Transcript – Episode 104
[Show music begins]
Caleb Graves: This is Episode 104 of Alohomora! for October 4, 2014.
[Show music continues]
Caleb: Hey, everyone. Welcome to our newest episode of Alohomora! I’m Caleb Graves.
Kat Miller: I’m Kat Miller.
Michael Harle: And I’m Michael Harle. And our very special guest today is Xenia, all the way from Denmark, and she has been waiting to be on the show for a very long time. Xenia, say hi to the listeners.
Xenia Jensen: Hello, everybody! Thanks for having me on the show.
Michael: Tell us a bit about yourself and your history with Harry Potter, what House you’re in.
Xenia: Oh, geez, do you have five years?
[Kat, Michael, and Xenia laugh]
Xenia: I’m from Denmark.
Kat: You have about two minutes.
[Everyone laughs]
Xenia: I have two minutes. All right. I can cut it down. I am called Xenia, I am twenty years old, I live with my boyfriend, and we’ve been together for almost nine years, and we are getting married this summer.
Michael: Oh, congratulations.
Kat: Aww.
Xenia: Thanks, we’re very happy. I’m studying to be a caretaker for people with alcohol problems or people who take drugs or young people who have some problems or [are] diagnosed with borderline stuff like that, so I’m very [unintelligible], but I cannot wait to be done. I’ll be done in one year, so… and I am in Ravenclaw, of course, because I am a nerd. [laughs]
[Michael laughs]
Kat: I mean, think we’re all nerds.
[Michael laughs]
Xenia: Yeah, definitely. But before Pottermore I was like, “Of course I’m a Ravenclaw; that’s where I belong,” and when Pottermore came, and I was sorted into Ravenclaw I was so happy because “Yay, it’s true, and Rowling says it’s so,” so yeah. And I’ve known Harry Potter I think basically all my life. My mother read the books to me when I was little, and then when I could read myself I started reading them instead of her reading to me. So yeah, it’s like my childhood, my teenage years, and now my adulthood, so yeah.
Michael: And I’m assuming… did you read the English versions, or did you read the versions…?
Xenia: Actually, no, I’ve never read the English books, I have to admit.
Kat and Michael: Oh!
Xenia: So when I had to be on this podcast, I had to find the English chapters because I have the eBooks from Pottermore because they had this offer if you bought all seven of them. So I’ve read this chapter in English, so I had all the names because, of course, they changed it for the Danish versions.
Michael: Oh, that’s so interesting. You’re going to have to inform us on some of the changes for the Danish edition.
Xenia: Oh, yes. [laughs] It’s basically the teachers’ names, like Umbridge. She’s not called Umbridge. In the Danish version she’s called [Dorothea Omber]. Which means that you look down on people in Danish.
Michael: [laughs] Oh!
Kat: Ah!
Xenia: Oh, yeah, symbolism right here.
[Kat and Xenia laugh]
Michael: That is so cool.
Kat: Yeah.
[Xenia laughs]
Michael: So we’re going to be finding out a… we’re going to be learning a lot on this episode.
Xenia: Oh, yes, indeed. [laughs]
Kat: Yes, we are.
Michael: On Alohomora!, and we are going to be learning a lot in Chapter 26: “Seen and Unforeseen,” which, listeners, we want to make sure you read that chapter before you listen to the episode, so you can get the fullest experience from our discussion.
Caleb: Before we get to that discussion, we are going to talk about some of your comments from last episode. The first comment comes on the topic of the Azkaban mass breakout, and this comes from loony_lauren:
“On the topic of the mass breakout of Azkaban, maybe Voldemort only had the [D]ementors set the Death Eaters free[.] He could have possibly bribed the [D]ementors that helped him allow these 10 to escape and just have them not worry about the rest. We know that the [D]ementors were happy to oblige to what Voldemort wanted, and they just did as he asked, which was to allow the [D]eath [E]aters to escape.”
And she continues the thought in a lower comment.
“The [M]inistry is doing everything they can to prove that [V]oldemort is not back. By isolating only the [D]eath [E]aters that escaped, this is drawing attention to [V]oldemort and his possible return at the moment. I feel like if other prisoners broke out, the [M]inistry would mention them maybe only for the reason of drawing attention from the [D]eath [E]aters [who] escaped since 10 [D]eath [E]aters escaping and nobody else seems highly suspicious, although they did do a good job of laying the blame on Sirius.”
This was a very good argument, the fact that there were not other people who broke out, which was something that people were discussing certainly back and forth on the main site.
Michael: Yeah, I… and listeners, you’re going to hear me probably say a lot of points that I probably said last week… [laughs]
Kat: Aww.
Michael: … but that you didn’t get to hear. So here’s my second chance at it.
[Caleb laughs]
Michael: But my thought, and I know we had discussed this and came to this conclusion, is that Voldemort doesn’t really have a need to break anybody else out because this is… he’s not looking into to start the war yet. He’s concentrating on a very small project, you could say, and he…
Caleb: He needs his people.
Michael: Yeah! He’s… and as we’ll see in the upcoming chapter, he’s released people who can specifically help him with this very specific mission at the Ministry. Voldemort is not one to just do a general idea and then go with the flow. That’s more Harry’s way of doing things. Voldemort is very specific about how he carries things out, and he’s trying to quietly just do what he needs to do, and I think breaking everybody out of Azkaban would have been a bigger mistake on his part. I think that would have sent a different message to the wizarding world than breaking out just the people he needed.
Kat: I was just thinking about this. I wonder why he didn’t try [to] go more stealth-mode, learning from Barty Crouch, Jr.’s… how he escaped with the Polyjuice Potion and the like? Wouldn’t that have been even more… oh, I guess stealthy? Keeping it more of a secret?
Michael: To Polyjuice Potion everybody out of Azkaban?
Xenia Oh, yeah. [laughs]
Kat: I mean, the people [whom] he wanted, yeah, why not? I’m sure there are people who would gladly go sit in Azkaban for him.
Michael: I feel like most of the people who would are already in it, right?
Kat: Maybe.
Michael: The ones who are out are the ones who have… are Lucius types who are like, “Oh, I’m not actually bad. I’m a good guy.”
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Kat: Fair enough, fair enough.
Caleb: But you also… Voldemort being the – obviously, full of a lot of pride – probably in some ways wants people to know that things are moving in this chaos to happen, that he’s ascending again, even though the Ministry is actively trying to persuade people otherwise.
Michael: Well, it’s almost like he knows he’s got the Daily Prophet and Ministry in his hands, and he’s… I think Voldemort is almost aware of how they’re going to report it because the whole thing with it being Sirius is to his advantage because they’re blaming it on somebody who has nothing to do with it, and they’re targeting Sirius more than Voldemort, really, in that article, so the public believes it.
Caleb: Because they’re stupid.
Michael: Because they’re [unintelligible].
Xenia: And that’s their last resort because everything right here… they’re losing the control. The Ministry is saying stuff, and Harry is saying stuff, and everybody is arguing, and this is the last thing. We can always have this enemy, and that could be Sirius Black, and then everybody’s against him. A common enemy. That’s the best thing.
Caleb: The next comment comes on the topic of Hermione using Rita for the Quibbler story. This comes from MinervaLupin:
“It was a brilliant move on Hermione’s part to combine [t]he Quibbler with Rita Skeeter. If it ha[d] been any other journalist writing the article on Harry and then having it being published by [t]he Quibbler, no one would have taken it seriously, thinking it is just another phony article of no consequence. Yet have a renowned journalist of Rita’s fame writing and publishing the same article in [t]he Quibbler, and everyone will want to read it. It gives credibility to the magazine (which has […] not such a good reputation), and since it is Skeeter writing it, everyone will believe her (we just finished GoF where everything she wrote was taken as pure gold and never questioned). The fact that this will be the first thing she has written and published in months […] will make people even more curious and […] will have them lining up to get their own copy. That is a brilliant way to ensure that people will finally get the untainted truth and be made wiser to the grave situation at hand and thus be a bit more prepared for the war to come… you have an infamous journalist under your control, so why not use her for your benefit?”
Xenia: [laughs] Oh, yeah.
Caleb: So it’s interesting because, basically, you have two absurd, extreme… well, they’re not in the same extreme but two absurd things, with the Quibbler being a not-too-believable magazine in general, and Skeeter… I don’t know if I’d totally agree that everyone takes her word as gold. I think people enjoy it as sensationalist, but the fact that we have this sensationalist journalist and this not-too-believable magazine in general combining to somehow to provide the most honest article is a very interesting dynamic.
Michael: Yeah, you’re putting two pieces of insanity together and making something logical, kind of. That’s something I’ve pondered through many rereads and up to this one, this time around it’s made the most sense to me, what Hermione did. It actually… the brilliance of what Hermione did really hit me because when I first read it, I was like, “Why does everybody believe this story in the Quibbler all of the sudden? Why does this work?” But I think MinervaLupin’s comment is an excellent [analysis] of why it seems like it shouldn’t work, but it does.
Caleb: Yeah.
Kat: I was just going to say, “It’s almost as if two wrongs, in this instance, actually do make a right.” Right?
