this is in play here with Percy that… I can totally see the fact that Fudge is manipulating him here, but it doesn’t change the fact that Percy put himself on course to be in that position because of how horrible he was to his family. And he still says horrible things about his family in this letter.
Michael: Mhm.
Caleb: So… and he also just has the assumption that his parents owe him an apology, which blows my mind.
Michael: Mhm.
Caleb: So yeah, I think there’s definitely the potential of Fudge playing things around, though I don’t know. Fudge isn’t that smart, so let’s not give him too much credit.
Michael: [laughs] Well…
Kat: Well, he is conniving and this is pretty manipulative…
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: … and Percy is right up… he’s ripe for manipulation, that’s what I was trying to say.
Michael: Mhm. Yeah. He’s impressionable for the Minister.
Kat: Mhm.
Caleb: True.
Michael: Well, and the other interesting thing… again, quite a few people had a lot to say on this particular topic. And one of the interesting things that was noted was that out of Ron’s siblings, Percy is the only one to actually, as far as we see, congratulate Ron for becoming a prefect. Every other one of his siblings, with the exception of course of Bill and Charlie who we don’t hear anything from, have a negative reaction to Ron becoming a prefect. And his mother’s really the only one that shows pretty blatant open support of it. Even the other Order members are questioning why Ron got the position.
Kat: When do we see Ginny’s reaction?
Caleb: We never do, do we?
Michael: She reacts with displeasure, similar to Fred and George.
Caleb: Oh.
Michael: She’s not as vocal, but she’s not happy, according to the book. So she certainly doesn’t congratulate him.
Caleb: So yeah, I think obviously his dad and probably his older brothers would be proud of him…
Michael: Mhm.
Caleb: … and we don’t see those moments, and that’s probably a choice by Jo to set up this moment to bring about what you’re saying. There’s a clear juxtaposition here where Percy is the only one who’s really pouring out his congratulations to Ron.
Michael: Mhm. But it doesn’t even… in the end, the sad part about that is it’s not even a true congratulations to Ron.
Caleb: Right. Exactly.
Michael: Since he’s saying, “You also should ditch your best friend as well.”
Kat: Right.
Michael: [laughs] So…
Caleb: Megan, what are your thoughts on Percy?
Megan: I hate Percy.
Caleb: Yes.
[Michael laughs]
Megan: He’s just so annoying.
[Michael laughs]
Megan: But I do think that he was thinking with Ron in mind that we wanted to help Ron, but he’s still just… he wants everyone to seem normal, and he’s doing it for selfish reasons, I think.
Kat: Yeah. No, I completely agree. There’s a ton of validity to this comment from surprisinglyswishy. [makes swishing noises]
Michael: So moving on from Percy since he is just making us all so enraged right now, we’ll go to a different topic which will probably also make us enraged. This one comes from goldenmarauder on the forums and is in regards to the bit of racism that we saw from the Slytherins on last week’s episode. goldenmarauder says,
“There is already that mentality in Pansy’s behavior…”
This is of course in response to Pansy making a remark about Angelina Johnson’s presumed… what would they be called? Cornrow braids?
Kat: Mhm.
Caleb: Yup.
Michael: She calls them worms that are coming out of her head, but goldenmarauder says,
“There is already that mentality in Pansy’s behavior, and it’s likely that that kind of behavior’s prevalent in the Slytherin common room, so it’s not at all out of character for Pansy to behave like that. Which got me thinking – are there any other mentions of racism as we know it? You know, based on religion, skin colour, etc.? I know the pureblood mindset is, in many ways, kind of the wizard’s form of racism, but do you think racism as Muggles know it is a problem in the Harry Potter universe? Aside from that comment of Pansy’s, are there any instances where we get a hint that that is a problem in the wizarding world?”
We also had a similar comment I wanted to highlight just from Hufflepug as well who asked similar questions about racial segregation, bullying based on sexual orientation, sexist jokes, et cetera.
Caleb: This is definitely a pretty blatant racist remark by Pansy, but I can’t think of anything that really reaches this level in the series elsewhere.
Michael: Yeah, I think that’s why the hosts last week found it pretty stand-out, because we don’t really see this particular “Muggle” brand of racism in the series.
Caleb: Mhm.
Michael: Because most of that that we see – that prejudice, that racism – tends to have a mirror in the wizarding world with, as the comment said, half-blood status, pure-blood, magical ability. But it doesn’t seem to stretch necessarily to race or sexual orientation or things of that nature.
Kat: I think I’ve commented on this before when we talked about the whole Dumbledore Is Gay issue. I think part of the reason it’s not really in the books is because Jo doesn’t want to make it a commentary about that. She already has commentaries on so many things and underlying tones on so many things in the book. And not saying that it’s not important to her or whatever, but I think that she had to pick her issues. And if she threw in yet another one, I think the messages might get muddled.
Caleb: Yeah, what you said at the end is really important. It’s not that she doesn’t care about those things; it’s just not what her focus was. Because I know this is still one of the biggest criticisms I see of Jo and it certainly was when she announced that Dumbledore is gay, that it was a… I don’t even know how they articulate the argument, but that it was a bad showing of Jo to not make it more of an issue to really show support for…
Kat: Right.
Caleb: … that fact in the books, and I don’t think it’s her shying away from it. If you really know who Jo is as a person and what she does, then you know that’s not the case.
Michael: Mhm.
Caleb: But yeah, it’s just not what she wanted to focus on in the book.
Kat: Yeah. She got a lot of crap for not making him a model for the gay community or whatever, but that wasn’t what she wanted it to be about.
Michael: Mhm.
Kat: So that’s why she didn’t do it. And I respect that completely.
Michael: Well, and I think too as far as specifically the Dumbledore issue goes, you have to remember that the book came out in 2007, and while that may not seem like a long time ago, there were a lot of… it wasn’t 2014.
Caleb: Yeah.
Michael: Things were different, especially as far as children’s literature goes, including gay characters and how you address that. And I’m sure we’ll get more into that in Deathly Hallows.
Caleb: Mhm.
Michael: But it is definitely interesting the way that she chose to approach it and how it came out as not really a thing in the book. It was an aftermath thing in the interviews. But actually I had found a quote from Rowling in… it was from her PotterCast interview in 2007 after Hallows was released and she had outed Dumbledore, and she was asked this question in general. Actually, she was asked more in respect to gay people in the wizarding world, and she said… her views, she said, was “The greatest taboo in the wizarding world for some wizards is… I mean, if we’re talking about prejudiced people within the wizarding world, what they care most about is your blood status. So I think you could be gay, pureblood, and totally without any kind of criticism from the Lucius Malfoys of the world. I don’t think that it would be something that would interest him in the slightest. But I can’t answer for all witches and wizards because I think in matters of the heart it would be directly parallel to our world.”
Caleb: Hmm.
Kat: There you go.
Michael: So that’s the answer we got from that, and she didn’t go into additional social issues.
Caleb: Yeah.
Michael: But I think she kind of hit on what we said, which is what she’s already put there is meant to be a parallel to that anyway. So that’s something to keep an eye on, something to think about as we go on through the series, especially with things that we’ve found out post-Potter. And the last comment from last week’s episode is from IGotTransfiguredintoaRubarb…
[Kat laughs]
Michael: One of our all time favorite usernames. This is in response to Sirius’s rebellious behavior and attitude. This was on the main site, and there were additional thoughts contributed by goldenmarauder on the forums. IGotTransfiguredintoaRubarb says,
“Sirius'[s] remarks about Harry being less like James actually proves that Molly understands Sirius much better than we realize. She realizes immediately that Sirius was expecting Harry to be just like James. To me, Sirius has always treated Harry more of a chum rather than a godson [whom] he should protect. He fails to understand that Harry is a different person. He doesn’t make an attempt to learn more about Harry.”
