Transcript – Episode 179

[Show music begins]

Michael Harle: This is Episode 179 of Alohomora for February 27, 2016.

[Show music continues]

Michael: Welcome back, listeners, to another episode of Alohomora, MuggleNet.com’s global reread of the Harry Potter series. I’m Michael Harle.

Alison Siggard: I’m Alison Siggard.

Kristen Keys: And I’m Kristen Keys, and today we have a special guest, Micah, who has been on the show six times already. So you guys probably already know him, but why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself again.

Micah Tannenbaum: Sure, I’m actually disappointed. I was hoping my final time would be the seventh time on the show.

[Alison, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Micah: But clearly, it hasn’t worked out that way and I’m going to have to come back before all is said and done.

Michael: Well, if you can’t get on any of the scheduled episodes, you can always pop into the movie chat, right?

Micah: Yeah. I think it has to happen but, as Kristen mentioned, I’ve really enjoyed being on the show, over the last couple of years. It says that I’ve been here for every book but the first two. So I don’t what I was doing while you guys were going through the first two books, but I’m happy to be here.

[Alison laughs]

Michael: That’s okay, because none of us were on the first two books.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Kristen: Yeah. We’re all on the same boat.

Micah: Okay. Well, in that case, I’m probably the least controversial of any guest host that’s ever appeared on this show.

[Alison and Kristen laugh]

Michael: Yes, absolutely. You were universally beloved by all of our listeners.

Kristen: You don’t know anything about Harry Potter but we love to have you.

[Alison, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Michael: But they forgave that! They forgave that… it is funny, listeners. If you’re new to the joke, [laughs] Micah has been doing this for a while, and check out our iTunes reviews if you want to find out more about what we’re talking about.

[Alison and Kristen laugh]

Michael: There’s a gradual, hilarious shift in the reviews from, “Oh my God, Micah. Why do you have him on the show?” to, “Oh my God, I love Micah! He knows so much about Harry Potter. He’s so funny!” So make sure and check those out.

Micah: I haven’t done podcasting for over 10 years…

[Alison and Kristen laugh]

Micah: … or anything like that.

Michael: Or done multiple podcasts.

Micah: No.

Kristen: And not even a Harry Potter podcast. No.

Micah: No. I’ve never read the books.

[Kristen laughs]

Micah: This is my first time reading Deathly Hallows, and I’m hoping I can be adequate.

Michael: All right. Well, we’ll see. We’ll see how it goes with this week’s chapter, which is Chapter 28 of Deathly Hallows, “The Missing Mirror.” Listeners, make sure [to] take a look at that chapter, and read it in full before listening to the show to get the full listening experience from our show today.

Alison: But before we get into that chapter, we’re going to go and recap some comments from our last chapter, which you guys had a lot of comments and a lot of good comments. So you make my job hard!

[Michael laughs]

Alison: But it’s good. So our first one today is from HufflepuffSkein, who says,

“I’d never paid much attention to the title of this chapter until the funny outtakes at the end of this episode and it made me think about circle theory. ‘The Final Hiding Place’ could also relate to the shack on the island that is Vernon’s last attempt to keep Harry away from the letters and from Hogwarts in Philosopher’s Stone/Sorcerer’s Stone. Hagrid comes and takes Harry away. To where? Diagon Alley and, principally, Gringotts. Thus, the reverse of this book. Another fun circular connection that helps us recall and deepen our understanding of Harry’s journey. Originally, this type of literary structure was used to reinforce important aspects of a narrative for a reader, and also to create a comforting feeling of having started from some place, gone on an adventure, and returned to the starting point. Perhaps, we feel some unconscious comfort that it will be okay because he’s been through this before, if in reverse.”

Michael: That’s a really neat idea. I know you guys were talking about that, because I always just read that – “The Final Hiding Place” chapter title – as just a surface thing like, “Yep. This is the last place they get to be before they have to go to war.”

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: So it was really interesting hearing that last week that you all were digging so deep into the chapter title to find more meaning to it than just that.

Alison: Yeah. I like the idea of it’s a comforting thing. I don’t know if we’ve ever brought up before that circle theory. As a reader, it’s a comforting thing to be coming all the way back around into the… in the journey. So I liked that.

Michael: Yeah, well, I think that’s what makes Deathly Hallows – in many ways it is not, but in many ways it is very satisfying when you do have those recalls to Book 1 and Book 2, and that they’re not just peppered in just because. They actually play such important roles in the story. Like the fact that – as you guys talked about in the previous weeks – how the dragons in Gringotts were… that literally just started as a… meant to be taken as a rumor by Hagrid like, “Oh, they say there’s dragons down there but nobody really knows,” and, lo and behold, we rode on the back of a dragon out of Gringotts to escape. So yeah, I can see that idea of the comfort.

Alison: So our next comment is from BuckbeakIsMySpiritAnimal who says,

“So, about Gringotts some more. One, I think they definitely pay for vaults. If we count this at the Wizarding World in line for Escape from Gringotts, there are signs advertising the levels and cost of the vaults. I don’t remember the actual costs but that, for sure, suggests that people are paying for them. Two, I think Gringotts put the enchantments on the contents of the vaults. I think the wizards who work there could’ve possibly put some sort of latent charm on them, and then the goblins just did a simple activation thing throughout the whole of Gringotts. This would also let the Thief’s Downfall move, because people would be pissed to go through that every time to get to their vault, and let you not burn yourself on multiplying treasure when you enter your own vault.”

I think the first thing we need to mention is that we’re not entirely sure if the theme park is technically taken as canon, but I never noticed that. So I thought that was a really interesting thing to notice.

Michael: Oh yeah, I noticed that when I was there because I actually went to a… you know that section where you can go and talk to the goblin?

Alison: Oh, I forgot about that!

Kristen: Yeah.

Micah: Did you get that on video? Please tell me you did.

Michael: Oh, I did.

[Alison and Kristen laugh]

Michael: It’s on… there is video of that.

Micah: And did you buy a vault? Is that where this is going?

Michael: I…

[Alison and Kristen laugh]

Michael: Well, I went in, and I told him that I wanted a dragon-guarded vault, but they said on the sign that all of their dragon-guarded vaults were currently full, and I was very disappointed. And I asked him if there would be any openings, and he just answered by saying something generic about, “If you want to open an account, please visit the main area of Gringotts,” and I was like, “Well, thanks a lot for no help at all.”