Caleb: Yeah, and I think the point that I’d never really thought about – but that MinervaLupin draws out – is that Skeeter hasn’t written in so long, and the wizarding world in Britain is so used to reading her material, so I mean, it would be like a very renowned journalist in our world stop[ping] doing what they’re doing for so long and then suddenly have this groundbreaking piece. Of course you would rush to go see it. I mean, I’m trying to think of a good example. I’m not thinking of a good one right now that isn’t political, but that’s such a good idea, a good reasoning, because, like I said, I don’t think everyone takes Skeeter’s every word for gold because I think most people know she embellishes. But to be absent from the game that long and to come back is a big invitation for people to pick up the piece.
Michael: What were you going to say, Xenia?
Xenia: Do we get to read the article in the book? I don’t remember right now because it sounds like if… once again, I don’t know if we get to read it, but it sounds like Rita is actually writing something true with this article, not this “his eyes with tears” and stuff. This feeling things she’s used to. This is actually a good article. This is a good journalist writing this article, and that’s the power of Hermione. She makes her write this proper article because she knows stuff about her.
Michael: That is a worthwhile point because, no, we don’t get to read the article. We just assume from the text that it is truthful and from Hermione’s insistence that Rita not embellish. So… which I imagine was… she much have spare quills that aren’t quick quotes quills in her bag.
Xenia: Hermione [lent] her one.
Michael: Yeah. [laughs] So yeah, we have to assume that the article does actually report the straight up facts, which would be unusual. It would’ve been interesting to read the article, just to see the change in Rita’s writing style.
Caleb: Though I’m sure she still has some of her style because… there would’ve had to have been sort of leeway because if it [were] completely cold, then – this completely objective piece – it wouldn’t have seemed as believable. Because if it doesn’t sound like Rita’s usual writing to at least some degree, then it loses the authenticity to it. So there’s probably a little bit of embellishing, probably on Harry while he’s talking to her.
Michael: Yeah. [as Rita Skeeter] “I sit amongst the drunks here in the Three Broomsticks…”
[Caleb and Xenia laugh]
Michael: “… with Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, his green eyes brimming against the dull colors of Hogsmeade.” Something like that.
Xenia: And this is when Hermione punched her.
Michael: Yeah! [laughs]
Xenia: [as Hermione] “Stop it!”
Caleb: All right, and the final comment comes on the topic of Harry and Cho’s date from QuibbleQuaffle, which I can’t imagine saying that five times fast, but…
[Xenia laughs]
Caleb: [continues]
“When I first read this book I was in my last couple of years of primary school – so between 9 and 11 around about – and I found the date [scene] hilarious, even if it left me slightly pained by all Harry’s secondhand embarrassment. So I was on the other side of those teenager years – before I was even interested in dating and the like – maybe that had something to do with it. As far as whether Harry’s romantic ineptness is a male thing, I wouldn’t say so. I’m a girl, and I know that I’m terrible at flirting [and] dating; a first date on Valentine’s Day, in a tea shop full of couples and little cherub things and perfume and doilies would totally freak me out. I 100% feel Harry in this chapter – and that’s what makes it funny for me.”
Michael: [laughs] Yeah, and… well, okay, because I’d be interested actually, to hear, Xenia, how you felt with this scene because we discussed last week…
Xenia: Yeah, I heard it. [laughs]
Michael: … everybody’s varying reactions to this scene. So what were your first feelings when you read it?
Xenia: I’m so afraid to say this, but I love the Harry and Cho relationship. I never imagined Harry with Ginny until the last book, to be honest.
Michael: Oh, snap.
Xenia: It never occurred to me.
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Xenia: I don’t know why I was blind, but because my boyfriend lost his dad when we were pretty young as well, this thing about losing someone [whom] you love… the thing about going through grief when you’re very young, it’s very hard, so I think I felt something for Cho in that she wants this closure, as you talked about last week, but she also wants someone who says that this person understands her that it’s hard to be without someone because Harry lost his parents as well, so I think Cho wants to use him as this grieving partner or something. And Harry just totally misunderstands because she’s like, “Are we going to make out because we’re in this pink place with kissing couples?” and…
[Michael laughs]
Xenia: … then everything just goes wrong, and I just felt so sorry for Cho because that’s not at all what she wanted, and then, like you said last week, she wants to make him jealous by mentioning Cedric and the other guy I don’t remember what he’s called right now.
Michael: Oh, Roger Davies?
Caleb: Roger.
Xenia: Yeah, exactly, and saying, “Oh, he wanted me to come, and then I said no. Hmph!” and then she’s just insulted and ugh, it’s just so… I want them to be together, and that should happen. They should be happy.
[Michael laughs]
Caleb: I do want my word in on this thing because I wasn’t on last week, but I will be brief because I know this is an endless discussion. I totally understand…
[Xenia laughs]
Caleb: Well, Harry… I mean, this is what we expect from Harry, right?
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Caleb: I mean, he’s clearly not older than… I mean, watching this scene and watching Harry, I’m just like, “Oh my God, dude, you’re killing it.”
[Kat and Xenia laugh]
Caleb: But also, I’m not… I wasn’t surprised by Cho’s actions. I don’t necessarily think she’s wrong in acting that way, but I do think she’s wrong in acting that way on the first date. Trying to…
Xenia: That’s true.
Caleb: … incite jealousy and all this on the first date she and Harry ever go out. I think she’s a little too quick to pull out those guns.
Xenia: And it’s not fair to put him in that pink room at all.
Caleb: Yeah, especially with all the cherubs floating around.
Xenia: Seriously.
Caleb: Get that out of here.
[Xenia laughs]
Michael: Well, and Kat will know that clearly I have found a kindred spirit in Xenia with my feelings on the Harry/Cho relationship.
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Kat: You’ve actually found one more. I think this is the perfect time to transition into our Podcast Question of the Week responses from last week.
Michael: Oh, boy.
Kat: Which, of course, you asked this question, which, unfortunately, nobody heard you ask it, but I will remind…
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Kat: Do you want to read it since it’s kind of like it was last week?
Michael: [gasps] Oh, that is so nice. Okay, sure. I’ll read it.
Kat: Okay. Go ahead.
Michael: Thank you. [laughs] The question is “The classic moment of this chapter is, of course, Harry and Cho’s disastrous date. The fandom has put a lot of blame on Cho for the failure of this relationship, but was there ever perhaps a chance for them to be compatible? What about Cho’s personality might have made this relationship work? Could she have ever reached Harry in a different way? What could Harry have done better on his end of the relationship?”
Kat: So as I mentioned, you did have one other person on your side…
[Everyone laughs]
Michael: Yay!
Xenia: We’ll make a club.
Kat: Yes, there you go, a club of three. Perfect. And that is our first comment from WizardOrWhat. It says,
“I don’t think that they were incompatible at all – in fact I think that Cho is remarkably similar to Ginny. She’s into Quidditch, is clearly brave (joining the DA in [this book], the resistance in Deathly Hallows), and [is] loyal (see her defence of Marietta). I think this date could have gone very differently if Harry had played his cards right, though I can imagine them falling out over Marrieta anyway.
Okay, so this person started out on your side…
[Michael laughs]
Xenia: And then moved slowly…
Kat: … but doesn’t think they would last. They weren’t going to go the distance.
Caleb: So Michael, do you agree with that, that if they would have been able to stay together, do you think the incident with Marietta would have been too much for them?
Michael: Well, interestingly in relation to that, the movie… Even though it cuts Marietta… The movie combines Marietta and Cho into one character, and they fall out over that in the movie rather than the date. Because Cho ends up being the one who rats out the DA. Not intentionally, but she does it from the power of the Veritaserum. So yes, I do agree with that, because as WizardOrWhat is saying, Cho, I think, is very loyal to Marietta, as we see to a fault. She really should have known not to bring her in the first place because Marietta is clearly not into the DA from the beginning. So yeah, I could agree with that. I could see that definitely.
Kat: All right, well, then, our next comment from DisKid says,
“I think the only way for this to possibly work would be for Harry to have worked up his courage and asked Cho to the Yule Ball before Cedric did. This way, perhaps, she never would have [even] dated Cedric and wouldn’t have been so devastated when he died. I’m a big Cedric fan [-] after all he’s a fellow Hufflepuff! [-] but he really was a big killer in their relationship.”
[Everyone laughs]
Michael: Oh my.
Caleb: I totally buy that things would have gone better for them, but I don’t know if it would have still worked out in the end, but [it] probably would have been better in the beginning.
Kat: Yeah, I like to think that if Harry had gotten to [her] first, they might have had a fighting chance. I still don’t think they would have lasted, but they might have dated for a while, a couple non-hand-holding dates.
Michael: Well, and what a lot of people I saw pointed out in both the main discussion and the podcast question is that – and as Xenia just mentioned earlier – Cho is looking for… Because they end up running out of topics and because Cho gets a little more dramatic throughout the date, she ends up trying to use Harry as this emotional crutch to discuss Cedric because the sad thing is, she doesn’t seem to have anybody else to talk about it with, and she thinks Harry would be the person…
Xenia: No one understands quite as good as Harry. Again, he lost someone too, and he saw Cedric die, for crying out loud. I mean…
Michael: Yeah, she’s thinking this is going to be a good… and unfortunate because she is more emotional in that way, and Harry is more closed off.
Xenia: And she’s a girl!
Michael: Yeah! Well…
Xenia: Seriously, we have… Oh, we talk so much about grieving in kids [in] my study, and this thing about boys not talking about when they’re sad or lost someone in their family and stuff, and girls are talking about it all the time. This is the clash between genders.
Caleb: Which is not so much genders than it is just society inflicting norms on those two genders.