And goldenmaurader had a much lengthier comment with pretty much the same idea, although continuously apologizing for bashing Sirius, because she mentioned that she loved Sirius. [laughs] But make sure [to] go check that out, listeners, on the forum. I just thought that was interesting because we did have a big discussion, I know, when Molly spoke up against Sirius at the meetings, and everybody took pretty strong views about Molly’s behavior in that instance.
Caleb: Yeah.
Michael: So what do you guys think now that we’ve had that moment with Sirius in the fireplace?
Caleb: I mean, yeah, I think that… for me there’s no question that Molly has great insight into what she’s doing. It’s just the way she handled that moment back at Grimmauld Place was so much.
Michael: You mean that the particular line about being out of Harry’s life for 12 years?
Caleb: Yeah.
[Michael laughs]
Caleb: Right.
Michael: Something…
Kat: I still think she was totally in the right, so… I do.
Michael: What do you think, Megan?
Megan: Yeah, I think Sirius always thinks [of] Harry as just the new version of James. He does not see him as Harry; he’s just trying to regain his friendship with James pretty much, I think.
Michael: Mhm. Well, and there…
Kat: Yeah, well, I mean, he never gets to really… as IGotTransfiguredintoa Rubarb – best name ever – says…
[Michael laughs]
Kat: … he doesn’t make any attempt to get to know Harry. At all. I mean, at all. He’s there to “protect him,” but… yeah.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: He pretty much just…
Caleb: Yeah, it’s pretty clear it’s… he just expects it to jump off from where he and James left off.
Kat: Yeah.
Michael: Mhm. Which, I mean, when you think about it, he has been… he was jailed pretty closely after the whole incident. Almost immediately after James and Lily died. And they were only just fresh out of school when that happened. Only by a few years.
Caleb: Yeah, and Sirius has been through a lot of emotional trauma and hasn’t gotten to talk about [it] yet, so I mean, it’s not altogether surprising that he doesn’t have social awareness altogether there.
Kat: No, yeah, he’s definitely scarred. He definitely needs some therapy. [laughs]
Michael: Well, and…
Caleb: Right.
Michael: And that way, you could – which, interesting thought that just came to my head – almost, in a way, perhaps compare Sirius and how he views Harry to how Snape views Harry and that Snape just sees Harry as a product of Lily, and Sirius sees Harry as James. They’re not really seeing Harry the person; they’re just seeing Harry as…
Kat: Aww.
Michael: … how he means to them, in relation to other people.
Kat: Wah-wah.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Sad Harry. Add a little more to his sad little life.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Nobody sees Harry. [laughs]
Michael: I think we’ve got to add more legit sadness for… so that Harry, when he seems emo, as we always put it… he has legit reason. [laughs]
Kat: I mean, he has lots of legit reason.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Okay? Don’t get me started.
Michael: [laughs] So… but those were some great comments from last week; there were also plenty of others that I didn’t get to include. Some of the highlights I wanted to point out were from AccioPotassium!, Ali Wood, BeTheLeaf453 – I really appreciate that Legend of Korra reference, BeTheLeaf – Dolphin Patronus, dustcharm, Elvis Gaunt, the head girl, and SassyHedwig. Additional topics that were discussed – absolutely fascinating things I wish I could’ve included – were Squibs and cats, Harry and Cho, wizarding vs. Muggle Astronomy, Quidditch practice, and house-elves. And it is never too late to get in on that discussion if you weren’t able to add your comments for that episode. They’re over at the Alohomora! main site and forums if you would like to join in.
Kat: The house-elf discussion never ends, does it?
Michael: It’s… no.
Kat: I think it’s there every single chapter.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: It’s always there.
Michael: And [with] this book, it will definitely stick around for awhile.
Kat: Yes.
Caleb: Yup.
Kat: Yes, it will.
[Michael laughs]
Caleb: All right, well, next up we are going to read some of your responses to last episode’s Question of the Week, and that question was, “Sirius says, […] ‘The world is not split into good people and Death Eaters,’ but we want to know whether Umbridge would make a good Death Eater. Would Voldemort even want her to be involved, or is she too egotistical and ambitious to work well as a subordinate? Let us know your thoughts!” So there were a lot of great responses, people got into philosophy some, it was really cool to read, but our first response was from Sefra, and it says,
“[S]he is, indeed, a bad guy….[I] mean, duh 🙂 but [I] agree…if she were enlisted as a [D]eath [E]ater, she’d either attempt a coup or be executed by Voldemort in a verrrry short amount of time. I personally think she has a chemical imbalance: She blatantly enjoyed the pain of others in a way that made the [D]ark [L]ord seem downright tolerable. She’d never be a true subordinate for long; she was working without Fudge or the school[‘]s interests in mind after one measly semester. I agree with Sirius'[s] quote: [“]the world isn’t [split] into […] good people [and] [D]eath [E]aters […][“] [T]here’s a whole sick center in between. It’s like prisoners that kill child molesters when they arrive in jail. If Voldy didn’t take her out, another [D]eath [E]ater would kill her.”
Kat: Wow.
Michael: Hmm.
Kat: That comment really went somewhere.
Caleb: Yeah. [laughs]
Kat: It’s right. I mean, Sefra, you are correct, though. I actually completely agree with that.
Michael: Hmm.
Kat: I mean…
Michael: I don’t… I’m still kind of mixed just because of what we see in Deathly Hallows. Now of course she’s not working directly under Voldemort; she’s kind of working ancillary to what he’s doing with the Ministry, and I assume… and this is more things we don’t necessarily have confirmed, which makes her character even more frightening in Deathly Hallows, but she doesn’t really ever confirm whether she knows what’s… the full extent of what’s going on or not.
Caleb: Mhm.
Michael: Because…
Kat: I think she likes to pretend that she does.
Michael: Yeah. There’s definitely… and that’s kind of what makes her so unnerving is there'[re] so many things that come out of her mouth that you’re not really sure what to trust, ironically, seeing as she doesn’t like people to tell lies. But I don’t… if we had more confirmation on what she was doing in Hallows it would be interesting to see because she is serving what Voldemort wants just as much as she was serving what Fudge wants in Order. Because I don’t think she really – as Sefra suggests – gives up on what Fudge wants after a while. I think she’s doing pretty much exactly what Fudge wants throughout a majority of this. Maybe until near the very end when she goes completely off the rails.
Kat: Well, and we know that she gets a little nervous because she gets the locket, and she lies about being from that family.
Michael: Yeah.
Kat: So we know that she gets a little nervous about everything, but I think she still never abandons what she truly believes in. Whether that’s aligned with Fudge or Voldemort is hard to say.
Michael: She just seems really, in a way… and I’m hesitant to say this just again because we don’t know enough about her reasoning behind what she does sometimes, but in a way she’s in part… she strikes me like a Pettigrew in that she gravitates to the person who has the most power in the room, and she recognizes that in people like Fudge or people in the current administration under… I believe it’s… is it Pius Thicknesse?
Kat: Yes.
Michael: But I… again, it’s because we don’t know if she’s doing it knowing what Voldemort is up to or not, so that makes it hard for me to say.