[Alison and Kristen laugh]

Michael: So I wanted to use more colorful language than that, but yeah. There are signs that do list prices, and that’s a gray area for me to use the Wizarding World as proof.

Kristen: Yeah.

Michael: Because Rowling does approve all of the signage in the Wizarding World, but it’s not necessarily book canon, because there’s so much of the movies incorporated into that.

Kristen: Mhm.

Michael: I do think there’s an implication that you do have to pay for the higher security vaults. I assume that just because…

Kristen: I would assume so.

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: … you’re getting dragons.

Kristen: Trying to make some kind of money…

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: Gringotts just gives everything away [for] free…

Kristen: Yeah.

Michael: … and doesn’t profit at all. Well, and to the second point, about the enchantments, I was actually really surprised that pretty much all of you were on the opposite side of Eric with the…

Micah: You’re surprised?

[Alison and Kristen laugh]

Michael: I am on that one. That particular one.

Alison: I’m going to stand by that, though.

Michael: Well, actually because there was another listener who left a comment… and I don’t remember which listener it was, so I apologize, but there was a listener who commented that the “they” that Griphook refers to – Griphook also refers to “they” when he is specifically and more obviously talking about the goblins. There was another quoted instance that the listener brought up.

Alison: Oh yeah, I saw that one.

Michael: Yeah.

Alison: And now I’m going to prove it wrong!

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: And also, I think there was another thing in that… there was another piece in that comment that confirmed – because I know you guys were talking, too – can the Gringotts goblins do magic? And Ron confirms that in the “Shell Cottage” chapter, I think, when they’re talking to Griphook, because he says, “Goblins can do magic too, that they don’t share.” And Griphook counters that by saying, “That’s not the point.” So goblins can do magic and I think that’s been implied throughout the series that goblins have similar magic to house-elves.

Alison: Definitely.

Michael: So I always assumed that they were the ones who put the enchantments on the vaults. Because that to me seems like another thing that you pay for as an added security to your vault.

Alison: See…

Kristen: That’s right, they are the ones who work there and not wizards…

Michael: Yeah.

Alison: Yeah. But okay, that comment that we were talking about… those days are a full two pages apart. So I don’t know, I have a hard time believing that they’re talking about the same thing, just because – like we talked about last week – he specifically says it’s these curses…

Michael: Mhm.

Alison: And curses are usually implied to need a wand.

Michael: See, I always just thought that just like house-elves, goblins have magic that not only is different from wizards, but in some ways could possibly be more advanced. I think – because you guys talked about this, too – that Hermione mentions specifically that … the victors are the ones who write history.

Alison: Mhm.

Michael: And she references goblins were a victim of that, and goblins tend to be discounted in the Harry Potter world – maybe not perhaps as much as house-elves, because the Goblin Rebellions are often mentioned in the stories like a side point. And if you read Fantastic Beasts, listeners, you’ll realize that the Goblin Rebellions are something that seem to really heavily underlie the Harry Potter history – the wizarding world history. There’s a lot of that that keeps creeping up, and it’s interesting because I think Rowling probably has a fairly pat-down idea of what happened during the Goblin Rebellions.

Micah: They’re making a movie about that, right? Fantastic Beasts?

[Alison laughs]

Michael: So I’ve heard. I mean, I don’t know if there’s anybody actually important in it or anything like that, but yeah, that’s…

Micah: I just want to make sure that I contribute my knowledge on the news.

[Alison and Kristen laugh]

Michael: What else have you heard about that news, Micah?

Micah: I’ve heard the movie is going to be released later this year – I don’t know if that’s true – and that there’s a trailer that’s been released for it as well.

Michael: Maybe. We’ll have to Google it, I guess.

Micah: But I will say, I like your points. I believe in gob magic as well, and I think that it’s very strong.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: You believe in goblin magic? That’s good. Clap if you believe in goblin magic. [claps hands]

Micah: No, no, just gob magic. They wanted it to sound cool.

[Alison laughs]

Michael: Oh, I thought maybe you were talking about Gobstones, which is an entirely different thing altogether.

Micah: Yes.

Michael: Which you would know if you had read Harry Potter, Micah.

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Micah: I’m not going to even expand upon my thoughts about Gobstones. I’m just going to leave it there…

[Alison, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Micah: … and what they could possibly be.

[Alison, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Alison: Our next comment comes from ShortFingersButLovely, who says,

“I always wonder when reading this chapter how much those fits of rage from Voldemort actually damage the support Voldemort gets from his followers. Lucius and Narcissa, for example, seem to realize that because of those impulsive actions, Voldemort is not able to maintain his power forever. I wonder if even Bellatrix has second thoughts about Voldemort’s credibility – at least in the moment when she, his most faithful servant, has to escape the room to not be killed. I think that at the time the Battle of Hogwarts starts, a lot of Death Eaters are actually so intimidated by Voldemort that they don’t fight because they actually believe in their cause (unlike the side of the Order) and are only fighting to save their own skin and spare their families of any wrath that Voldemort might have when he finds out that they haven’t fought properly. If the Battle of Hogwarts hadn’t happened and Voldemort had kept on ruling longer, is it possible that he would have faced a rebellion from inside the Death Eaters? Maybe not even because they realize that their beliefs are ridiculous, but because enough Death Eaters realize that other people would be a better fit to lead the Death Eaters? Maybe someone who isn’t so focused on killing a teenager and who doesn’t kill dozens of people just because they give him bad news.”

Michael: That’s interesting because I’m immediately thinking, of course – we’ve been mentioning it almost every episode – the idea of Hitler and the Nazis and they were in power for quite a long time, even though their beliefs were ridiculous and there were many people who… there were plenty of Nazis who became disillusioned during that time Hitler still maintained power. There were plenty of people who reached their limits of what they were willing to do.

Kristen: Mhm.

Michael: And that still managed to be… to me it’s like this comment, in a way, almost summarizes why Voldemort is successful, not why he would have fallen apart. Because he’s controlling his followers through fear, so that makes sense to me that he would actually maintain that power. And in the case of somebody like Lucius and Narcissa, it’s not so much that they’re put off by Voldemort – they are put off by Voldemort as a whole – but that’s not really because of his fits of rage; that’s more because he specifically targeted their son.

Kristen: Mhm. More due to the family aspect.