Xenia: That could be true because “boys don’t cry” and stuff.
Caleb: Right, right, because they’re socialized not to or else they’re…
Xenia: Exactly.
Caleb: Well, that’s something I should not get into because I have a lot of feelings about that.
[Xenia laughs]
Michael: Well, we definitely get that stereotypical portrayal from Harry because he is so astonishingly clueless about this whole ordeal. But when you think about the fact that she’s actually trying to reach out to Harry in that way, and what people pointed out was that Harry refuses to talk to her about it, but then he goes down the street and talks to Rita Skeeter about it, somebody he has much more disdain for.
[Xenia laughs]
Michael: So it’s funny because I falsely remembered with previous reads of the book that there was just something that Hermione said that triggered the story out of Harry, but there’s nothing that she really says that would seemingly convince Harry any more. She’s just like, [as Hermione] “Are you ready?” And he’s like, [as Harry] “I guess so.” [laughs] And that’s it. So…
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Kat: Yeah. Well, I guess along that same vein, QuibbleQuaffle had a good comment about this, I thought. It says,
“I think a big barrier in their relationship was that by OotP they had both gone through a traumatic experience and were responding to it in very different ways. Harry shouts and screams; Cho cries and cries. I think that they’re both confused about what they want from this relationship[, and] I think at least on Harry’s part he wants to go out with Cho because it was something he wanted last year, and now it’s happening, so /obviously/ he should be jumping at the chance, right? Except really what each of them needs and wants has changed since last year, and they can’t provide that for each other anymore.”
Xenia: That’s a good point.
Caleb: Indeed. People change.
Michael: Yeah. The problem is that you grow up, and you go different ways sometimes.
Xenia: Especially after something as big as death.
Michael: But I’m still all for finding that relatable ground, and they could still make it work.
Xenia: Yeah, let’s do it.
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Xenia: We will rewrite this chapter.
Michael: Our group of three, Xenia.
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Michael: Us and WizardOrWhat.
Kat: And I just wanted to read this last comment from Outspoken1 just to close up the discussion here. It says,
“Folks, they are 15[-]year-old teenagers, and even though they are a wizard and witch, relationships are fraught with disaster when young men and women are first learning about each other and themselves. Jo is perfect (as usual) with the story telling [sic] of the awkwardness development of teen relationships. Here is a quick rundown: Harry and Cho, then Ginny; Ron and Lavender Brown, then Hermione; Ginny and (first) adolescent crush on Harry, then Tom Riddle [diary], then Michael Corner, then Dean Thomas, then Harry Potter; Hermione and possible adolescent boyfriend before she found out she was a witch (Jo hints about Ron – ex., kiss on [the] cheek before [the] Quidditch match), then Viktor Krum, then Ron Weasley; Cho and Roger Davies, then Cedric [Diggory] then Harry, then Michael Corner[, and] then married a Muggle man ([which is according to] the Harry Potter Wiki). [In conclusion, m]ost adolescents and teenagers work through many relationships before finding (if they ever do) their match. Except, of course, Arthur and Molly.”
And the quote says,
“It was obvious[ they] were made for each other.”
So…
Michael: That was quite a beautiful mapping out [laughs] of relationships. Well done.
Caleb: But maybe doesn’t cast Ginny in the most positive way.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: No, that… yeah. The “then and then and then” and… yeah.
[Caleb and Xenia laugh]
Kat: I would agree with that.
Michael: Well, some people like to argue that Ginny is actually the one who has the most realistic relationship track out of everybody.
Caleb: I would agree with that. I feel like she knew what she was doing in all of those relationships.
Michael: [laughs] So…
Kat: Yeah, I mean, there are people who date and play the field and date a lot of people to figure out what they’re looking for and what they’re not looking for, and then there are the people like my brother. He met his wife at 18, and they just had their 20th wedding anniversary, so…
Michael: Oh, congratulations.
Xenia: Just like me, actually. We met when I was 13, and now we’re getting married, so…
Kat: Yeah, there you go.
Xenia: Aww, it’s so sweet. It happens. We are Molly and Arthur, yay!
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Yeah.
Michael: Well, and what I think… In the bigger picture of this series, I think this is why… When Jo started giving away what happened to the characters via interviews and Pottermore after Deathly Hallows was released, people were raising eyebrows at who got paired with who. So many people were expecting Luna and Neville to get together, and that…
Xenia: The film says it’s true. That’s funny.
Michael: Yeah, in the film’s canon that’s what happened, but then of course in the book canon she went off with Rolf Scamander, who a bunch of people were like, “Who is that?” Of course everybody knows who he is now.
Kat: But Jo said that they likely had a fling, so there you go.
Michael: Yeah…
Xenia: Yeah.
Michael: … she mentioned that post movie, so I feel like the movie was because so many people wanted it.
Kat: But she approved of the movie, so…
Michael: Oh, that gets into such dangerous territory. [laughs]
Xenia: [laughs] Oh, yes.
Kat: It does. It goes back to that whole “what is and isn’t canon” debate, right…
Michael: Exactly.
Caleb: Gone.
Kat: … which we will not crack open right now.
Michael: Nope.
Kat: Yes.
[Michael laughs]
Xenia: Don’t do it.
Kat: But that is the end of the discussion from last week’s Podcast Question of the Week.
Michael: And with that, we head into what is seen and unforeseen in Chapter 26.
[Order of the Phoenix Chapter 26 intro begins]
Harry: Eat dung, Umbridge! Eat dung, Umbridge! Eat dung, Umbridge!
Trelawney: Chapter 26.
Harry: [repeating and getting increasingly faster and high-pitched] Eat dung, Umbridge!
Trelawney: “Seen and Unforeseen.”
[Order of the Phoenix Chapter 26 intro ends]
Michael: As February rolls into March, Quidditch is back on everyone’s mind. Unfortunately, Ginny’s Seeker capabilities can’t make up for Ron’s lack of Keeper skills, and the team makes an embarassing loss – takes an embarassing loss, rather – to Hufflepuff. In a bright spot of the year, Harry’s interview is released in The Quibbler to the interest of the wizarding public, both in and out of Hogwarts, and to the fury of Dolores Umbridge; her coinciding release of Educational Decree Number Twenty-Seven only encourages every Hogwarts student to give the article a read. Harry’s visions through Voldemort become more intense as he witnesses a vital conversation about the Dark Lord’s plans. Harry also manages to finally break through the mysterious door that he’s been dreaming of all year, only to find more doors behind it.
Caleb: Doors on doors on doors.
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Michael: Inception doors. But this development is overshadowed as Professor Trelawney is nearly ousted from Hogwarts by Umbridge, only to have Dumbledore step in with a suprise replacement instructor for Divination. So a lot happens in this chapter. There’s a lot to cover here. And, actually, the first one I want to talk about because… It’s interesting how it’s written and how it’s dealt with, but Quidditch comes back…
Xenia: Yay!
Michael: … and we haven’t talked about Quidditch in a while, actually. It feels like forever. And the interesting thing with it returning is that Hermione actually talks about the social aspect of Quidditch in relation to Hogwarts, and on page 574 of the American edition she says… She makes a rather provocative statement. She says,
“‘That’s the trouble with Quidditch,’ said Hermione absentmindedly, once again bent over her Rune translation, ‘it creates all this bad feeling and tension between the Houses.’
She looked up to find her copy of Spellman’s Syllabary and caught Fred, George, and Harry looking at her with expressions of mingled disgust and incredulity on their faces.
‘Well, it does!’ she said impatiently. ‘It’s only a game, isn’t it?’
‘Hermione,’ said Harry, shaking his head, ‘you’re good on feelings and stuff, but you just don’t understand about Quidditch.’
‘Maybe not,’ she said darkly, returning to her translation again, ‘but at least my happiness doesn’t depend on Ron’s goalkeeping ability.'”
[laughs] So there’s a lot, actually, in that statement from Hermione, because in this chapter I was kind of keeping Hermione’s statement in mind about the tension between the Houses. And in this chapter, we see a lot of breakdowns of tension in these high-stakes situations we’ve been put in, thanks to Umbridge, one of them being that Luna, we will see, happily joins the Gryffindors at the table. She actually sits down with them for breakfast when Harry’s article comes out. And another, which I know Caleb will want to talk about, is [that] McGonagall jumps in to support Professor Trelawney.
Caleb: And eventually all the professors do, right?
Xenia: Yeah.
Michael: But of course, McGonagall being an especially shocking one to support Trelawney. But we see a lot of that breakdown of those previous tensions in light of this bad situation we’ve been put into. Does Hermione maybe have a point?
Xenia: She’s a girl.
[Michael laughs]
Xenia: This is how I feel about football because I’m like, “Everybody’s mad, and everybody’s hitting each other, and I don’t get the point. Why are you watching this?”
Caleb: Yeah, but that’s not all girls. I mean, girls like sports too, so…
Xenia: But she’s this girly-girl, I think. This is a way to, again, show… They just talked about feelings, where she’s the expert, and she knows everything, and then she goes to talk about sports, and the boys are sitting there, “Oh, gosh, woman, you don’t get the point.”
Kat: But saying that they don’t understand the game is very different from what Hermione is saying here because obviously, she watches Quidditch, she understands it, she enjoys it, she goes to matches… Obviously, this wouldn’t be here if Jo w[ere]n’t trying to make a point about something, so I agree. I think that there is definitely something hidden in here, for sure.