Caleb: Well, to flip it a little bit, AccioPotassium! takes the other side of her being a good Death Eater and says,
“If we examined Professor Dolores Jane Umbridge’s character, we would find that she has many of the qualifications for this radical movement. Dolores Umbridge already believes in some of the Dark Lord’s ideologies about blood, and she has deeply held beliefs about the inferiority of half-breeds. She is shown to be completely loyal to those in a higher position of power. This holds true even with overwhelming evidence of the contrary that the movement is wrong. Dolores Umbridge will go to great lengths to complete the orders of the dictated power and will gladly step over traditional guidelines to complete such tasks. She has a strong desire to gain power in the wizarding world, and she has no problem with inflicting torture or soul death among her enemies to acquire such a position in the wizarding world. So with my stated evidence, I think she would have been a great Death Eater.”
Michael: Yeah, she seems to carry the beliefs of a Death Eater in general, so in that way, as AccioPotassium! is saying, she’s perfect for it.
Megan: And she also has the sweet outside, so people wouldn’t suspect that she’s a Death Eater, too. So she can play both sides.
Caleb and Michael: Yeah.
Caleb: That’s a good point because I think, with this question, we have to be careful to not assume that to be a good Death Eater you have to be on Bellatrix’s level.
[Michael laughs]
Caleb: Because there'[re] clearly moles in the Ministry, like Rookwood and other people like that.
Kat: And Narcissa.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: Look at her.
Michael: Well, we still don’t know for sure [if] she’s a real Death Eater.
Caleb: I think as far as we know… in fact, I want to say Rowling confirmed that she’s not a branded Death Eater.
Kat: Yeah, but she’s still in the cause.
Caleb: Yeah, she… well, and that’s the interesting thing, too, in this set-up is you could essentially say that Umbridge was not at Narcissa’s level but generally that same area where she’s not a Death Eater, but she’s doing Death Eater work. Because Voldemort’s Death Eaters are actually a much more exclusive group of people. I think the movies really blow that out of proportion when it’s a field of Death Eaters, but it’s not. They’re just people who follow Voldemort. So there’s that difference as well.
Kat: You think there’s only a dozen Death Eaters or something maybe?
Megan: Well, I mean, in Goblet of Fire they had the circle.
Caleb: Yeah.
Megan: So I mean, that must be just the main big guys [who] are the ones [whom] he wants with him when something’s going to happen.
Kat: The bosses, the big ones.
Megan: Yes.
Kat: Right, got it. That makes sense. And they run ancillary units. Was that the right word? “Ancillary”? Yeah. They run other little Death Eater units.
Michael: Yeah.
Kat: So it’s like the mafia.
Michael: Kind of.
Kat and Michael: Yeah.
Kat: Cool. I mean, not cool but nevermind.
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Kat: You all knew what I meant.
Caleb: So our last response comes from DisKid, and it says,
“I think Umbridge’s problem is she likes to be the one who is in charge, and she also does not want to be the one to directly murder anyone. Being a [D]eath [E]ater would require [that] she not only torture people [but] [..] murder them as well..”
Mm. We’ll come back to that.
“She seems to love torture, but I don’t think she cares for murder so much. She’s different from Bellatrix who sadistically loves to torture, then [..] kill you. Umbridge only tortures. Her reasons for that, I have no idea. Of course, she’d send somebody to go kill Harry in a heartbeat, but she always seems to hold back on doing the murder herself. She would also be in submission to Voldemort. I don’t think she likes the idea of doing whatever her ‘master’ tells her to or even having a master. In other words, I think she’d be a terrible [D]eath [E]ater. She’d have trouble with murder, and she’d probably get herself killed by Voldemort [for] wanting to overrule him.”
Caleb: So similar to how we were just pointing out, to be a super effective Death Eater… I don’t know if that’s the right word I would use, but to be a Death Eater you don’t necessarily have to be always “torture, torture, torture, kill, kill, kill.”
[Megan laughs]
Kat: Right.
Caleb: Obviously, you would have to be ready to kill people, but I don’t know if you’re going on murdering sprees.
Kat: Right, because I mean, look at somebody like Lucius. He is obviously what this person has described.
Caleb: Right.
Kat: Somebody who would have no problem torturing somebody but isn’t going to get his hands dirty. Yeah.
Michael: I also don’t really know if that’s necessary. I mean, we don’t see Umbridge killing people because obviously, if she just offs students in her rules…
[Caleb, Kat, and Michael laugh]
Michael: … at Hogwarts, that would seal the deal on her. And as far as we know, she may not be killing people directly in her job at the Ministry in Deathly Hallows, but she’s pretty much… it’s implied sending them to their deaths. So she plays more of a judge role. She seems to enjoy… the comment is correct in that she certainly does seem to enjoy doling out what her power allows her to do. All right, well, yeah. No, I mean, again, in the way that DisKid was going, I can’t help but compare Umbridge to Pettigrew in that she does gravitate toward people with power, and I think that’s a great comparison, Kat, to Lucius in that she’s not really one to get her hands dirty. But at the same time, I don’t think she would be opposed to it if Voldemort told her to, especially if she were to get something out of it.
Kat: Right. Yeah, she does seem to be motivated by reward.
Michael: Yeah.
Kat: Which is another important thing to note.
Michael: And she may not be Bellatrix in the way that Bellatrix is super eccentric crazy. But I think we are still dealing with somebody who is unhinged to a large degree.
Kat: Yeah, I would concur.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: I would agree.
Caleb: Well, that does it for the responses for this past week’s Question of the Week. And you can read a lot more great thoughts over on the Alohomora! site, because there’s some really well thought out stuff there. So check it out.
[Order of the Phoenix Chapter 15 intro begins]
Umbridge: Go on, then, Professor.
Trelawney: Uh, yes. [clears throat] Chapter 15.
Umbridge: [clears throat] Continue.
Trelawney: “The Hogwarts High Inquisitor.”
Umbridge: Right, well, if that’s really the best you can do. Hem, hem. [sounds of a note being made on a clipboard]
[Order of the Phoenix Chapter 15 intro ends]
Kat: Okay, so here we are, Chapter 15, Order of the Phoenix, “Hogwarts High Inquisitor.” In this chapter there’s actually kind of a lot that happens yet nothing kind of happens. It’s one of those chapters. So, of course, right in the beginning, we learn that Umbridge is appointed the Hogwarts High Inquisitor and then that she has the right to start inspecting professors. And so she does that. She inspects several professors throughout the chapter. Harry gets a crap ton of attentions… Detentions not attentions, detentions.
Michael: He does get attention and then he gets detention. [laughs]
Kat: He does get attention. That’s right, too much, according to Molly Weasley. Right, he already gets enough attention.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: No, but he gets a lot of detentions, a week and then several days added on top of it. A lot. There’s a lot of discussion about the OWLs and we get an explanation of the grades. And then, of course, right at the end, Hermione gets all fed up and the Dumbledore’s Army concept is almost kind of born. Kind of. She talks him into thinking about it, at least. So the first thing I really wanted to talk about is, of course, this Daily Prophet article, the one that Percy had alluded to in the last chapter. The title of it is “Ministry Seeks Educational Reform, Dolores Umbridge Appointed First Ever High Inquisitor.” So there’s a nice quote in here that says, “In a surprise move last night, the Ministry of Magic passed new legislation giving itself an unprecedented level of control at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.” And I think the first thing that stood out to me was surprise move, because obviously Percy knew about it. Owls – I don’t know fast they travel – but he couldn’t have known about it just that day. He probably knew about it, right? So it couldn’t have been a surprise move, so this was obviously preemptive.