Michael: Yeah, yeah, I think that’s more the bond issue. And as far as Bellatrix goes, I’m pretty sure that her loyalty did not waver after that incident. In fact, if anything, I’m pretty sure that would just strengthen her resolve to stay with Voldemort and work with him.

Micah: Yeah, I agree. I don’t see any of the Death Eaters rising up in his place or trying to overtake him, because you mentioned the fact that they are there because they’re fearful of him. Even when they all come back in Goblet of Fire, for the most part many of them are there out of fear, and if they didn’t really believe in his cause I don’t think they ever would have returned.

Kristen: Mhm.

Micah: So… to me, he is the epitome of evil. That’s not to say that there aren’t other evil campaigns out there that some of these people could have joined, but at the time he was the guy that these people rallied around. But in terms of fits of rage, if I were a Death Eater and I saw what had happened, I probably would have some second thoughts and think it’s probably time to maybe go to another country for a few weeks…

[Alison, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Micah: … until it gets resolved.

Alison: Extended vacation.

Michael: Well, and we do have an example of a Death Eater who did completely turn around – Regulus Black. So [his] attempt to take Voldemort down on his own… did end up bringing Voldemort down thanks to Harry’s continued work with that. So there is an element to this comment that is correct in that way. But I think too the issue is that Voldemort is promising his followers stuff, and I don’t know if Voldemort could even truly make good on all of his promises or even intends to give his followers everything that they want. I mentioned in a previous episode that Voldemort is happy to dispose of people when they’re no longer useful to him.

Kristen: Mhm.

Michael: But I think by the point that that would be happening, Voldemort would already have the power he craved and wanted and he would, ostensibly in that situation, be invincible anyway.

Alison: Well, listeners, that is the end of our recap comments for this actual episode. But we are going to have one more on our special bonus app feature. It’s a pretty long comment, so we decided to take it out of the actual episode and put it on there. So go ahead and listen or go onto our main site, alohomora.mugglenet.com, to read all of the fabulous comments that were left this week.

Kristen: All right, next we’re going to go into the Podcast Question of the Week responses. But before we go into that, let me remind you of the question from last week: We finally found out where the final Horcrux is hidden – and it’s at Hogwarts. Lord Voldemort, in his arrogance, thinks that he is the only one who has plumbed the deepest secrets of Hogwarts to find the Room of Hidden Things. So how exactly did Tom Riddle find the Room of Requirement, and how did it present itself to him? What about the room secured his trust in its (implied) absolute secrecy? So our first comment comes from DreamGalleon88, and they say,

“The Room of Requirement (according to Hermione who is a first-rate source) is ‘known as the Come-and-go Room. The Room of Requirement only appears when a person has real need of it, and is always equipped with the seeker’s needs.’ Therefore, Tom Riddle could have been passing by a random Hogwarts hallway one day, thinking about how he needed a secret place to practice and learn about Dark magic, and the Room of Requirement could have then appeared. The room isn’t supposed to reveal itself for only good or bad wizards, as it was used by both Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. So there’s no guarantee that the room didn’t provide a secret base of operations for Riddle to study Dark magic books and practice Dark spells without anyone else finding out. If no one ever discovered Riddle in the room, he would’ve realized that he could only enter it by himself at the time. Perhaps he went so far as to assume that the Room of Requirement was like the Chamber of Secrets, a special Hogwarts room just for him. This assumption wouldn’t be that far-fetched, because if he never talked to anyone who knew about the Room of Requirement’s history and past uses, it would just appear like a secret room that revealed itself… for Riddle.”

Michael: Yeah…

Micah: So entitled. He thinks all these rooms in the castle are his?

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Kristen: Yeah.

Alison: Well, yeah, that kind of goes back to what we were talking about last week about how he’s just so arrogant because he thinks he knows everything, when really he doesn’t know anything – like, the real anything.

Michael: Yeah, because Tom never relied on anybody else. And the sad part about that is that he didn’t have anybody to rely on early on…

Kristen: True.

Michael: And when Dumbledore presented… and that’s the part where Harry and Tom are different, that when they were both presented with authority figures, Tom rejected them and Harry embraced them.

Kristen: Mhm.

Micah: Yeah.

Michael: So that’s where that issue comes from. And that’s been very much implied throughout the series, that Tom got his little cronies around him and then he wandered around the school pretty much finding whatever he could find and deciding that it belonged to him. Which goes along perfectly with what he was doing at the orphanage, where he was taking things that weren’t even his.

Kristen: Mhm. True.

Michael: So really when you think about it that way, he had his own little Room of Requirement, as far as the way it’s stuffed with things that belong to other people that were left there. He kind of made his own little Room of Requirement in his dresser where he kept all of those things that didn’t belong to him. So wouldn’t that be just the thing for him to wander into a room full of crap that belongs to other people and be like, “This is mine!”?

Kristen: “It’s all mine!”

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: “The castle made this for me.”

Micah: So entitled, it’s unbelievable.

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah, he’s just a brat.

Micah: But I like the point that gets made about how it’s not only for good or bad wizards…

Alison: Yeah.

Micah: … and they reference Draco and certainly the Vanishing Cabinets. If it was made with the intent of being purely good, I don’t think it would allow the Vanishing Cabinets to be utilized the way that they were. I think that’s a really good point that they make.

Alison: Yeah, I like this idea that it’s neutral. I feel like people see these books so much as, “Look, here’s all the bad, here’s all the black” and then “here’s all the good, that’s all the white.” They just see them on this polar scale, but I like this idea of finding these neutral zones that really get back to this idea of choice that we see throughout of how people choose to use it.

Michael: Well, maybe that impression comes from what we’ll see later in this book in the upcoming chapters where Hogwarts defends itself against threats.

Alison: Mhm.

Michael: And so it’s that idea that Hogwarts knows which people are bad and which people are good, because it will attack the bad people. The Room of Requirement in Book 5, when it was properly introduced, was set up to be a room that could be used for good or ill.

Micah: Yeah. I mean, Dumbledore needed a bathroom, right?

Michael: Yeah!

Micah: And he got one.

[Kristen laughs]

Micah: And if you’ve been reading online, the Hogwarts IT Guy…

Alison: Oh my gosh!

Michael: Which is amazing!

Alison: So funny! [laughs]

Micah: He needed a server room and he got one.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: So clearly, they don’t discriminate.