Michael: I just found it interesting too because Rowling really… And she even said, actually, in a previous interview that Quidditch and Defense Against the Dark Arts are the only things that Harry is better at than Hermione. So these are the shining star things for Harry that he’s very skilled at, but we’ve also got Hermione on the other side, questioning Quidditch’s place and what it does to the Houses. I know a lot of people have compared Quidditch to just any sport that you have at a high school or college and that idea that you rally around that sport. Caleb, I feel you understand a lot more about that than me. Can you speak a little more about that?
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Caleb: Yeah, I mean, when I read this, what Hermione is saying does not seem unique to me. This is competition. This is sports. Growing up, when you’re in high school and you’re playing football and basketball, you’re on the same team with the people you’re in school with. But growing up in youth sports leagues, my best friends growing up… We were alls on different teams and stuff, and we were competitive in the games. We wanted to get to the playoffs or whatever it was called at that point. But we also had to separate it when we were back at school or something. I think Hermione… She’s pointing out something that’s true. It definitely creates this strife in some senses, but it does so for some people more than others. In the previous chapter, we see Harry and Cho talking just candidly and casually about their matches against one another, laughing about it. I mean, competition… It comes out when you’re in the moment, but otherwise, I don’t see Quidditch as the driving force for House strife. I mean, you have Luna, who’s obviously the one showing it that she supports Gryffindor. She makes this really outrageous hat.
[Kat, Michael, and Xenia laugh]
Caleb: I don’t think this is unique to Quidditch at all. I don’t think it’s unique to creating strife in the Houses. I mean, obviously, we have that element in this book because of things going on, but eh, I’m not with Hermione on this, really.
Michael: Well, and it’s interesting too that you bring up Luna and her hat because I was thinking back to the previous books when Rowling always never fails to mention that when it comes down to the finals – and it seems to coincidentally always be Gryffindor versus Slytherin…
[Caleb and Kat laugh]
Michael: … that Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tend to rally around Gryffindor. They always end up choosing a side to support. So the Houses sometimes do break down that tension, and perhaps that gets back, again, to the point we always go to, and that’s mentioned in this chapter – and many chapters in Order – that Slytherin just does not yield compared to the other Houses in these years at Hogwarts, that Slytherin never gets to break down that barrier and really hold hands with the other Houses.
Kat: Too prideful.
Xenia: The first time I read the book, I read this as, as I just said, Hermione is clever with the feelings, and the boys play [a] sport, but it’s also some foreshadowing to that. She’s not right because once you said that Luna is joining the Gryffindor table, [and] all the teachers support Trelawney, so it’s also a way for Jo to show that everyone is different, that it’s not all just hate and competition, I think.
Michael: Well, and like Caleb said, perhaps Quidditch isn’t the root of the problem.
Xenia: Not at all.
Kat: I think it’s an outlet for…
Xenia: It’s just a way to show it.
Kat: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Michael: And speaking of the way that Quidditch is portrayed in this particular chapter, my, it is a quick and dirty recap that we get with this Quidditch summary, and I boiled that down to a quote from Rowling in her Leaky Cauldron/MuggleNet interview back in July of 2005 where she said after the release of Half-Blood Prince, “To be honest with you, Quidditch matches have been the bane of my life in the Harry Potter books.”
[Kat and Xenia laugh]
Michael: “They are necessary in that people expect Harry to play Quidditch, but there is a limit to how many ways you can have them play Quidditch together and for something new to happen.”
Caleb: So apparently, the filmmakers latched on to this comment.
[Everyone laughs]
Xenia: But it’s also a way for her to forget it, forget the match never happened. We’re going to look away with Jo. We’re not going to describe it because it was so painful and so embarrassing. We’re all cheering for Gryffindor during the fight because Harry is there, and if you’re such an embarrassing fighter, she cannot make herself describe it because it’s just so awful.
Michael: Yeah, I do like that it’s written that way, so it’s not her saying, “Oh, I’m being lazy because I don’t want to write Quidditch anymore.” Like you said, Xenia, it’s like her saying, “Oh, I just can’t bear to write about it because they lost be ten points to Hufflepuff.”
Xenia: [laughs] Exactly. “I’m a Hufflepuff!”
Michael: And that’s how she writes it, which I think is definitely a testament to Rowling because I forgot just how it sinks [into] you for these first few page of the chapter You weren’t at that Quidditch match, but you feel like you saw it.
Caleb: Jo, if you ever want to modify the books and you need someone to write unique Quidditch matches, I’m your guy.
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Caleb: I will write them for days. I can think of plenty of different things.
Kat: I mean, there'[re] how many fouls?
Caleb: Like, 500, I’m pretty sure.
Michael: Oh, there'[re] tons. A lot.
Kat: Yeah, 500, 700 something. It’s a lot, yeah.
Michael: So yes, we get our quick and dirty recap of Quidditch. We’re going to see these things a lot more in the books as they go on. Tragically, Quidditch it nearing the end of its life for the Harry Potter series, so we take a bow to you, Quidditch. We miss you.
Caleb: But there is still one really great moment to come with Quidditch, the moment, I should say.
Kat: And I wanted to say, before we move on, speaking of quick and dirty things…
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: So I did a little bit of research, and in this chapter… okay, so we all know, we’ve all joked about this, how no one at Hogwarts takes a bath ever.
Xenia: They don’t.
Caleb: But they do in this chapter. [laughs]
Kat: Right! This is one of only four mentions in the entire series…
Xenia: They have one bath for all seven years. Use it well.
Kat: It’s one mention of only four in the entire series of actually somebody bathing. So the word “bathroom” is used all the time and bathrobes are used all the time, and when I was doing my search, “Bathilda Bagshot” came up a lot.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: But yeah, there'[re] only four times that bathing is mentioned, so… obviously, when Cedric tells Harry to take a bath and when that happens in Goblet, Slughorn… when he’s talking about the intruder alarm, he says, “Oh, I was in the bath,” and then the third one is Fleur goes off to take a bath in the chapter “Ghoul in the Pajamas” in Deathly Hallows, plus this one where it says, “Ron and Ginny went off for baths after dinner.” I thought it was so rare and amazing that I just wanted to bring it up. We don’t have to talk about it. It’s pretty gross. We can move on. [laughs]
Caleb: #PleaseTakeABath.
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Kat: Please, I can smell you from here.
Michael: Well, the only thing I think of in relation to that from Pottermore is when she revealed, thanks to the discussion about how the Chamber of Secrets got connected to the Hogwarts plumbing, which incited a lot more conversation than you would probably ever think about the Hogwarts plumbing system. She revealed that wizards used to just relieve themselves wherever they stood, and then they just Vanished whatever the mess was. And I always wondered if they’re feeling lazy and they don’t want to bother to take a bath, if they just Tergeo the dirt off themselves, just magic themselves clean, and they’re like, “Good enough.” [laughs]
Kat: But what about greasy hair?
Michael: Well, Snape is proof that that doesn’t matter. [laughs]
Kat: Yeah, but that’s Snape. His hair might be naturally oily.
[Michael laughs]
Xenia: It’s products, all of it.
Michael: I don’t know. Because to think of people like Slughorn or Fleur taking a bath, they seem like the kind of people who would do that because they’re very into their appearance and very excessive in that way anyway. This is a serious matter, you guys. I was thinking about this just a few days ago because I was watching Goblet of Fire, and the part where Harry comes out of that little side door, and he’s got a toothbrush, and I was like, “Oh, where have you been? Is there a bathroom?”
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Michael: “Did you shower?!”
Kat: I mean, clearly, bathrooms exist. Like I said, they’re mentioned a lot, especially in Chamber of Secrets for obvious reasons.
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Michael: But moving on from the toilet humor of Harry Potter, we go into the big moment of this chapter, which is the release of the Quibbler interview.
Kat: Yay!
Michael: It is out, and the response is phenomenal and insanely immediate. Harry gets a few letters from people the morning of the release, which is pretty amazing. I love that the response is so varied from the letters, from “You’re crazy” to “I totally believe you.”
Caleb: And they’re so concerned about it.
Michael: But probably the most interesting aspect of this is Umbridge’s attempt to curb people reading the article.
Caleb: Fail.
Xenia: It’s so hilarious.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: She’s so dense.
Xenia: Yeah! What’s she doing?
Caleb: Sucks to suck, yo.
Kat: No, she clearly has no idea how teenagers work at all.
Caleb: Or humans. I mean, I don’t even think this is reserved for teenagers.
Kat: I suppose. Fair enough.
Michael: Do you guys remember…? Of course it’s a book, and it was also adapted into a pretty excellent adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Matilda?
Caleb and Kat: Yeah.
Michael: And [Miss] Trunchbull, who’s played, coincidentally, by Pam Ferris, who played Aunt Marge in the Harry Potter film, and there’s this great part where she’s like, “Children. Nasty little things. Glad I never was one.”
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Michael: And I feel like Umbridge is in the same vein of that.
Caleb: Yeah. I think so.
Michael: Especially because this book, like we talked about with Harry and Cho’s date, really pushes how teenagers work and how insightful our narrator Jo is into how teenagers behave. And for Umbridge to be so clueless as to say, [as Umbridge] “I’m going to ban all the magazines, so of course they won’t read them”… just completely hopeless.
Caleb: Overreliance on the rule of law.
Michael: Yeah, yeah, almost tragic. Which is, again, why I would love to find out more about her on Pottermore.