Michael: Oh, yeah…
Kat: Okay.
Michael: … but this is exactly the Ministry’s way of keeping the public in check…
Caleb and Kat: Mhm.
Michael: … is to tell them that this is a surprise move, even though this has been clearly deliberated for a while now…
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: Yup.
Michael: … I think is what that means in terms of that.
Kat: Yeah, that makes sense. We also learn in this article that Fudge is actually the one who passed the law, who appointed Umbridge to teaching staff at Hogwarts. It was Educational Decree 22. Do you guys think Dumbledore had actually really not found somebody? Or was this… obviously this has to do with Fudge trying to insert himself, but do you think there was a teacher?
Michael: Hmm.
Kat: Do you think that he was usurped? Usurped? Yeah, that’s the right word.
Michael: Mhm.
Kat: What do you think?
Caleb: I don’t know, I mean I feel like we would have an idea if there was another person.
Kat: You think so?
Caleb: I would think so.
Michael: Well, I like that in that way – again with this way that the Ministry is posing this article – I like that they’re acting like they’re like [in a British voice] “Oh, we were trying to help Dumbledore because nobody wanted the job. So actually we’re assisting him.”
Caleb: Yuck.
Kat: Yeah, gross.
Michael: So in that way – I guess if you were to say that – yeah, that he couldn’t find somebody. And by Books 3 and 4, they are really saying that nobody wants the job any more because people comment that Moody is the height of crazy to be taking the job.
Kat: Right.
Michael: Of course, he’s not really Moody, but…
Kat: Because it’s been how many years since the curse was put on it? A long time.
Caleb: Older than Harry is, so…
Megan: Sixteen years, I would think, because that’s when Trelawney was named Divination Professor and that was around the time that Voldemort… well, actually, no, even before that Voldemort wanted to…
Michael: Teach.
Megan: … have the job.
Michael: Yeah, it wasn’t too long after he left Hogwarts.
Caleb: Mhm.
Megan: Yeah.
Kat: Right.
Michael: So it’s been a while. Yeah, so…
Kat: So I guess I’m surprised that he even found who he did find.
Caleb: Mhm.
Kat: So wait, so Quirrell was only there a year?
Michael: No, Quirrell taught a different position before that year. He was the Muggle Studies teacher…
Kat: Oh, that’s right. That’s right.
Michael: … I believe. So yeah, but the interesting thing with this, too, is that, in a way, you would think that perhaps Dumbledore would be comforted at least to know that Umbridge isn’t going to last more than a year.
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Michael: So…
Kat: That is the sunny side of things, I suppose.
Michael: Yeah, because I think we did suggest – or somebody suggested in a previous episode – that Dumbledore actually hired Umbridge because he knew that. If it wasn’t one of us, it was in the comments on an episode that Dumbledore hired her knowing that she would lose the job after a year. But of course…
Kat: Yeah.
Michael: … clearly this confirms that that was not the case.
Kat: Yeah, he probably was more okay with it than he would have been.
Michael: Probably. [laughs]
Kat: Knowing that, anyway.
Michael: Yeah.
Kat: Yeah but as you mentioned, there are wizards that are resigning from the Wizengamo… gamot… however you say it, again, pronunciation not my forte.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: Which I thought was really nice, that people are actually retiring or resigning in protest of this High Inquisitor at Hogwarts or whatever.
Michael: Yeah.
Kat: I guess they are the Democrats of the wizarding world.
[Caleb and Kat laugh]
Michael: Well, and does the book confirm or did we find out later? Because I know one of them who resigns is Griselda Marchbanks…
Kat: Mhm.
Michael: … and I know we definitively found out through Rowling’s old site that she is the administrator of testing in the wizarding world. She’s involved in that department.
Kat: Right, isn’t she the one that Malfoy brags about knowing?
Michael: She might be. I think she actually might be. Yeah, so and of course then there’s Tiberius Ogden, as well, who gets mentioned later. So yeah, the two people who are pretty close to Hogwarts and seem to like how it runs are the ones who, of course, resign.
Kat: Right. Ogden. That name comes up somewhere else. Oh. That is the guy…
Michael: Firewhiskey.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: Oh.
Megan: I think that he is somewhere else, too, though.
Kat: Isn’t he the Ministry worker that goes to visit the Gaunts? In the sixth book?
Caleb: Bob Ogden?
Kat: Bob Ogden. There you go.
Michael: There is a story there. [laughs]
Kat: There must be a story there. [laughs] And I guess the last thing – I was trying to find evidence on this, but – did Rita Skeeter write this article?
Michael: I don’t think so.
Kat: Because she is not writing any more.
Caleb: We don’t get the author, but I would assume it is not her.
Megan: Yeah, it doesn’t sound like her usual flair is added to it.
Caleb: Scathingness. Yes, we’ve just had fresh writing from her, recently, so…
Kat: Let’s not get started on that, because that is…
Caleb: [laughs] We’ll go there later.
Kat: Yeah.
Caleb: Well, no, and Hermione confirms that Rita has been banned from writing for a year, right?
Kat: Right, that is what I was saying. So I wanted to, I guess…
Caleb: Yeah, we never get authors for other Daily Prophet articles except when Rita writes. Then we know who is writing.
Kat: Right. Well, because Rita’s the commentary, right?
Caleb: Yeah. Yeah.
Kat: She is the commentary, so… okay, yeah, so that was quite the article. We even get the mentions of Lupin and Hagrid and Moody in there.
Caleb: Mhm.
Kat: Just to… whatever. So the next thing I wanted to bring up here and talk about was the OWLs. There is this whole scene that takes place in Potions class, where Harry gets back a “large, spiky D” on his… I believe it’s moonstone paper?
Caleb: Mhm.
Megan: Yes.
Kat: Right? Because, wait. Yes. That was the word that my iPad said two episodes ago. I remember.
Caleb: I remember that. [laughs]
Kat: [laughs] The moonstones. So we get this whole explanation of the grades, which I always found fascinating and interesting. With quotes around it, “interesting.” So highest grade, as we know, is Outstanding, and then there is Exceeds Expectations, Acceptable – which is the last passing grade – and then there is a P, which as – I think it is – Fred says, “There’s nothing wrong with a good healthy P.”
[Caleb and Kat laugh]
Kat: Oh, Jo.
Caleb: Indeed.
Kat: And then there is D for Dreadful and T – supposedly, T – for Troll. So who the hell came up with these? Because they are very amusing.
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: And I completely enjoy them. And also, is there a point system? How do they figure out – you think – how you fall and where? Or is it just willy-nilly? Somebody like Snape can give Harry a D because he hates him? Well, we know that’s true, but…
Michael: Well, I assumed it was similar to… see, this is hard for me to compare, of course, because I grew up with an American grading system…
Kat: Oh, right.
Michael: … versus whatever the Brits might have as their grading system…
Michael: … but I assumed it was on a percentage scale because that is how letter grades are assigned, at least, over here in America, is that a certain percentage lands you into a certain letter.
Kat: Right.
Michael: Which was funny because, of course, when – I think it is later – when Harry gets another report from another class and he gets an A. And I was like, “Oh, he did so good!” And then I was like, “Oh no, wait, nope, that’s just okay by this standard. That is Acceptable.” [laughs] He just…
Kat: Right. Yeah, we need a Brit to tell us how this works.