Kristen: That’s true.

Michael: By the way, Hogwarts IT Guy, I want you on Alohomora!…

Alison: Yes!

Michael: … before we’re done. Please come on the show, if you’re listening because you’re amazing.

Alison: Fantastic.

[Michael laughs]

Kristen: Our next comment comes from SnapesManyButtons, and they say,

“Why wouldn’t Voldy, who thinks the world should revolve around his precious self, think that all the junk in the Room of Requirement was generated just to hide his Horcrux? I think the way Riddle found the room is echoed in the way Harry found it, pacing the hallway thinking of how he needed a place to hide the Potions book/Horcrux. Except instead of thinking of all the other people who had left items inside it, Voldy sees it as a room generated specifically to make his Horcrux impossible to find. It always bothered me that he would think he was the only one who knew where the Diadem was hidden when the room was so full of things, but it makes a strange kind of sense that he’d think it was all generated for him. He’s definitely that egotistical.”

Michael: Mhm. Well, yeah, because Harry too, when he sees that version of the room for the first time, he really… even though he’s in it, what’s so interesting is that Harry is in more of a pressing panic than Voldemort probably would have been to hide that Diadem…

Kristen: Mhm.

Michael: … because he’s trying to hide that Potions book and get back to Snape. But Harry does take the time to actually observe what’s in the room, and he very quickly realizes that these things belong to other people.

Kristen: Yeah.

Micah: Yeah, like the crew from the past few movies, who just put all their old props in the room.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: All the leftover props. That is kind of what ended up happening in [Deathly Hallows:] Part 2.

Kristen: Mhm.

Alison: I love that, though, because I love that you get these little Easter eggs scattered throughout.

Michael: Yeah, and what’s interesting is that it seems pretty logical that some of the things in the movie that ended up there would, like the Cornish Pixies…

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: And the Mirror of Erised, I think, can be seen in one scene, and the chess pieces.

Kristen: Yes.

Michael: That does make sense.

Alison: Random thought: I don’t know if we’ve ever talked about this, but do we think that sometimes when people vanish objects at Hogwarts they go to the Room of Requirement, and that could be why there’s so much junk there?

Michael: So that there is no ghost space for the vanished objects…

Alison: [laughs] Yeah.

Michael: It’s just the Room of Requirement? [laughs]

Kristen: It all just goes there.

Michael: Hmm…

Kristen: Hmm… never thought of that. Possibly. And our third comment comes from Lord_Trolldemort, and [he] says,

“My first theory: He didn’t mean to. It was another one of those Volde-mistakes…”

[Michael laughs]

Kristen: [continues]

“Imagine the circumstances under which he would need to hide this Horcrux. He had just had his interview with Dumbledore. He’s certain that his chances at the job were slim to none to begin with, but now is his one and only chance to hide the Horcrux, and he may or may not be caught doing so because anyone could be up at this hour of the night, and we’re all aware of how easy it is to wander in the castle after hours…”

[Everyone laughs]

Kristen: [continues]

“He has to make his way to the intended spot, quickly, silently, and entirely unnoticed. While I think that he would be fine with spilling blood in order to keep his secrets hidden, I also know that he would think it to be an unnecessary cost. It’s easier to hide an object than it is to hide an object and a body…”

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: Oh, gosh!

Kristen: [continues]

“It would be too messy and unorganized to leave casualties, and thus his hand is forced and rushed. I believe that he intended to use the Chamber of Secrets as his hiding place, but he could not traverse the entire castle in order to get there, and could not chance anyone seeing him open it to do so. Thus, he had to take a gamble and ‘require’ that the room showed him an entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. Because of this, perhaps the room did morph into the Chamber (or maybe a replica), thus convincing him that he had succeeded, when in reality it was just the Room of Requirement still. Hiding it there, he had then departed the castle, believing his Horcrux to be entirely safe. I think that the clue is in his mental wording, that he ‘plumbed the darkest secrets of the castle…’ which is two cues to the Chamber, not the Room of Requirement.”

Michael: See, that implies that he hid it in a version of the room that is a different version and I don’t think you can do that.

Alison: Yeah.

Kristen: That’s pretty crazy.

Michael: Yeah.

[Kristen laughs]

Michael: I don’t… because this chapter we’re going to discuss and the chapter after it do bring up questions of exactly what the Room’s abilities are, because, of course, we’re going to see that it can connect somewhere that we probably never thought it could connect to.

Kristen: Mhm.

Michael: So could it connect to other rooms in the castle? Who knows, maybe it could connect…

Kristen: Yeah, possibly.

Michael: … to the Chamber of Secrets.

Kristen: That’s like, isn’t the Room of Requirement on a higher level?

Michael: Yeah, it’s at the top level. [laughs] So it will be a very exciting slide.

Kristen: Yeah, I was going to say, “insert slide here and then I’m in the Chamber of Secrets.”

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Micah: Well yeah, I mean, maybe just the room appeared to him, as being the Chamber of Secrets and so he thought that he had hidden it somewhere within the Chamber, but in fact it was just in a pile in the Room of Requirement, and I will say that the first four or five sentences of this [are] very troubling when you’re talking about moving objects and bodies and not getting caught…

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Alison: Yeah, yeah.

Micah: … out there, Lord_Trolldemort…

Michael: A little too much personal experience, maybe?

Micah: Yeah, you need to lay off the criminal minds of law and order…

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Micah: … before your next email.

Michael: There do seem to be a lot of dead bodies around Hogwarts, though, so which Voldemort was mainly responsible for.

Kristen: Truth.

Michael: Hmm, I don’t know. I don’t think that the Room could appear as the Chamber of Secrets, have Voldemort hide the diadem in there and then it actually be in the other version of the Room. I think when you put something in one version of the Room it stays in that version of the Room. That’s what I would assume anyway. I could be wrong, though, because I know we did suppose that the books that the Room provided in Order of the Phoenix for Dumbledore’s Army actually came from the other version of the Room and that it didn’t just make the books out of nowhere, it was like, “Well, these are the book that I have as resources, so here you go.”

Kristen: Maybe he didn’t even enter the Room, maybe he was just sitting in the doorway, used his spell, and put the diadem way back in the room.

Alison: Yeah. That might have been faster.

[Kristen laughs]

Michael: Just stood at the edge of the Room…

Alison: He’s hurrying to get up to that appointment.