Kat: Oh, I really hope we do.
Xenia: Oh yeah. That would be great. Her background story, something about why she’s so mean.
Michael: Yes. Her horrible childhood.
Xenia: She never had enough hugs as… yeah, exactly.
Michael: [laughs] Because she clearly…
Xenia: No one ever hugged her. [laughs]
Michael: But the other interesting thing here is the reactions of a few people who[m] we pass by in this chapter, including Seamus as well as Cho Chang, and Kat has also pointed out, Dumbledore even has a little reaction to all of this. So interesting sea of reactions here. You guys want to talk about that for a little bit?
Kat: Yeah, I guess the part I wanted to point out was on page 580 of the US edition – this is Harry – it says, “For some reason he glanced up at the staff table as he said this. He had the strangest feeling that Dumbledore had been watching him a second before, but when he looked, Dumbledore seemed to be absorbed in conversation with Professor Flitwick.” Do you think…? I mean, that just really stood out to me this time. I’m not quite sure…
Caleb: Is this when Umbridge is asking him about the article?
Kat: Yes. Yeah, Harry is like, “Yeah, people have written to me because I gave an interview about what happened to me last June.” Yeah.
Caleb: I didn’t think too much of it. I just assumed that it was, Dumbledore sees that Umbridge is targeting Harry, and so he’s a brief glance to see what’s going on. I guess I didn’t think of it more than that.
Kat: I don’t know. I felt like it might be an allusion to the weird connection that’s happening with Voldemort and Dumbledore and Harry.
Caleb: And that’s why he felt Dumbledore was watching him? Because of that connection?
Kat: Yeah, maybe. I’m not sure. Like I said, it just really stuck out to me this time for some reason. I’d never really thought about that little paragraph before.
Michael: I always interpreted it as just another one of those moments… because we’ll see this again at the end of the chapter, but another one of those moments where, like what you guys discussed with Steve Vander Ark, how aware Dumbledore is of things that are going on at the school. Because for him to be eyeing Harry when Umbridge… because Umbridge has confronted Harry plenty of times about wrongdoing, but in this particular instance, he’s giving him a very close watch. I almost interpreted this as Dumbledore being very proud of what Harry did, like it was the right move.
Xenia: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I felt that too.
Michael: Especially because Dumbledore in this book does not get to tell Harry to do many things or help him along like he has in the past four. This is Harry really taking his independence and his “go get ’em” streak to the next level. This is full-on rebellion.
Kat: But it doesn’t even say that Dumbledore was actually looking at him.
Michael: Well, yeah. See, when I read those things, I always feel that whenever the narration implies something, we have to take it that it is telling us that that happened. So do you think the narration is fibbing to us here?
Kat: No. I’m not exactly really sure…
[Kat and Micahel laugh]
Kat: … to be honest.
Michael: Well, no. It’s a good point for… I like the idea too, that there’s something about Harry’s connection with Voldemort that makes him detect Dumbledore staring at him.
Caleb: At least a little bit more than usual.
Kat: Yeah, I don’t know. I guess because we see in this chapter that Harry can see out of Voldemort’s eyes. I have a feeling that Voldemort can see out of Harry’s. And I don’t know. I mean, he’s already stuck out the back of someone else’s head so why not Harry’s as well? I don’t know.
Michael: Well, and we talked about this, too, in the Occlumency chapter about how Legilimency works, and I’ve always assumed that Dumbledore is extra-super-powerful at Legilimency compared to your average person. And so I would assume that he doesn’t need eye contact to do Legilimency. It helps him, I’m sure, but I always figured he doesn’t need it. Because I’ve always thought that whenever Dumbledore is taking a look at Harry, he is sometimes scanning him and saying, [as Dumbledore] “Oh, what are you up to? Let’s see what’s going on lately.”
Kat: That would make sense how he knows everything that’s going on.
Michael: Yeah. And for it… to be peeking in Harry’s mind while Voldemort is actively looking out of it could definitely be dangerous.
Kat: Right. Something to ponder. I’ll be curious what the listeners think. So let me know, please.
Michael: Well, yes, because from this chapter onward, the connection between Harry and Voldemort is only increasing very quickly, so that is definitely something to keep in mind. And the Quibbler section ends with this very fascinating piece of magic: a giant poster of the cover made by the Weasley twins that talks to people! It doesn’t say much, but it talks in Harry’s voice. I just thought that was an interesting bit of magic. And it’s mentioned that it is a “talking spell” that is used on the poster to make it speak. I thought it was interesting that you can just cast a spell on something, and it comes out as the voice of the person, and they can say things that they haven’t actually said.
Caleb: Yeah, it’s interesting.
Michael: That seems like a stretch of magic.
Caleb: Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.
Xenia: Yeah, pretty much.
Michael: Taking pictures also takes people’s voices too.
Kat: Well, I don’t know. Fred and George are pretty clever.
Michael: They are.
Kat: I mean, Hermione even questions how they make the… they do the extendable thing with the hat, the invisibility thing with the hat. I don’t know. I feel like they’re smarter than they get credit for.
Caleb: They probably took some of Harry’s blood while he was asleep.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: Maybe.
Xenia: It’s turning into some horror movie now.
Michael: Well, and even though they’re not quite going to get their shining moment yet, it is worth shouting out to Fred and George in this chapter because we are seeing the seeds of their own little rebellion that’s going to happen in just a few chapters. Probably one of the top favorite moments from Order of the Phoenix is brewing here in this chapter.
Xenia: From all the series.
[Michael laughs]
Xenia: It’s so awesome!
Kat: For the record, Xenia, I think that Fred and George would write a killer horror movie. Just saying.
Xenia: Oh yeah, they would. I would watch it.
Kat: Pun not intended, but very fun.
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Xenia: They are fun.
Michael: That would be tragically fitting. [laughs] So after all of this celebration over the Quibbler, Harry heads to bed, and he sees a probably… yet again, the visions are getting more and more vivid, and this one is full of insider details. We see Voldemort talking to both Rookwood and Avery about the previous incidents in the Department of Mysteries. And really, I didn’t want to talk too much about the actual thing they were talking about because Hermione and Harry and Ron for once actually figure out pretty much everything. Impressively, they all together put their heads together, and they actually get it right, what’s going on. They just don’t know what the weapon is at this point. But what was interesting to me, and something I’ve thought about with previous reads of the book for myself… I don’t know if you guys have encountered this, but the issue comes up for me in this writing about Harry’s… the perspective we’re reading this moment from. I don’t know if this happened with you guys in previous reads, but I was always confused by these sections about Harry and how he’s narrating it as himself but as Voldemort. It always threw me off. I’ve never been quite a fan of these sections, perhaps not so much until now. You guys are probably all like, “Michael, you don’t even get it.” [laughs]
Xenia: Duh.
Kat: Michael, you don’t get it.
Michael: “Michael, you just don’t get Harry Potter.”
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: No, I mean, it never threw me off. I guess it made sense to me. I don’t know. I like all the references to… I like how it says, “whispered Harry,” “asked Harry,” and then they’re talking about the “spidery white hands” and… [shudders]
Xenia: Yeah, it’s so creepy.
Michael: Well, and the more I think about it, the more impressive the writing is, to get us in… as we’ve always been saying these last three chapters, there’s a very Inception-like situation going on here, where there’s a lot of minds in different places. But I just thought it was fascinating how Rowling manages to write this so successfully. Again, for me, it took me a while. But this is just really impressive writing. I was thinking back, too, to last week with Cheryl and probably her brain trying not to snap in two with continuity issues on these parts. [laughs]
Kat: I wish we could have her comment on this section because I’m sure she has something super smart to say about it and we’re not doing it any justice.
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Michael: She has got all the insider knowledge. That’s the problem.
Kat: Yeah, she does. That’s true.
Michael: But the other interesting thing about this vision, to me, is that Ron and Hermione have very different reactions to it. Ron tells Harry to go tell Dumbledore all about it. Hermione tells Harry to suppress it and not talk about it anymore. Who do we think is right? Is there a common ground here? Is one of them more right than the other? What should we…? Because as we discussed, perhaps Occlumency wasn’t going to even work anyway since this is a Horcrux connection.
Xenia: Yeah, the Horcrux thing… because I thought that now Harry is seeing things through Voldemort instead of through Nagini. She’s called “Nagini” in English, too, right?
Kat and Michael: Yes.
[Caleb, Kat, and Xenia laugh]
Xenia: I just had to be sure, so I didn’t say anything nonsense to you guys. But is it because Harry is getting closer to Voldemort and they’re getting closer to this Horcrux thing? Is it some kind of foreshadowing from Jo, do you guys think?
Kat: I think with Nagini, we saw that incident through the eyes of Nagini because Voldemort was in Nagini at that time.
Michael: Mhm.
Xenia: Yeah.
Caleb: Right.
Kat: Yeah, I don’t think Harry has any connection to Nagini, who is another Horcrux. I think he just has a connection to Voldemort, which is the… how would you say it? The master body, I guess?
Xenia: Yeah.
Michael: Mmm.
Caleb: Yeah. Primary, yeah.
Kat: Yeah, primary. That’s the word. Yeah.
Caleb: Yeah, I definitely think Ron is right, here. I don’t think it’s a good idea at all for Harry to suppress.
Kat: Yeah, I completely disagree with Hermione.
Caleb: Sorry, Hermione. You lose points there.