Michael: Yeah because that would be… A would be more comparable to a C, by this standard. Yeah, I imagine I guess that this – like we were talking about with Griselda Marchbanks – I would think that that department came up with the grading system. It is pretty hilarious. There is always that element of bizarreness to wizard systems. Troll. I mean… [laughs]
Caleb: Yeah, Jo, tell us on Pottermore how long this system’s even been around. Because I want some history here.
Kat: Yeah.
Michael: Well, and…
Kat: What…
Michael: Oh, go ahead, Kat.
Kat: No, you go.
Michael: Well, I was going to say, too, I don’t think it is quite willy-nilly because I was thinking about with Harry getting such awful grades from Snape, as we see, Harry still manages to pass Potions, we find out next year.
Kat: Yeah, surprisingly.
Michael: Yeah. And he doesn’t do badly. He passes pretty well. So I wouldn’t say it is willy-nilly because there must be other things that Harry is doing right and that Snape is giving him correct… I do believe Snape is correctly grading him. For all of Snape’s faults, I don’t think he skews things.
Caleb: A Dreadful, though?
Michael: Well, Harry says that he just whips that essay out without thinking.
Caleb: Huh.
Kat: Yeah, but so does Ron.
Caleb: Yeah, that’s what I mean. I was so surprised that Ron does better than Harry.
Michael: That is pretty surprising. [laughs]
Kat: Well, Ron probably had Hermione-edits.
Caleb: Some late-night edits.
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Michael: And, too, Ron may know more than we give him credit for just because he has been in the wizarding world for longer than Harry has.
Kat: Truth.
Michael: He may just have things stored in his head, that he can just throw out there, that Harry doesn’t have.
Kat: That’s true.
Caleb: True enough.
Kat: And then – I guess the next thing that stood out to me was – when Hermione is trying to get out of them what grades they got on the papers.
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: And she was like, “Well, I guess I would have been thrilled if I’d gotten an O, but, I mean, I know that I wouldn’t have because he is marking to OWL standards.”
Caleb: [laughs] Yeah.
Kat: So why is that not always the standard? I guess I just never heard of… I guess, in America – or maybe the crappy school I went to, I don’t know – but there wasn’t different grading scales depending on what you were doing.
Megan: Well, when you’re younger you usually get check, check plus, check minus, and then you go move to A, B, C, and stuff. So maybe it is something like that.
Kat: That’s true.
Michael: I feel like I have seen something like this before. Possibly in my film classes – and maybe even in other college classes – where it’s just that some teachers, depending on what levels I was at, maybe like a hundred versus a three hundred level class, the grading level is… well, actually, no. I’m thinking of high school because at my high school… I went to a charter school, and they actually bumped up the percentage requirements for certain letter grades, so I don’t remember the exact ranges. I used to know them by heart. But it was a tougher grading system.
Kat: But that was in, like, an AP class or something, I assume?
Michael: No, it was our general grading system because our high school was a college prep high school so they were trying to grade harder based on what they thought the standards would be for college.
Kat: Right but that’s not on a… right. That makes sense. But this is on a project to project basis.
Michael: Mhm.
Kat: You know? I don’t know. It just seems kind of out of place.
Megan: It could also be the homework assignments or just, “Did you do it?” This essay was more like a take-home test or something, maybe.
Michael: Hmm.
Kat: That’s entirely possible.
Megan: Because if it’s homework you don’t usually get graded on it. Your teacher checks to make sure you did it and didn’t skim through it really quickly.
Kat: Yeah, see, I was an art student, so I never had to write papers and stuff.
Megan: Yeah, most of my classes I didn’t.
Kat: It was like, “Oh, did you finish your 3D project?” “Yeah, I did.” “Great. Okay, cool.”
[Michael laughs]
Kat: So I guess I’m not used to this whole grading thing.
Caleb: Yeah. I had a lot of grading because I was a science major so a lot of smaller assignments and then big tests, so…
Michael: Mhm.
Kat: Right.
Michael: I had a lot of that, too, in film.
Kat: So speaking of classes, in this chapter, as I mentioned earlier, we learn that Umbridge is going to start inspecting professors. In this chapter we see three lovely inspections.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Each very different from the other. The first one, of course, is Trelawney and she is kind of… what’s the word I’m looking for? Befuddled at her best.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: So of course, when poor Umbridge is standing over her things just go from worse to horrific. Of course, Umbridge goes with the intimidation method for Trelawney because I think she sees her the same way that we see her as this kooky, crazy lady who wears Afghans around even when it’s 100 degrees outside.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: But I guess that works for Umbridge, right, because she gets the result that she is looking for. She asks about her great grandmother, her great-great grandmother. It skips three generations, and blah, blah, blah.
Michael: Yeah, I love that line when Trelawney is like, “Sometimes the Inner Eye skips three generations.”
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Caleb: Come on, Trelawney, you can be a little less obvious. Come on.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Little less. What I think stood out to me here was that Umbridge is really asking her a lot of… not personal questions but definitely background questions about her life and her history and her time at Hogwarts. Is this purely for the evaluation? Or do we think she’s trying to get some sort of information from Trelawney? Does she know anything about Trelawney and the possible… we already know that she’s not working for Voldemort but… you guys know where I’m going with this. What does she know? What does she not know? What is she doing?
Megan: She could also just be trying to humiliate her because maybe in her eyes being a Seer is kind of like being a half-breed, sort of thing, and she’s prejudiced against that.
Caleb: Yeah, that’s what I always felt.
Michael: Yeah.
Caleb: She just really thrives in this moment of being able to subvert her and be condescending in a very passive way.
Kat: Ugh, Umbridge. God.
Michael: I think that is an interesting thing to put out there, that maybe she’s trying to get more out of Trelawney. What’s interesting, of course, about Umbridge prying into why Trelawney is even at Hogwarts is that we will find out at the end of the book exactly why she is working at Hogwarts.
Caleb: Right. Because only Dumbledore and Snape know that.
Michael: They really know that, yeah. The funny thing is Trelawney doesn’t… I actually was listening to an older episode from Prisoner where you guys were talking about whether Trelawney is even self-aware that she actually has made real predictions. From what you guys gathered in that episode, she isn’t, which I think is correct because when she makes the prediction in Prisoner about Pettigrew, she doesn’t even remember she said it. She thinks she fell asleep.
Megan: Yeah, she just goes into the trances and just doesn’t remember anything she says.
Caleb: Mhm.
Michael: So if… so really, in that way, if Umbridge was trying to information out of her she wouldn’t get anything valuable from her anyway.
Kat: Right.
Michael: Because she doesn’t even know it. She’s just there – I imagine she assumes she’s just there because of the goodness of Dumbledore’s heart.
Kat: Does Voldemort know that she’s the one who made the prophecy?
Caleb: I mean, Snape definitely could have told him but I have a feeling he did not.
Kat: Yeah, me too, actually. Otherwise I feel lke she would have been coveted more by Voldemort.
Megan: Yeah, like Slughorn is later on.
Kat: Yeah.
Caleb: Wait, but hold on a second. He has to know. Because otherwise why would the Death Eaters be getting into the Department of Mysteries?
Kat: Well, that’s just to try to get the prophecy. But I don’t think that Voldemort knows who made the prophecy.
Caleb: Who did it, yeah that’s fair. They can know that without knowing it’s her. That’s fair.
Megan: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah.
Kat: Because does… Snape definitely knows it was her, right?
Caleb: Yeah, because he overheard it.
Michael: Yeah.
Megan: But doesn’t she sound different when she actually makes predictions, though? She has a weirder voice. So he might not have known.