Kristen: They do have magic there, you don’t need to run all the way in the backroom, he just stood by the doorway.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: Well, you didn’t know because… where did he… it was just sitting somewhere right? It wasn’t anywhere significant. Harry put it on the bust, right? Or was it on the bust already? I don’t remember. Maybe it was on the bust and then Harry put the bust on the place where he had put the book. I can’t remember because that’s… Voldemort would, I would assume, have put it somewhere in the Room where he also thought it was going to be significant enough so that he could find it if he needed to find it again.

Micah: Look, Rowling just needed a place in Hogwarts that hadn’t been used before where she could put a Horcrux that would have been easy enough for Harry to get to. Am I killing the mood?

Michael: Yeah, lazy, lazy, lazy. Not good enough, Rowling.

[Alison, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Micah: What ever happened to the graveyard?

Michael: The graveyard?

Micha: Yeah, I thought that was going to play a role in at least the final book but she never got around to it.

Michael: Yeah, she also said the flying car was going to come back.

Alison: What? I have never heard this.

Michael: Yeah, she said in one interview…

Kristen: Well, that’s in the Room of Requirement.

Micah: She’s out there creating movies on secondary books in her series, she can’t even give us… deliver on what she promised…

[Alison, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Michael: It’s just never enough.

Kristen: It’s going to be in that eight book that’s coming out this summer.

[Alison, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Alison: You know, the prequel!

Michael: That’s what the prequel’s going to be. That’s what it’s going to be all about.

Kristen: All right. Well, if you guys have any more ideas of what has happened with Lord Voldemort in this room, you can head on over to alohomora.mugglenet.com and add your words or join in into the conversation of what everybody else has put on there.

Alison: And while you’re on our website make sure you check out our Patreon page! We are on Patreon! And you can become a sponsor of us for as little as 1 dollar a month. And our post-Hallow plans are going to be up there weeks before we let everyone else know so go on up and sponsor us and you can know everything that’s going to happen when we have finished the epilogue.

Michael: We should note too, that our friends over at SpeakBeasty, the newest podcast on mugglenet.com also have a Patreon page as well. And again you can also sponsor them for as little as one dollar a month. So make sure [to] check them out too, if you haven’t because if you’re like Micah and you’ve only just found out about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Micah, I definitely suggest you take a listen to SpeakBeasty.

Micah: Maybe I will. Are they going to have me on their podcast at least six times?

[Alison, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Kristen: Just six.

Alison: Is that your requirement?

Michael: Always seven. Only magical numbers. [laughs]

Micah: That’s right.

Michael: And now, we head into our chapter discussion, of Chapter 28.

[Deathly Hallows Chapter 28 intro begins]

Aberforth: Chapter 28.

Harry: Expecto Patronum!

[Sound of a spell being cast]

Aberforth: “The Missing Mirror.”

[Sound of footsteps]

[Deathly Hallows Chapter 28 intro ends]

Michael: The trio return to Hogsmeade making a grand entrance with the trip of the Caterwauling Charm and sending the Death Eaters and Dementors into hot pursuit. Saved at the last possible moment by a goat Patronus, the Hogs Head barman is finally revealed as Aberforth Dumbledore, Albus’s long-hinted at brother. Finally divulging the details behind Ariana Dumbledore’s tragic past, Aberforth holds his deceased sister up as an example of why Harry should be wary of Dumbledore’s instructions. But Harry stands firm in his convictions and seeing his determination, Aberforth and Ariana open the only access point that Hogwarts has left. So before we get into the real meat and potatoes of this chapter, there’s a few new points of magic that are introduced here. The first one, not really much to say about it, the Caterwauling Charm. It’s a charm that screams at you if set it off, it’s basically an alarm system.

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Alison: Can we mention though, that Harry says it sounds like Voldemort?

Michael: Yeah.

Alison: And I wonder if, you can personalize it? [laughs]

Michael: Yeah, like Voldemort recorded one of his screams?

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Kristen: That was a bad one. That was a bad one. Let me try again.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: So we know what the sound was of course. It was that nice, “No!”

Alison: “No!”

[Alison, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Alison: Twelve times.

Michael: Echoing through the mountains.

Kristen: I like it. That’s a good one.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Alison: Keep it going. On the loop. Move it. [laughs]

Michael: Well, I suppose the only… that’s probably one of the most interesting points about the Caterwauling Charm in this case, because the movie took the more literal meaning of the Caterwauling, caterwaul means the wailing and moaning of a cat, the movie did that.

Alison: Mhm.

Michael: The movie did that. If you watch the movie it’s just this constant, [imitating a cat] “Meow” sound effect…

Micah: Which Aberforth let out, and that’s the whole reason that this chapter even had any alarm clocks going off anyway…

[Alison, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Micah: Who’s to say it was actually the charm? Maybe it was just the cat getting attacked, you don’t know.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Alison: Oh, gosh!

Kristen: Damn Death Eaters attacking the cat again.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: So many cat references! How bizarre.

[Alison and Kristen laugh]

Michael: Other important point to note with magic that’s going on here: The Death Eaters attempt to use Accio to summon Harry’s cloak and it doesn’t work.

Alison: [in a sing-song voice] Hallow!

Michael: [laughs] Yep.

Alison: In case you were wondering still.

Michael: [laughs] In case you were still left in suspense about that. Just another little hint that, yes, that cloak is, in fact, the [Deathly Hallows] Cloak. Now, the interesting thing with the Dementors… and this is something that we’ve supposed before. The Dementors actually say something that may not be off the mark considering how off the mark they are in this chapter. One of them shouts, [as a Death Eater] “The Dark Lord wants Potter’s life, not his soul. He’ll be easier to kill if he’s been Kissed first!” [back to normal voice] So this goes back to that point we had wondered about: Is this actually correct, perhaps?

Alison: I would think so. Well… I would think so because…

Kristen: Whose soul is it taking?

Michael: Yeah, that’s just it.

Alison: Ooh! Yeah, that’s true too.

Michael: Because we’ve pondered that if a Dementor actually counts as one of those things, right? That could destroy a Horcrux, because it’s such bizarre, extreme, unusual, irreversible magic. So if the Dementor did suck out that soul, would it make Harry easier to kill ostensibly if he didn’t have that piece of Voldemort in him? But of course, by that same token, does that also make Voldemort easier to kill?