Xenia: And normally she wants him to tell everything to Dumbledore. Why is she changing her mind all of a sudden?
Caleb and Kat: Yeah.
Caleb: That’s strange. But I think maybe she has resigned to the fact, at this point, that there’s no reasonable way Harry is going to be able to tell Dumbledore because of how evasive he is.
Kat: Yeah, that’s possible.
Michael: Yeah. It’s such a… I’ve always been shocked by this part because – like you guys said – I would have expected Hermione to be on Ron’s side with this.
Caleb: And if he’s not telling Dumbledore, he should be telling McGonagall. She was the one that responded to him with the snake, seeing Arthur getting injured, and Harry reacted to McGonagall being so believing of him. I don’t understand why he doesn’t talk to her more about these things that he can’t talk to Dumbledore.
Michael: Yes!
Kat and Xenia: Yeah.
Kat: She’s clearly proven herself as trustworthy and on his side.
Caleb: Yep. Very frustrating for me, personally, that this doesn’t happen.
Xenia: Yeah. [laughs]
Kat: Of course.
Michael: No, I think that frustrates you in the same way it frustrates me – as I’ve discussed before – that Harry never confides to Lupin anymore.
Kat: Mmm.
Michael: These are two people who… and we will see this throughout the rest of the series, that these two people have proved themselves very tight-lipped and very cautious with sensitive information. And even if Harry didn’t want to communicate this directly to Dumbledore, I think if he took it to McGonagall and he wished for her to take it to Dumbledore, she would.
Caleb: Yeah. That’s certainly the superior route to telling Snape to get it to Dumbledore, which is the only other possible route at this point.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: Right.
Michael: Well, and speaking of Snape…
[Kat laughs]
Xenia: Yeah.
Michael: … another Occlumency lesson. Another horrible, horrible Occlumency lesson.
Kat: He seems to creep into every single episode.
[Michael laughs]
Xenia: That’s what he does.
Kat: I mean, I know he’s in this chapter, but even when he’s not in the chapter, he’s on. I don’t know.
Michael: He’s standing in the corner in the shadows. We know he’s there.
Kat: Yes, with his naturally oily hair.
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Michael: Well, and the one big thing about this chapter, as far as the Occlumency progress, is Harry manages to succeed. Why? [laughs] … is what I have to ask here because up to this point, the only news we’ve been getting about the Occlumency lessons is that Harry is failing miserably and that Snape is not giving him any more direction than he was giving him from the start. Any theories as to why this particular lesson is better, perhaps thinking about things that have changed since the last Occlumency lessons?
Caleb: So are you asking why he thought to do the Shield Charm now and not before?
Michael: Well, the narration also says that the memories that Snape is breaking into are not as prominent, and Harry is managing to see through them to Snape.
Caleb: Oh. Okay, I get it now.
Xenia: He can go back to reality, yeah.
Michael: Yeah. So why?
Xenia: The only thing I wrote down was he’s in his teenage years, and we have just talked about all this, about the dating and the awkwardness and stuff, so I just wrote here that “enough is enough.” That he’s feeling so humiliated, and Snape keeps bugging him and saying, “Come on. You’re not good enough. Do it, do it. Try harder, Potter!” And all of a sudden, he’s like, “Damn you! I’m not going to win this fight.” And I think that he finds the courage and the will to do it all of a sudden. That was the best theory I could come up with. [laughs]
Michael: So in that way, you’re suggesting perhaps that the best way to teach Occlumency is to break somebody’s spirit.
Xenia: Well, yeah.
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Michael: That seems quite harsh.
Xenia: No, but I think that’s what makes Harry turn at this point. Snape is finding all these things that are so personal to Harry that he just can’t allow him to do it anymore. Not saying that’s the right way, but that’s what Snape does. And apparently, it works for Harry in this chapter, at least.
Kat: And also, if you notice the page before that happens, Harry is talking about all the awful things that happened to him during the week.
Michael: Hmm.
Kat: And at the very end it says, “He very much wished he could have talked to Sirius about it, but that was out of the question, so he tried to push the matter to the back of his mind.” So he was already trying to get things out, to suppress memories and the like.
Xenia: Yeah.
Kat: So I feel like maybe he was just in the right mindset. He was in the right place, had so many crappy things going on that he was already trying to forget about, that maybe this was just coincidence and luck.
Michael: Mhm. Well, because I was going to throw out this… because I think that’s actually a pretty good theory, especially with the way that the chapter is written and what it suggests… but I was actually going to throw out that perhaps since Harry is… that there might be some correlation between Harry’s more vivid, direct connection with Voldemort and the improvement. I’m not really sure where I was going to go with it; thought maybe you guys could hash it out more. But I was just wondering because this is the first dream that Harry has had, I think, directly from Voldemort’s eyes. Is that right?
Kat: Yes.
Michael and Xenia: Yeah.
Caleb: Mhm.
Michael: So I was just wondering if because that connection is intensifying if there’s some kind of improvement. Because Voldemort is also an accomplished Legilimens, right? He can do it perfectly.
Xenia: Yeah.
Kat: Mhm.
Michael: So is Harry even perhaps acquiring some of Voldemort’s skill in that? Because Harry has acquired other skills of Voldemort’s.
Kat: Why not?
Xenia: It could be.
Michael: Okay, we’re… good, we’re going to attribute…
Caleb: It seems super circular, too, right? He’s working on Occlumency to stop Voldemort’s attempts at Legilimency, but maybe he’s gaining some of that ability secondhand…
Michael: Mhm.
Caleb: … which is affecting his ability to do well in Occlumency against Snape’s Legilimency…
[Everyone laughs]
Caleb: … it’s very circular.
Michael: So basically these lessons were the worst idea ever. [laughs]
Xenia: Yeah.
Kat: I mean, that, I think, has been established many times and will continue to be.
[Michael laughs]
Xenia: But if we hadn’t had these lessons, we wouldn’t know these memories from Snape and that’s like… Snape is my favorite character in all the books. I love Snape because I knew from the start there was something about him, that he was very important. He couldn’t be evil because there was something about his energy and stuff. And this is what the chapter… it opens for… there’s something about Snape we don’t know. There’s more to him than this greasy-haired, stupid guy. [laughs]
Michael: Well, and…
Kat: Although, I would disagree when you say that he’s not evil, because… you know.
Michael: Well, and…
Kat: But that’s a whole other topic. Sorry, Michael, I keep cutting you off.
[Everyone laughs]
Michael: Well, no, no, no, that topic is actually perfect because that goes into my next point, which is of course that when Harry successfully gets through with the lesson and casts a Shield Charm on Snape, it reverses the memory-reading effect and Harry starts reading Snape’s memories, as Xenia mentioned. And what we see is absolutely fascinating.
Xenia: Oh, yeah.
Michael: We see visions of Snape’s parents arguing…
Kat and Michael: The Half-Blood Prince.
Xenia: Ooh.
Michael: We see Snape in complete solitude shooting flies down from the ceiling.
Kat: Which… I mean, obviously… because remember we talked about – I don’t even remember when it was – if Harry had actually gotten that fly to summon into his hand. [laughs]
Michael: Oh, yeah, with Accio. Yeah.
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Kat: So clearly, flies are big enough to be magicked.
Michael: Yes, magic works on flies.
Kat: Yes.
[Kat and Michael laugh]
Michael: This is definitive proof.
Kat: Yeah, that’s right. [laughs]
Michael: And interestingly, we also see a moment of severe ineptitude on Snape’s part when he is attempting to fly a broomstick and a girl is laughing at him. No confirmation… probably not Lily, since Harry would have recognized her. No definitive confirmation, but probably not. I did have a moment…
Xenia: Wait, it’s Snape on the broom? I always thought it was James and then Lily was standing there giggling at him, and then Snape was standing enviously looking at it, because that’s how it’s translated to in the Danish book. That she’s not, “ha, ha, ha,” laughing; that it’s, “hee-hee.”
Michael: Okay, we have got to find that page.
Caleb: That’s weird.
Michael: I’m going to find that right now. [laughs]
Caleb: Yeah, I would have also thought that Harry would have recognized them if it was James and Lily.
Michael: Okay.
Kat: Yeah, I assumed that it wasn’t James and Lily.
Michael: Here we go. It simply says, “A girl was laughing as a scrawny boy tried to mount a bucking broomstick.”
Kat: Mhm.
Xenia: And our book says a black-haired boy. So I just thought that would automatically…
Kat: Oh.
Michael: Hmm.
Xenia: I don’t know because of the history and stuff. So yeah, I don’t know.
Michael: Ahh. That’s interesting.
Kat: Interesting.
Michael: Well, and because Snape does have black hair, and he is scrawny, so he fits the description, too. I think I’m…
Xenia: Ooh.
Michael: Because I did always interpret it as like Kat and Caleb were saying, that it’s Snape trying to ride the broom.
Xenia: Yeah.
Kat: Mhm.
Michael: But that’s interesting that a different translation gives it more ambiguity. And I won’t go too into it, but of course, since Noah is not here, I did have to say…
[Kat laughs]
Michael: … I was reading and I was like, “Ah, Snape is not good on a broomstick, huh?”
[Everyone laughs]
Xenia: We knew that was coming.
Michael: So many possibilities. Noah, please, if you’re hearing this, come by the forums or the main site and leave your thoughts on that.
[Kat and Xenia laugh]
Michael: I’m sure you’d have plenty to say.