Kat: And the door was closed, so I don’t think he saw her.
Michael: He may have only found that out after the fact.
Caleb: So he definitely knows now because he’s in Dumbledore’s inner circle but maybe not originally.
Michael: Yeah.
Megan: Yeah.
Kat: Right. So it’s probably not likely that Voldemort knows it was Trelawney.
Caleb: Yeah.
Michael: Mhm.
Kat: Okay, so then that would mean that Umbridge probably isn’t fishing for information. It’s just…
Michael: Oh, no. I don’t think so.
Caleb: Right.
Kat: Makes total sense. Okay, well the rest of her inspection, I guess…
[Michael laughs]
Kat: … goes just fine. Of course, Umbridge is like, “Predict something for me.” And Trelawney is like, “Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, umm, umm, I see dark things in your future.” Right? She says something like that?
Michael: Yeah.
Megan: Yeah, it’s her default of “something grave is going to happen to you.”
Kat: Something grave. Right, that’s the word I was looking for.
Michael: Which is great because it’s yet another one of Trelawney’s false predictions that comes true.
Megan: Yeah.
Kat: Yeah. Okay, so earlier in the chapter, I think it was… yeah… it was the beginning of this chapter when they were talking about the inspections. Ron grins and is like, “Oh man, I’d love to see Umbridge try and inspect McGonagall.”
Caleb: Yes!
[Michael laughs]
Kat: And then, boom! It happens! Okay.
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Caleb: My home girl slams her down!
Kat: How convenient for us that we get to see this? Yeah, McGonagall is just like, STFU, Umbridge.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Done. And the whole passage is just amazing.
Caleb: Oh my God. I love her, I love her, I love her.
[Kat laughs]
Caleb: God, she’s perfect.
Kat: I feel like Michael should do the voices.
Michael: Oh, do you want me to read it?
Kat: Yeah, well…
Michael: Let’s see…
Kat: … one of us can do the narration, if you do the voices. We should definitely read this passage.
Michael: Let’s see. So which page is that on?
Kat: 320.
Michael: 320.
Kat: The US edition.
Michael: Right.
Kat: For those following along.
Michael: [laughs] So where are we starting at?
Kat: “Hem hem.”
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Kat: I think that’s a good place to start.
Megan: There’s a bunch of those on the page.
Kat: Oh, well…
Michael: [laughs] There’s hem hem‘s all over the page!
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: Hem hem‘s all over the place!
Michael: [laughs] That’s great.
Kat: Wow, lots of hem hem‘s.
Michael: [laughs] Which “hem hem” would you like to start at?
Kat: The second one is fine probably, yeah?
Michael: Okay.
Kat: Who wants to narrate?
Caleb: I will narrate.
Kat: Okay, go for it.
[Professor Umbridge music begins]
Michael: [as Umbridge] “Hem hem…”
Caleb: … said Professor Umbridge.
Michael: [as McGonagall] “Yes?”
Caleb: … said Professor McGonagall, turning round, her eyebrows so close together they seemed to form one long, severe line.
Michael: [as Umbridge] “I was just wondering, Professor, whether you had received my note telling you of the date and time of your inspection” [as McGonagall] “Obviously I received it, or I would have asked you what you are doing in my classroom…”
Caleb: … said Professor McGonagall, turning her back firmly on Professor Umbridge. Many of the students exchanged looks of glee.
Michael: [as McGonagall] “As I was saying, today we shall be practicing the altogether more difficult vanishment of mice. Now, the Vanishing Spell” [as Umbridge] “Hem hem.” [as McGonagall] “I wonder…”
Caleb: … said Professor McGonagall in a cold fury, turning on Professor Umbridge…
Michael: [as McGonagall] “… how you expect to gain an idea of my usual teaching methods if you continue to interrupt me? You see, I do not generally permit people to talk when I am talking.”
Caleb: Professor Umbridge looked as though she had just been slapped in the face. She did not speak, but straightened the parchment on her clipboard and began scribbling furiously.
[Professor Umbridge music ends]
Kat: You know what I really wanted to tweet out today? Because I make those little pictures with the quotes on them and stuff, and I really just wanted to put out there, McGonagall verbally bitch slaps Umbridge because…
Caleb: Yeah!
Kat: … that’s totally what she does!
[Megan and Michael laugh]
Kat: And I love her!
Caleb: That’s my home girl!
Kat: That’s Caleb’s home girl, that’s right. So just claps for McGonagall.
[Round of applause]
Kat: She’s out there, she’s still alive, right? She must be. Has to be.
Caleb: Yes.
Kat: I’m sorry…
Michael: As long as we’re…
Kat: … that was so morbid. I apologize. [laughs]
Michael: No, no…
Caleb: She and I still chat, so it’s cool.
Kat: Yeah, I just can’t think about her not being with us. But I had a Noah moment when I was reading as well.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Because they are vanishing mice and at the end of the class Ron holds a long wriggling mouse tail and drops it in the box.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: I just had a Noah moment because, where do the mice go?
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Where do they go?
Michael: They go to the wizard space.
Kat: What’s the wizard space?
Michael: Didn’t you guys come up with that wizard space, where it’s just where vanished things come and go?
Kat: Maybe.
Megan: Like people’s half eyebrows?
Michael: Yeah. [laughs]
Kat: [laughs] Those stay behind. This is different from the ghost world.
Michael: I’m assuming that because Ron is actually still holding the tail and it’s moving that… well, no, that wouldn’t necessarily be the same because a Concealment Charm is different.
Kat: Wait, isn’t the question that the Ravenclaw tower door asks McGonagall is, where do vanished things go?
Caleb: Yes.
Megan and Michael: Oh.
Kat: Okay, into everything, which is into nothing. So that’s the answer.
Caleb: Which is into non-being.
Kat: Non…
Caleb: Into non-being, which is to say everything.
Michael: There’s your answer. [laughs]
Kat: Okay. Well, problem solved.
Megan: So it just floats out there like the force.
Michael: There you go.
Kat: Oh, nice!
[Megan laughs]
Kat: Maybe it feeds to the force.
[Michael laughs]
Megan: Midichlorians.
Kat: Oh.
Michael: Eh, Midichlorians.
[Megan laughs]
Kat: I think we just figured out the secret to the universe, vanished place.
[Michael laughs]
Megan: Star Wars and Harry Potter are mixed together.
Michael: Yup, you’re welcome cross-over people. [laughs]
Kat: [laughs] So the next inspection, and the final one we get to see in this chapter, is of Professor Grubbly-Plank, which of course we know she is filling in for Hagrid. And this is where Umbridge is actually super fishing for information because…
Michael: Yes.
Kat: … the first thing that she says is, “So, where’s Hagrid? Tell me about where Hagrid is, because oh, Dumbledore is not going to tell me. Because, oh, I’m a little B and don’t deserve to know.” And I love that Grubbly-Plank is like, “Sorry, I actually really don’t know either.” And I really hope that… I know she doesn’t know, but I hope she does know and is just being…
Caleb: Same.
Kat: Right, not telling Umbridge. I know that’s probably not the case, but…
Michael: Well, that goes back to our discussion from a few weeks ago about how much the staff knows.
Kat: Right.
Caleb: Mhm.
Michael: I kind of felt like this confirms that she doesn’t in fact know or care. [laughs]
Kat: Yeah, yeah.
Michael: She’s just temporarily employed. She’s just getting money for it, that’s all she cares about. [laughs]
Kat: Yeah. I mean, obviously it’s a good thing that Dumbledore hasn’t told them, but…
Michael: Mhm.