Micah: I would just file this under “Not so dumb things Death Eaters say in passing.”

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: How long is that list?

Michael: Not of course by their own knowledge though, right? So…

Micah: Right.

Michael: … it’s not like they know what they’re saying.

Alison: Yeah, part of me wonders if that would even work. If it would be easier to kill someone who has been Kissed, just because… I wonder if it would either make you go to survival instincts or you just wouldn’t care. I feel like that could go either way.

Michael: I would assume that they become a living vegetable, you know?

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: Which is a very real thing, listeners. That has happened to people, where it’s basically the idea that you’ve lost your… you may be able to open your eyes, and that’s kind of the extent of what you can do. Yeah, I would say that would make you easier to kill because you just exist. Of course, probably most unusual piece of magic that’s introduced in this chapter… and we’ll get to talking about Ariana herself because she is the meat and potatoes of this chapter, but Ariana’s portrait does something we’ve definitely never seen before. Not only can she go to another portrait by traveling into the depth of her portrait – she doesn’t leave by the sides; she turns around and travels back into her portrait – but she also brings a living being [into] her portrait. Which is bizarre because, as we see at the end of the chapter, Neville as we know is coming through the passageway with her. But he’s portrayed in the painting, which to me… that doesn’t… I don’t know where that even comes from. Any ideas?

Alison: I want to know if this passage…

Kristen: Magic.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: Perfect! That’s it. That’s all we needed.

Alison: There you go. I want to know if this passage has always been there. Has her portrait always been this way, or did one day Aberforth look up at the portrait and he was like, “Why is there a tunnel behind her now?”

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Alison: “What is happening?”

Michael: I assume…

Kristen: Didn’t they make the tunnel?

Michael: Yeah.

Alison: I know Neville asks for a way to get food, so it gives him the tunnel in the Room of Requirement side, but I wonder if it just connected it? Was this tunnel going somewhere else at first? Did it just appear?

Kristen: Because maybe the picture was always there.

Alison: Yeah.

Kristen: So it made a great place to connect to.

Alison: I think it was always there, but I just… this tunnel behind it…

Kristen: Well, the Room knew that picture was there so…

Alison: Yeah.

Kristen: … it was easy access.

Michael: Well, and Aberforth mentions all of the other entryways through secret passageways that have been blocked, and Harry knows through the Marauder’s Map which ones were already blocked previously, and I’m wondering if this… because there is… I think Harry knows that there are other passageways that lead off to Hogsmeade, but they don’t… they’re blocked in Prisoner. I wonder…

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: … if one of those is that passageway, but what a bizarre way that it works that you can only get it if you ask the Room for that passageway and why would it have been there anyway? And it’s just weird to me, too, that Neville, while he’s walking through the passageway, can be portrayed in the painting because we’ve never seen that before either…

Alison and Kristen: Yeah.

Michael: … where life can actually be portrayed in real-time as a part of the portrait. I don’t understand how that works at all.

Kristen: Yeah, I go with my first answer again, magic.

Michael: It’s magic. So we know that Ariana’s portrait is kind of unusual in this way. And I’m assuming that Neville is not conscious that he is also being portrayed in the artwork. He’s not walking with Ariana in reality, right?

Alison: I don’t think so.

Kristen: I don’t think so, no.

Alison: I feel like it’s almost like a mirror.

Kristen: Yeah.

Alison: Not a mirror, a window. Sorry.

Kristen: Yeah, so you can see who really is coming down. Whoever’s in the room can see who is coming down the tunnel. It’s almost like a security.

Michael: Yeah, it’s like a security-defense mechanism, so maybe that’s another piece that has been developed by the necessity of the Room and being safe within the Room.

Kristen: Yeah.

Michael: So the Room is breaking magical rules, I guess, is what I’m going to go with. It still won’t give you food, just in the Room.

Kristen: I mean, it’s helping protect Hogwarts.

Michael: Yeah.

Kristen: I guess, somehow.

Michael: But of course we get into the more hefty details of this chapter, and I thought we should start with Aberforth because he’s pretty darn important. We’ve been waiting to see him for a long time. Aberforth was another one of those [characters], like Regulus, that a lot of people actually figured out beforehand, and we’ve been mapping out the clues as we’ve gone through the reread of the series. I recall back to a few [clues] that I could remember off the top of my head. Of course, Dumbledore mentions that he is friendly with the Hogsmeade barman. The scene in Half-Blood Prince that we saw, where Mundungus is accosted by an individual before he is accosted by Harry…

[Alison laughs]

Michael: … is the scene where – and that is confirmed here because Aberforth does say that he bought the mirror about a year ago – so that is indeed the scene and that is what he is doing in that scene. And, of course, the big one, the Patronus that comes charging down the lane when the second Patronus is cast is, in fact, a goat. And who could that possibly be? Who have we heard has such an affinity with goats? So that’s where… all the clues came together beautifully in this part. I’d say this is one of the more satisfying, actually, of the reveals from the books with… we all saw this one coming, but it fits together very nicely. Probably the only flaw that we have pointed out before is that the text very much points out that Aberforth and Albus pretty much look exactly the same.

[Alison and Michael]

Michael: And how on earth did they never notice that?

Alison: Yeah, Harry is unobservant.

Michael: Well, apparently!

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Michael: Because he’s looked him straight in the face multiple times, including [in] Order of the Phoenix, when he sees quite a bit of Aberforth when they go into the Hog’s Head. And the movie took that to an extreme because actually Hermione and Ron say, when they get to the Hog’s Head, that they thought he was Dumbledore. And I always thought it would have been fun… I thought it was always funny that they cast another actor for Aberforth.

Alison: Instead of…

Michael: … just having Michael Gambon play him.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: I thought that would have been cool.

Micah: It was kind of eerie how close they were able to get Ciarán Hinds to look…

Michael: to look like…

Alison: Yeah.

Micah: … to look like Michael Gambon.

Michael: Yeah, he’s like a more stout version of Dumbledore, basically, in the movie.

Alison: Speaking of goats though – this is a random thought – Micah, one of the first episodes of MuggleCast I ever listened to is the one where you went off about the goats.