Kat: He’s fist-pumping the air right now as he’s listening.
Michael: Oh, good. Well, and I’m sure the listeners, if you have any creative interpretations of that, please feel free to go there. That’s what the main site and the forums are for.
[Kat and Xenia laugh]
Michael: I particularly don’t choose to read it that way, but I did think it was interesting to show, as we were talking before about Hermione and Harry and the kind of things that they’re better at than each other… to see Snape not being good at something that Harry excels at. She didn’t just pick anything for Snape not to be good at. In particular, it was riding a broomstick that Harry sees. And what’s interesting, too, I always thought, is that unlike… and there’s obviously different backgrounds with how Harry feels about these characters, but unlike a character like, say, Neville, who Harry finds out some very dark backstory about and sympathizes with even more – despite that Harry kind of makes fun of him throughout the year, even though he likes him generally – Harry finds all of this out about Snape and doesn’t really react to the information at all… which I’ve always found fascinating because Harry, we always have discussed in previous shows, is a very empathetic boy. He picks up on people’s stuff. He doesn’t always express it very well, but he picks it up really well…
Caleb: But he absolutely refuses to with Snape. It’s a continuing motif until that final moment. Right. He refuses to give any leeway to Snape.
Michael: I just thought that was fascinating because of course, it depends… I guess that’s a reflection, too, on the readers of the time who sided with Snape and those who didn’t. Which, of course, I wanted to also mention this chapter does not make easy because on page 591 in the American edition, there’s a moment where Harry and Snape are having a little bit of back and forth, and Snape suggests that Harry feels special by looking into Voldemort’s mind. And Harry insists he doesn’t and Snape says, “‘That is just as well, Potter,’ said Snape coldly, ‘because you are neither special nor important. And it is not up to you to find out what the Dark Lord is saying to his Death Eaters.’ ‘No, that’s your job, isn’t it?’ Harry shot at him. He had not meant to say it. It had burst out of him in temper. For a long moment they stared at each other, Harry convinced he had gone too far. But there was a curious, almost satisfied expression on Snape’s face when he answered. ‘Yes, Potter,’ he said, his eyes glinting, “that is my job.'”
Xenia: Foreshadowing once again.
Michael: Yes, but interestingly, on 593, we also get Harry saying, “‘Can you tell me something, sir?’ said Harry, firing up again. ‘Why do you call Voldemort the Dark Lord? I’ve only ever heard Death Eaters call him that.'” And before Snape gets a chance to answer, we move into the next moment. But I did just want to point out that Jo is ever-so-cleverly still keeping us on the fence about Snape.
Kat: Mhm.
Xenia: And she is until the very last book. And that’s what’s so exciting about the character because I remember, especially here in Denmark, we talked about when Book 6 came out that, “Oh, is Snape evil? Is he doing it because he had to and Dumbledore asked him to or is it because he’s actually a Death Eater?” And this discussion went on until Book 7 came out, of course. But this thing about the readers making two camps; the pro- and the anti-Snape camps… [laughs]
Michael: Yeah.
Xenia: And that starts already here. That’s so exciting.
Kat: Yeah, I remember… what was that website, Dumbledore Did Not Die, or… what was that website? It was something-dot-com.
Michael: Oh, yeah. I remember that. Yeah.
Kat: Yeah.
Xenia: Oh, that’s right.
Kat: But I do agree Snape is an amazing, amazing character, but he is not a good person.
[Michael laughs]
Xenia: But you know, we love… that’s just because…
Caleb: Yeah, I agree.
Xenia: He’s so… Yeah, I just believe in the best of people, I think. [laughs] I just want everyone to be happy. But I think when you learn what’s going on and when you see his full memory in… the thing that can put memories in, what’s it called?
Michael: Oh, the Pensieve?
Xenia: Oh.
Michael: What do you guys call it in Denmark?
Xenia: In Danish we say Mindekar, which means a bowl where it can put memories in, so a memory bowl.
Michael: Oh.
Xenia: I should translate it, yeah.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: Well then…
Xenia: I’m learning a lot of new words today.
[Everyone laughs]
Xenia: Anyway, he sees James everytime he sees Harry, but James was this public guy and so he sees this bully, but he also sees someone who got what he loved the most. So I think Snape’s in very deep agony every time he sees Harry.
Michael: Mmm…
Xenia: I just feel sorry for Snape. [laughs]
Michael: You know, it’s good to have somebody with that perspective, Xenia, because we don’t get a lot of those on the show. Especially because all of our hosts don’t really feel that way.
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Xenia: I’m here for you.
Michael: We’re a little one-sided on the Snape issue. So it is actually good to get that other side of the perspective, because I… the more I go on… even though we’ll continue to talk about Snape, I do feel it is appropriate to talk about him here because we always say we’ll get to it, and actually I think we’ve gotten to it.
Xenia: Yeah.
Michael: Finally. But for my part, there’s so much interesting elements in the Harry Potter series overall that is… there’s suggestions of nature vs. nurture and about choice. And I think the thing about Snape, especially more perhaps than any other character – Dumbledore runs a close second, perhaps – is that why people do what they do.
Xenia: Yeah.
Michael: And I kind of like that Jo never definitively answers it for us. I feel like we’re each free to take our interpretation of people like Snape away from the book and all be correct.
Xenia: Yeah, exactly. That’s the great thing about these books; all interpretations are right in some way.
Caleb: Well, that just answered a very general principle of that. Who is one person to completely judge another?
Xenia: Right.
Michael: [quoting Tennyson] “Ours is not to ask why; ours is but to do or die.” But as I mentioned earlier, we are distracted by Snape’s double identity when he is about to say something when Trelawney screams out in the Great Hall.
[Audio clip of Trelawney screaming]
Michael: And we go upstairs and in the entrance hall it appears that Trelawney is getting sacked in the most dramatic fashion possible.
Xenia: [unintelligible]
Michael: The whole school has turned out to watch. Umbridge is doing a power play by standing at the top of the stairs because she is very short, and Trelawney is at the bottom with her cooking sherry and she is very, very drunk and very unkempt. So, the interesting thing about this scene and how it’s written in the book of course is that Trelawney is holding an empty bottle of cooking sherry implying that she is not quite all there at this moment.
Kat: Do you think her and Hagrid drink together?
[Everyone laughs]
Michael: They should, if they don’t.
Xenia: In the adult version, definitely.
[Everyone laughs]
Michael: Well, they do now. But one of the things I wanted to mention… I think actually until the movie came out – I don’t know about you guys – I did feel that this is actually not perhaps on the same level but akin to it. This is another one of those iconic moments from Order of the Phoenix, the sacking of Trelawney, because there’s so much going on in this scene – the power play of this scene. And I don’t know about you guys, but speaking personally, I was very disappointed that this did not end up in the film. And I say that because Emma Thompson noted that she did not get to play drunk in this scene, and she had actually said in an interview that she really, really wanted to, and that she wanted to portray it closer to the way the book did it.
Xenia: Oh, that’s right.
Michael: And I’m kind of wondering what that adds or takes away from this scene and what was the better approach, perhaps.
Kat: I think it makes her a little bit more… I don’t want to say pathetic but… a little more… I guess for lack of a better word, pathetic…
[Michael laughs]
Xenia: Yeah, when she’s drunk she is, because when she’s standing there with the alcohol bottle you cannot get any lower. And then Umbridge is still jumping down on her and hitting her with words and just standing there: “I’m so much better than you.” And she’s just so humiliated, like it can’t get any worse. But when they take the alcohol thing away from the movie, it’s a little bit lighter in some way. You get what I mean?
Kat: Yeah. What is the word that I’m looking for? It’s like…
Michael: Well, pathetic doesn’t necessarily… pathetic has negative connotations just kind of in the mind set, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that. It can mean what you’re thinking, Kat. I get what you’re thinking.
Kat: Okay, but what’s the word?
Xenia: [laughs] What’s the word?
Michael: [laughs] There’s a good word somewhere out there.
Kat: I keep thinking of amicable and I know that’s not the word.
Michael: No, that’s not it. [laughs]
Kat: That’s not the word?
Michael: [laughs] That’s not it. Is there a word for this in Danish, Xenia?
Xenia: I thought about humiliation when Kat said what she said, to be humiliated.
Michael: Hmm…
Xenia: And she’s like… you feel sorry for her in some way.
Michael: Mhm.
Xenia: Yeah. I don’t know. [laughs]
Michael: Which is of course surprising because Trelawney is not a character we often feel sorry for. And speaking of that, Caleb, have at it: McGonagall.
Xenia: [laughs] Woo!
Caleb: She’s really awesome.
[Michael laughs]
Xenia: She’s always awesome.
Caleb: Yeah, because obviously one of our first teacher-to-teacher… not interactions but sort of clashes, I should say [for] lack of a better word, is Harry… McGonagall asking about who is the one – this is back in [Prisoner of Azkaban] – who is the first one that Trelawney prophesied the death of and that she does it every year… so we get this early idea that McGonagall does not respect Trelawney for her magic. She doesn’t respect Divination in general, but she particularly does not like how Trelawney is very absurd with it. But then in this moment, because Dumbledore is not there first to save his teacher, God forbid, McGonagall is the first one to step up when Umbridge is basically kicking a dying dog on the floor…
Kat: Aww.