Kat: Secretly I wish that she’s being rebellious right now.
Michael: It would be nice, wouldn’t it? [laughs]
Kat: Yeah, it would be. And also, as Caleb pointed out in the document here, it shows that Hagrid is actually a pretty great teacher because the students all answer Umbridge’s questions properly and…
Caleb: And Grubbly-Plank points out that they don’t have much left to go over for their OWLs.
Kat: Right. If it wasn’t for Malfoy being a dick, as Malfoy generally is.
Michael: Hmm.
Kat: Then… we know she’s prejudiced against Hagrid, but he might not have gotten sacked, I suppose.
Megan: Well, knowing Umbridge, she’s probably just being like, “Oh Grubbly-Plank taught them everything they needed to know in the short few weeks or months that they’ve been here.” And she could just pretend Hagrid didn’t teach them anything.
Kat: Right.
Michael: Yup. Well, and isn’t this where she trips up poor Neville in his answer? Because he’s also trying to join in with giving a good answer and Umbridge is like, “So you’re scared of the animals and of Hagrid?” And Neville is like, “No, god, that’s not what I meant!”
[Megan and Michael laugh]
Kat: I don’t think that happens in this chapter but I think…
Megan: Yeah, that’s when Hagrid is being inspected.
Michael: That’s right. That’s when Hagrid comes back, yeah.
Kat: Right, exactly.
Michael: So she finds a way.
Kat: Yeah. But I do love that poor Harry gets another detention just because he’s like, “Malfoy is stupid,” basically.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: She’s like, “Whoa, boom. Detention.”
Megan: Harry was stupid, though. He needs to just shut up.
[Kat laughs]
Michael: I love that. It’s so well-written. I love that moment where Ron and Hermione are just like, “Ugh,” right next to him. Facepalm.
Megan: He’s done it again.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Yeah, pretty much. She did everything but writing that, right?
Michael: Mhm.
Kat: And it’s funny, speaking of Hermione, she and Umbridge have a lot to do with each other in this chapter. Obviously it starts back in the class when Umbridge is like, “Books out and read!” But Hermione is like, “Oho, wait a minute! I’ve read the entire book!”
[Michael laughs]
Kat: And she’s like, “Quiz me! I dare you. Come on. Bring it on.” And Umbridge is actually impressed despite herself…
Michael: Yeah.
Kat: … but won’t even discuss what Hermione wants to talk about, which I think is super telling…
Michael: Oh, yeah.
Kat: … about exactly how much control the Ministry wants over everything.
Megan: Yeah, they don’t want them to have their own opinions. They want to just drill it into them and brainwash them into thinking that this is how everything is.
Kat: Yeah.
Michael: Well, and to give her her due, just as much as McGonagall does such a great job of shutting Umbridge down, Hermione, in her own way, does an excellent job as well. Umbridge seemingly wins the argument but she wins it by just saying, “We’re not going to talk anymore,” which is not a good ending to an argument and you don’t really win when you say that. Hermione has blatantly pointed out all of the flaws in the book in one go. The smartest of her class to actually bother to read the whole horrible thing, memorize it, and then recite it back to Umbridge. That’s exceedingly impressive.
Kat: So many good verbal bitch slaps in this chapter.
[Caleb laughs]
Michael: Yes, Umbridge gets taken to task quite a bit in this chapter.
Kat: She does.
Michael: Which is good because this is just the beginning of her taking over.
Kat: Right. I know this is bad and we’re skipping way ahead, but every time I think of Umbridge and her just dues or whatever, all I can think about is the scene in Monty Python where they’re clapping the shells together.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: And the horses and then…
Caleb and Megan: The coconuts?
Kat: Yes, the coconuts! And then Umbridge getting all terrified because of the horse noise. I don’t know. It just makes me laugh every time.
[Megan and Michael laugh]
Kat: Anyway. But she does, a little bit, win because of course Harry is like, “Oh, but don’t forget that Lord Voldemort lived out the back of Quirrell’s head!” And whoops, more freaking detention for Harry.
[Caleb and Michael laughs]
Michael: I found it funny that Quirrell is even mentioned. This is the first mention we’ve had of Quirrell in a long time.
Caleb: Yeah, and it’s also the first time we get a good idea of someone commenting on his teaching ability…
Michael: Mhm.
Caleb: … because in the first book, the only thing we really get out of Defense Against the Dark Arts is that Quirrell is stuttering a lot. We don’t get a lot of his actual teaching practices.
Michael: Mhm.
Kat: Right.
Michael: Yeah, I found it fascinating in that same way, too, because I guess, thinking back to it, Sorcerer’s Stone is such… despite the places it eventually goes in the end, it still has a pretty light tone. So it’s just kind of funny to be back referencing something that was so light in something like Order, which is so heavy.
Kat: Yeah, I mean, considering Quirrell basically burst into flames without the flames. Yeah.
Michael: [laughs] That he died. That he just dropped dead, yeah, in the dungeons. Yeah. No, it’s just funny to have that called back to Quirrell of all people because I don’t think the fandom really pays much attention to Quirrell and his contributions to the series.
Kat: Right. So of course, Harry’s detention leads to him coming back to the common room with insane deep cuts from that devil quill that she has. And this is bad: I laughed when Ron was like, “I suggested poison to get rid of Umbridge.”
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: I don’t know. That just seems awfully morbid for Ron, I’m saying. Maybe not. He is kind of the dark horse of the group. But so Hermione, due to her argument with Umbridge earlier, is like, “So guys, we should just learn this stuff ourselves in our free time because we have so much of it.”
[Caleb and Michael laugh]
Kat: Yeah, exactly! “And of course, naturally, Harry should teach us because, hello, he is super confident in his skills, is completely calm, and would definitely be a great teacher.”
Caleb: Yeah. Really patient, too.
Kat: Yes, yes! And very rational and emotionally-balanced.
Michael: [laughs] Hey, come on now.
Kat: What? Is that not all true? [laughs]
Michael: I think you’re being a little hard on him. [laughs]
Kat: I’m the one that defends Harry in this book. We know that.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: But he doesn’t exactly have all the good qualities of a teacher.
Michael: Well…
Caleb: But he has the main requirement that none of the others do have, so…
Megan: Experience.
Michael: Mhm.
Caleb: Right, uncanny skill.
Michael: Well, in a weird way, even though Hermione is not perhaps outright saying it, she’s kind of implying that this could be good therapy for Harry, which it is, so…
Kat: Takes your mind off everything
Caleb: Yeah. Also helps him pick up the ladies.
[Everyone laughs]
Michael: Yeah, she should have started the argument off with, “So how can we get you and Cho Chang in a room together? Here’s my proposal.”
[Caleb laughs]
Kat: Oh, boy. That would’ve worked better, probably.
Michael: That might’ve gone somewhere. [laughs]
Kat: Because as we know, Harry starts to freak out and he’s yelling about how un-special and not talented he is, and Ron and Hermione are just standing there grinning, which… I don’t know. A little mean.
Caleb: Until he really explodes.
Kat: Yeah, and stands up and bursts the bowl of… what, the Murtlap Essence?
Megan: Murtlap Essence.
Caleb: Man, give it to Ron and Hermione because if that was me, and someone shouted at me and shouted in my face like that, I would be deuces in a second. [laughs]
Kat: Even if it was your best friend?
Caleb: Yes. Don’t ever talk to me like that. Ever.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Listeners, take note.