[Alison, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Micah: Oh, geez. I thought we could get through this episode without it being brought up, but clearly…

[Alison and Kristen laugh]

Micah: Quite honestly, though, I don’t remember what I said all those years ago about the goats. I just know that there was a lot of talk about how Aberforth has an affinity for this animal and…

[Kristen laughs]

Micah: … I will tell you, back in the MuggleCast days, the amount of emails and the amount of things that were sent to the P.O. box that were related to goats…

[Michael laughs]

Micah: … was unbelievable. I have somebody who hand-crafted a goat figure…

Kristen: Oh my gosh.

Micah: … who lived in Africa…

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Micah: … and sent it over here.

Kristen: That is amazing.

Michael: Oh, wow.

Micah: I don’t know where it is. It’s boxed up somewhere, but I’m happy to try and find it at some point and send it to you so you can see this but yeah, it really just took on a life of its own. There’s no other way to describe it, but yeah, I think I was just having fun and making light of the Aberforth goat-love-fest.

[Alison, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Michael: I have a piece on the goat. I was going to say it here, but I’m actually going to save it for the end because this chapter is very heavy and so…

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: … I think what we need at the end is a little bit of this goat business.

Alison: Okay.

Michael: Because it’s just so absurd.

Alison: [laughs] It is, though. He just keeps harping on these goats.

Michael: [laughs] And Rowling provided the closest thing that she could to an answer.

Alison: Oh, good.

Michael: And we’ll get to that. [laughs] But to go back to Aberforth and specifically this moment, there are some very… what I love about Aberforth is he presents this bizarre final challenge almost, and, Alison, I’m hoping you can speak more to this because you seem to know more about the Bible than I do by quite a bit…

[Kristen laughs]

Michael: … and I feel that there’s a lot of that going on here because Aberforth, throughout this chapter, is testing Harry, because what’s interesting is that Aberforth, contrary to what he says, and I’ll read a few of his quotes that he says. One of the big things that he says is, “The Order of the Phoenix is finished. You-Know-Who’s won. It’s over, and anyone who is pretending different is kidding themselves.” And in relation to that, Aberforth says many things about when Harry’s saying that he has to do this task. Aberforth says, “‘Got to? Why got to? He’s dead, isn’t he?’ said Aberforth roughly. ‘Let it go before you follow him. Save yourself. How can you be sure, Potter, that my brother wasn’t more interested in the greater good than in you? How can you be sure you aren’t dispensable just like my sister? Why didn’t he tell Harry to hide then?’ shot back Aberforth. ‘Why didn’t he say to him, ‘Take care of yourself, here’s how to survive.'” And yet it would seem that this whole time Aberforth has happily been in communication with the Order of the Phoenix, and he has also been in communication with Dumbledore’s Army and helping them. So what I’ve always been interested in in this chapter and what I’m interested to see what you guys think, does Aberforth necessarily fully believe what he’s saying or is he partially saying this with the intention of challenging Harry and seeing where Harry has come to by this point?

Micah: Yeah.

Alison: I don’t think he believes it, but I don’t think he necessarily is challenging Harry either. I feel like he’s… there’s still a part of him that believes they can win, but I think he’s seen enough and experienced enough that he’s just fallen into this “it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Kristen: He may… I feel like he may believe it just a little bit towards Harry because Harry is still a kid.

Alison: Yeah.

Kristen: Because he’s referring back to his little sister so he’s still thinking of Harry as a little kid. Like, “go hide while you can.”

Michael: Hmm.

Kristen: “You’re young, let the Order face this.”

Michael: Well, that’s true. There’s definitely a part where Harry makes clear that he, in a way…

Kristen: Is of age.

Michael: Yeah, he’s of age.

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: And that the comparison to Ariana isn’t fair…

Kristen: Mhm.

Michael: … because he’s – like you said – of age, and perhaps also a little more aware of what’s going on than Ariana was. He’s not an innocent.

Micah: I think there’s a bit of a challenge…

Michael: Mhm.

Micah: … that is going on here. But I also think, maybe, Aberforth sees a bit of what’s happened in the past and what’s happening right now with Harry…

Michael: Mhm.

Micah: … and he’s afraid for him, maybe, in a way that he was afraid for his brother, even though he doesn’t outwardly admit it at this juncture of the story. And I also think he’s in a tough place because he’s just lost, really, the only other living family member that he has.

Michael: Mhm.

Micah: And I think that would put anybody in a really down and sort of depressed state, the way that he is right now. I don’t know if we ever get the full picture [of] how he truly feels about Albus, but it would seem to me that he saw him try [to] fight for what he believed in for so long a period of time, and ultimately at the end of the day, he… I guess it depends [on] how you look at it to say that he failed at it, but I think that he’s, in part, afraid…

Michael: Mhm.

Micah: … in this moment.

Michael: That’s interesting because that makes me think of how we perhaps, as readers, sometimes forget that for all of the strife and difficulties between them, Petunia and Lily were sisters despite all [of] their differences. And the movie has that wonderful deleted scene from Part 1 where Petunia kind of reminds Harry that as difficult as it was to be her sister’s sister, she did love her in some form and that perhaps… I think that’s… like you said, Micah, that’s kind of the unspoken thing going on here, is that Aberforth is not saying anything nice about Albus but he did love him, and that’s perhaps what… I like that you brought up too that there’s… in a way, he has the same fear for Harry that he did for Dumbledore because there [are] a lot of comparisons between Dumbledore and Harry throughout this moment too.

Micah: It’s almost as if he’s continuing on Dumbledore’s quest and…

Michael: Mhm.

Alison: Yeah.

Micah: Aberforth has seen so many casualties, most importantly his sister, which we get to later on in this chapter, and I just think that there’s something inside of him that just wants this all to come to an end. But yet, he’s still the same guy who opened up his door and let Harry, Ron, and Hermione in and at the end of this chapter ends up helping them in their cause, so there’s more than just the goats going on inside this guy’s head.

Michael: [laughs] Well, and… so perhaps, in a way, what he’s saying to Harry is maybe the things that he wished he could have said to Dumbledore to some degree.

Alison: Yeah.

Kristen: Mhm.

Michael: But… well, Alison, I was kind of thinking about this in terms of it being a challenge because this reminds me of a lot of biblical characters who are challenged on their faith in God near… kind of in a pivotal role in their journey and kind of what they’re being asked by God to do, like Abraham, Moses, pretty much almost all of them…

Micah: Harry.

Michael: Harry.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: And I was wondering if that’s where this is coming from because I know there’s….