Caleb: And she’s the first one to step and defend Trelawney, despite whatever misgivings she may have about the magic she teaches and her teaching practices themselves. She’s defending one of Hogwarts’ own, and she’s awesome.
[Michael laughs]
Xenia: Yeah.
Kat: Yeah, she might not agree with her or the way she teaches or whatever, but she’s the home team, right?
Caleb: Mhm.
Kat: For the home team.
Xenia: She’s a friend.
Kat: Right, and the word was “deplorable.”
Michael: There we go.
Kat: There you go.
Michael: Brought to you by the word “deplorable.”
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Michael: This episode of Alohomora!
[Xenia laughs]
Michael: See, I knew if I threw it to Caleb he’d have the perfect words to say about McGonagall.
Kat: Of course.
Caleb: And this is obviously just the instigator for the other teachers, specifically Sprout and Flitwick also jumping in. It’s like McGonagall breaks through the ceiling and gets everyone else on board. You feel like finally it’s okay to jump in and then help Trelawney after Dumbledore gives this little speech that he still has the power to both keep Trelawney in house even though she’s not teaching and… Michael’s probably about to get to this.
Michael: Oh no, absolutely. But actually I wanted to also point out because perhaps… and I think again, the more I go through this reread the more I think of how the movie has especially affected my view of the book, more than any of the other movies did. But I remember when the movie really pushed the idea that… they marketed this movie as “the rebellion begins”.
Kat: Yeah.
Michael: And it really… the “rebellion” really happened. They marketed it as the DA and the things that actually happen at the Ministry, but I think sometimes perhaps we forget that even though – and even in the book it’s very much stressed – a lot of people remember of course Fred and George’s big rebellion that will be coming up in the “Career Advice” chapter. But really I think that we should remember before we leave this chapter that this is the chapter where I think the rebellion really begins.
Kat: Yeah.
Michael: Schoolwide we’re seeing a lot of unexpected truces coming together in this particular chapter. And speaking of unexpected truces, Dumbledore walks in at the very last minute, as he is wont to do, just happening to have been strolling the grounds or something.
[Xenia laughs]
Michael: We’re not really sure until all of a sudden he confronts Umbridge and says that he has in fact found the perfect replacement for Trelawney, who by the way can still stay at the castle because Umbridge does not have the power to kick her out of her home. But in comes trotting, quite literally behind Dumbledore, Firenze the centaur, who we have met only once before and who’s going to become very important. And we’ll of course talk about him a little later. I just had to point out how… again as we mentioned before with Dumbledore’s awareness of things that are going on even though he’s not always physically present, how on point to bring in a centaur for your Divination teacher when Umbridge is the one you’re trying to piss off. [laughs]
Xenia: Because he’s a half-human, this is like, “Hah, I win! Double up.”
Michael: Mhm. Yeah, this is a very…
Xenia: Now you have a giant and a centaur – is that what you called it?
Michael: Yeah.
Xenia: Okay.
Michael: What do you call them?
Xenia: Kentaur.
Michael: Ooh. That’s pretty.
Xenia: So it’s K and C. But I think that’s just like, “I’m going to get all these freaks to make the classes and you can’t do anything about it, mwa-ha-ha!” [laughs]
Michael: Yeah. This constant…
Xenia: He’s trying to make hell for her. [laughs]
Michael: Yeah. It’s a very exciting power play, a one-upping on Dumbledore’s part. He is playing this game very, very well. But we will soon see as the chapters in the story go on whether Dumbledore is going to win this game, but for now that is Chapter 26, “Seen and Unforeseen.” And before we move on to the end of the show I did want to ask Xenia, what are some other more prominent words and names from the Potter series that are changed, that are different, that you know of in Danish?
Xenia: Mad-Eye Moody, he’s called Skrækøje, which means he has a horror eye.
[Everyone laughs]
Michael: Ooh. Is Voldemort still called Voldemort?
Xenia: He’s called… you know, the big characters, they have their real names.
Michael: Their real names.
Xenia: It’s mostly people who have these funny names like Mad-Eye Moody and Rita Skeeter and stuff, they’re changed.
Michael: That’s interesting since a lot of the major characters have names that are symbolic.
Xenia: But that’s still normal to be called “Weasley” for a last name. That doesn’t mean something… as in words.
Michael: Yeah. Mhm.
Xenia: I don’t know if…
Michael: Because I was…
Xenia: The other words, they can be translated. The names cannot.
Michael: Because I was thinking of things like Remus Lupin, obviously.
Xenia: He’s called Remus Lupin still.
Michael: He’s still called…
Xenia: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah, kind of a giveaway, the whole thing with his story. So I was interested to see if there were any other interesting names that got swapped, but…
Xenia: No, it’s only the fun character names. And then the places, of course they’re called stuff in Danish instead.
Michael: What do you call Hogwarts? Do you call it Hogwarts still?
Xenia: It’s still Hogwarts. [laughs]
Michael: Is Diagon Alley still called Diagon Alley?
Xenia: No, it’s called Diagonalstræde because it’s…
Kat: Wait, what?
Michael: [laughs] What?
Xenia: Yeah, you know we have æ, ø, and å.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: Okay, so now we’re going to move on to this week’s Podcast Question of the Week. And this one came to me immediately – you guys know how I love theories like this – so here it is. My question is, “In this chapter we see Umbridge try to sack Professor Trelawney. Now, of course both she and Hagrid – she meaning Professor Trelawney – were on probation as a result of Umbridge’s evaluations. So, why Trelawney? Was it based purely on performance, or was Umbridge working on the orders of someone else – Lord Voldemort, perhaps? Trelawney is, as we later learn, important to his current mission of trying to recover the prophecy. We have suspected – meaning I have suspected – Umbridge was working with and for Lord Voldemort before. Is this just another coincidence, or is she indeed working for the Dark Lord?” So there you go. Because remember when I brought up the whole McNair was sent…
Michael: Yes!
Kat: … by… yes, all of that. So I really think that… okay, I can’t elaborate because I don’t want to put words in someone else’s mouth.
[Michael and Xenia laugh]
Kat: So I’m super interested to hear what you guys think about this on alohomora.mugglenet.com. Also you can send us Audioboos in response to this so we’ll play them. Sometimes it’s easier to voice your words as opposed to writing them down. So there you go. Send them in. Thanks.
Michael: And of course we have to give another thanks to our guest this week. Xenia, you were an absolutely fantastic guest. Thank you for…
Xenia: Aww.
Michael: I hope it was worth the wait.
[Kat and Xenia laugh]
Kat: I was just going to say that.
Xenia: It was, trust me. Oh, I’m so happy.
Michael: Good, wonderful. And you know, you were a particularly excellent guest. We always like to… if we can ever squeeze you in again before the whole review is over…
Xenia: Oh, please do!
Michael: … we would love to have you back. You were a…
Xenia: I would love to. Oh, that would be great!
Michael: And it’s always good to… it’s always fun to have an opinion from a different country than ours.
Kat: Agreed.
Xenia: Yeah.
Michael: It colors the show a little better. So thank you so much, Xenia for being on.
Xenia: You’re welcome, and thanks for having me.
Caleb: Absolutely. And if you would like to be on the show as well, then you should check out the “Be on the Show” page, which is on alohomora.mugglenet.com. If you have a set of Apple headphones then you’re all set. Otherwise, you don’t need anything fancy, just something that allows you to record and listen on headphones while we are recording.
Kat: And of course, in the meantime if you just want to keep in touch with us, you can find us on Twitter at @AlohomoraMN, facebook.com/openthedumbledore, on Tumblr at mnalohomorapodcast, on Snapchat follow us at mn_alohomora. Of course, our phone number is 206-GO-ALBUS (206-462-5287), and as I mentioned, Audioboo, which is actually now called “audioBoom,” oddly enough, is at alohomora.mugglenet.com. It’s free – all you need is a microphone and an Internet connection. Send us your comments, your questions, your thoughts on anything. I mean, okay, it should probably relate to what we’re talking about or going to talk about or did talk about, which I guess is really anything.
[Michael laughs]
Kat: So just send ’em in, okay? Keep ’em under 60 seconds so we can play them on the show.
Michael: And as we have stressed a lot in this particular episode, we have decided that the rebellion begins now and what better way to rebel than to show your House pride? We have brand new House shirts in our Alohomora! store. “Your Ravenclaw is showing,” “Your Hufflepuff…, Your Gryffindor…, Your Slytherin…” they are all showing. So check out a shirt and show off your House. We also have plenty of other products to choose from in the Alohomora! store. And of course, we also have ringtones that are free and available on the main Alohomora! website.
Caleb: Also make sure to check out our smartphone app, which is available seemingly worldwide. Prices vary upon location. It has a lot of great things, like transcripts, bloopers, alternate endings, host vlogs, and much more. And with that, we are finished with this week’s episode. I’m Caleb Graves.
Michael: I’m Michael Harle.
[Show music begins]
Kat: And I’m Kat Miller. Thank you for listening to Episode 104 of Alohomora!
Michael: [as Dolores Umbridge] Open the Dumbledore and close that copy of the Quibbler!
[Show music continues]
Michael: Diagonalstræde.
Xenia: Ah, so close! [laughs]
Kat: Can you say it again? Say it again.
Xenia: Diagonalstræde.
Kat: Diagonalstræde.
[Xenia laughs]
Caleb: I’m not even going to try that.
Xenia: Oh, that’s hilarious.
Kat: Oh, come on.
Michael: [laughs] The end.