[Caleb laughs]
Michael: And it goes to such a… it’s that, “This sure escalated quickly!” [laughs]
Caleb: Yeah, exactly.
Kat: Well, it’s that explosive temper of his.
Michael: Mhm.
Kat: Which – I think it even says in there – is so close to the surface these days, so…
Caleb: Mhm.
Kat: But there’s a line where Hermione finally says Voldemort’s name, and it says that that’s the only thing that has calmed Harry.
Caleb: Hmm.
Kat: Is that just because… why?
Megan: I think it’s because he knows she’s taking it really seriously because she never uses his name, and she’s said it, so she knows that they really need this to be able to protect themselves. So he realizes that she’s just trying to help everyone, and that he is the best medicine for it.
Kat: That makes sense.
Michael: Yeah. I think maybe just on the reread, at least for me, it didn’t quite have the effect that it first did when I first read it, just because the movies tried to do the same thing, but… because Hermione does do the whole thing where she’s like “V-V-Voldemort.” And I’m like, “Eh… you don’t really talk about him that much anyway.”
Megan: Yeah, it’s not as powerful in the movie.
Michael: [laughs] Right. Yeah, exactly. Whereas here, of course, Hermione has frequently used He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, so it does pack a little more punch in that way.
Kat: And I’m channelling Noah again here, just because he and I talked about this very briefly…
[Michael laughs]
Kat: … and he commented on how Harry was calm and he was like, “Maybe it’s Voldemort listening in through the Horcrux.” So I know that’s not legit; I just had to throw it out there because he’s not here.
Caleb: Crazy Noah theories.
Kat: Yeah, crazy Noah theories. They’re all around us. Like the Force, they’re all around us.
[Caleb and Michael laugh]
Michael: Well, and in tandem with that, I’m sure there will be discussion on the main site and forums about how much of Harry’s behavior, even at this moment, is influenced by the Horcrux because I’m sure we will keep coming back to that throughout the…
Kat: Yeah.
Michael: … pretty much until the end of Deathly Hallows of how much of Harry is the Horcrux and how much is just Harry being Harry.
Kat: Right. So the chapter ends shortly thereafter. Hermione gets him to agree to at least think about it. And he laments his outburst and goes to bed happy, but with a hurting hand.
Caleb: Yeah, and kind of sulky, too, though. Always.
Kat: Yeah, well… always, yeah.
[Megan and Michael laugh]
Kat: That’s Harry. That’s our boy. So there you go, that’s the end of Chapter 15 of Order of the Phoenix.
Caleb: And since we are at the end of the chapter, that means it is time for this week’s Podcast Question of the Week. All right, so here’s the question: “While Umbridge is unquestioningly horrible, does Hogwarts need a more rigorous method of evaluating teaching practices? What do you think is used now, if anything, and what should be the happy medium between previous practices and those that Umbridge brings with her new position?” So basically we’re wanting to know all about how should teachers be better evaluated at Hogwarts because we clearly know some of them are not up to par.
Kat: We should let McGonagall do it, always.
Caleb: Everything.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Yeah, everything.
Caleb: So if you head over to our website, our main website alohomora.mugglenet.com, you’ll see the question. And leave us your responses and you may end up on the show next week.
Kat: Right. And just to wrap up, as always, we want to thank Megan so much for joining us. We hope you had an amazingly fun, Umbridge-y time.
Megan: You’re very welcome, and I did. It was more fun than I thought. I was less nervous.
Kat and Michael: Oh, good!
Kat: There’s only going to be a couple of thousand people listening to it, so…
Megan: Yeah… hi, guys!
Kat: But you’ve already recorded it now, so…
Megan: Now I don’t have to worry.
Caleb: We’ll be sure to point her out to you guys at LeakyCon for those of you that are going…
[Michael laughs]
Caleb: … so that you can meet her and make her feel really welcome.
[Megan laughs]
Michael: Put a giant neon sign…
Kat: Yeah. We’ll call her out at the panel.
Megan: Oh, joy.
Kat: We’re just kidding. We won’t do that.
[Megan laughs]
Michael: And Megan, can you remind the listeners of the websites that you work for and run?
Megan: Yes. So I run both Magical Menagerie, which is a general Harry Potter site, and Matthew-Lewis.com, which is Matt’s only recognized fansite, so yay.
Caleb: Yeah, Matt hugged her at the red carpet in Orlando.
[Kat and Megan laugh]
Michael: Oh, you lucky, lucky girl.
Megan: Oh, yes!
[Megan and Michael laugh]
Caleb: He knows her, so that was a cool moment. And it’s also in the closing scenes of the NBC’s “Making of Diagon Alley” special.
Megan: It is, and it’s in their wrap-up video too, on YouTube.
Caleb: Yeah.
Michael: Oh, so that was you getting the hug? My brother and I watched that.
Megan: Yes!
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Yup. So be jelly, people. Be jelly.
Michael: Well, if you would like to be on the show just like Megan, we can’t guarantee a Matthew Lewis hug for you, but…
[Kat laugha]
Michael: … we can at least have you on with us for many virtual hugs. To find out how you can be on the show with us, head over to our website and check out the “Be on the Show” page at alohomora.mugglenet.com. We just ask that you have a set of headphones and a microphone so that you can actually talk to us. Nothing too fancy, just so we can make sure we hear you in good quality.
Kat: And of course, in the meantime, if you want to keep in touch with us, you can find us on Twitter at @AlohomoraMN; facebook.com/openthedumbledore; Tumblr at mnalohomorapodcast.tumblr.com. Of course our phone number is 206-GO-ALBUS – 206-462-5287. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes. Tons of you are doing that, so thank you a bajillion times over. We super appreciate that. And of course follow us on Snapchat at MN_Alohomora, and Audioboo. It is free; all you need is an internet connection and a microphone. You can record the message directly on alohomora.mugglenet.com, and yeah, keep it under 60 seconds because, again, if you play a super long one, we can’t play it on the show. So yeah, thanks. We want to hear your theories on past episodes, upcoming episodes… all of that. So send them in, please. And thank you.
Caleb: And make sure you check out our store, which you can find from the main Alohomora! website, which has a lot of different products, even products for your pets, so that they will enjoy the Alohomora! swag. Thank you for all of your feedback on what you want in the store, and now there are new items in the store! Yay! So go check them out because you will want them for the summer. Yeah.
[Michael laughs]
Caleb: Also, there are ringtones that are free and available on the website. Just check those out.
Kat: Yeah, the flip-flops are still in the store, just for the record.
Caleb: Yes.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: So buy those up, people. Buy ’em up. I’m just kidding.
Michael: And of course, don’t forget about our Alohomora! app, which is available, as we always say, seemingly worldwide. We haven’t heard any words to the contrary yet. Prices vary, depending on your location. The app includes transcripts, bloopers, alternate endings, host vlogs, and more, so make sure to download that and check it out. But in the meantime, we are all in detention for speaking out in Umbridge’s class, so we’d better go.
Kat: Ugh. I’m skipping detention.
Michael: You’re skipping detention? [laughs]
Kat: Yeah.
Michael: I’m Michael Harle.
Caleb: I’m Caleb Graves.
Kat: And I’m Kat Miller. Thank you for listening to Episode 92 of Alohomora!
Michael [as Umbridge] Open the Dumbledore, but do not speak while I am speaking.
[Show music begins]
Michael: Still maybe not deserving of Prefect status, but I’ll let that…
Kat: Oh my God, are we going to hate on him for that forever?
[Michael laughs]