Alison: I can’t… I kind of noticed something similar. I can’t think of any specific examples that would really parallel this. I’m not quite sure if she was drawing on something specifically, but this is a really common motif that comes from… I mean, you see it a lot, like you said, [not only] through the Bible but also just through literature in general that at the 11th hour, this sudden questioning of the faith in the mentor, in the person who put you on the path. Yeah, I was really noticing that too, that Harry really has to come to this decision right now of “Is he going to trust Dumbledore or is he going to let his doubts overcome what he thought was best?” And I think, obviously, it’s really the moment where he says, “No, I’m just going to keep trusting, and I don’t know everything, but I’m just going to keep trusting,” which is a very… I mean, it’s basically the definition of “faith,” right? [laughs] And this line here says, he has no desire to doubt again. He just says, “Well, I’m in it this far. I’m going to make this decision now, and I’m not going to go back on it.” And yeah, I can definitely see the parallels of that idea through there.

Michael: Well, and of course, I bring up the biblical parallel because, as Rowling has admitted, she was very much inspired by this, particularly this story of Jesus Christ in Harry’s final lap of his journey. So that idea that… because of course, that also happens in Jesus’s story. I was, of course, referencing pieces of the Old Testament, and Jesus is in the New Testament, but the idea that Jesus was also tested in his faith in God and in what God was asking him to do. And as you mentioned, Alison, Harry’s counters to Aberforth. He initially is mulling things over. The narration says, “Harry kept quiet. He did not want to express the doubts and uncertainties about Dumbledore that had riddled him for months now.” But as we go on, we see that evolution in Harry’s thinking:

“He had decided to continue along the winding, dangerous path indicated for him by Albus Dumbledore, to accept that he had not been told everything that he wanted to know, but simply to trust. He had no desire to doubt again.”

And Harry wraps up his convictions by saying something that’s definitely, I think, worth discussing:

“Sometimes you’ve got to think about more than your own safety! Sometimes you’ve got to think about the greater good! This is war!”

Alison: Very Gryffindor.

Michael: Yes. But my, hasn’t the greater good come around again and done a bit of a 180, I suppose? Has the greater good evolved? Does it mean something different? Is this greater good something different than what Dumbledore’s greater good was when he was younger?

Alison: I think so. Talking about this as… I’m taking a Shakespeare class right now, to veer in a strange direction, [laughs] but we were talking about Macbeth the other day, and we were talking about this idea of ambition. And when is ambition a good thing and when is it a bad thing? And I feel like this is kind of a similar thing that, depending on which direction you take it and how you take it, the greater good can be a good thing or it can be a really destructive thing. So if you take it the way that Grindelwald wanted to take it, it becomes a very destructive, oppressive thing, just a justification for evil. But if you take it the way that Harry is seeing it right now, there’s something that needs to be saved that’s worth saving, that’s worth more than an individual life…

Michael: But as Aberforth points out, is it all right for individual lives to be sacrificed for that cause? Because of course, he is specifically referencing his sister, but he is also pointing out the fact that people are about to die based on Harry’s decision. Is that okay?

Alison: I think that it comes to the conclusion… I mean, throughout this chapter, Harry thinks about… he talks about how he knows that this has been a possibility. He knows that his death is a very likely possibility, actually. And I think Harry has finally weighed the options and said, “Sacrificing myself, if we can save other people, if we can save the future, we can save our world, is worth more than me,” which… I mean, he acts on it in a couple [of] chapters, right? He’s come to this decision that I think he saw Dumbledore make, that sometimes you have to make sacrifices in order to reach this goal that’s going to be… you have to decide that goal is something worth saving.

Michael: Well, and we’ve… as far as the knowing that other people in this situation will also die, perhaps that goes back to when… in the early chapters when… in “The Seven Potters” when all of the Order made clear that they weren’t doing this for Harry.

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: In a way, they were kind of referencing the greater good without actually using that term. So it’s not the first time that the greater good has been used in a different sense. We’re redefining, perhaps, what the greater good means.

Micah: And there’s a good chance that people would die anyway.

Alison and Michael: Yeah.

Micah: It’s sort of really one dimensional to think that we’re just talking about one life here, whether or not Harry makes the decision to give himself up. There’s the very real possibility that other people are going to die at the hands of Voldemort and at the hands of Death Eaters, regardless of what Harry decides to do, whether he’s in the equation or not. These are not nice people that they’re going to let everyone live happily ever after. These are people who really pride themselves on tormenting other individuals.

Michael: Mhm. So death is a consequence either way no matter what.

Alison: Yeah.

Micah: In this case, I think so. When you… given who we’re dealing with.

Michael: Mhm. Yeah.

Alison: So it’s almost making inevitable death worth something.

Michael: Yes. Versus running away from it.

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: Because the other thing this conversation reminds me a lot of is the conversation that Harry had in the previous book with Dumbledore. This is almost that conversation coming up again and kind of cementing Harry’s choice because this is very similar to the prophecy conversation where Harry is kind of like, [as Harry] “Well, I have to do it because the prophecy said so,” and Dumbledore says, [as Dumbledore] “No, you have to do it because that’s who you are. You know that that’s the right choice, and you can choose to do the other thing but that’s wrong and you would never do that.” [back to normal voice] So that’s kind of that being presented again.

Alison: Yeah, I feel like that conversation in Half-Blood is Harry coming to understand that point. This is him acting on that point.

Michael: Mhm. Which, again, is why I just wondered… while I do believe Aberforth fully believes all the things he’s saying, why I just can’t help but wonder if there was an element of testing Harry’s resolve? And the movie really plays up that aspect – Ciarán Hinds pretty much performed it that way. I think it has to come over that way in the movie because, of course, we lose all of the backstory, so pretty much everything Aberforth says to Harry in the movie makes no sense. It’s just kind of ramblings of an old man, unfortunately.

Micah: And you get that line from… isn’t it Hermione that says, “That doesn’t seem like somebody that’s given up to me”?

Alison: Yeah.

Micah: Or… I’m paraphrasing, but…

Kristen: Mhm.

Michael: Mhm.

Micah: Yeah, so I think that in and of itself lends you to believe that it was more of a test on the part of Aberforth.

Michael: Mhm. Yeah, it just seems like that… again, that test of faith that you get before leaping into the battle. Which in this case, it seems to literally be. The other interesting thing about Aberforth in this moment is that he is compared to somebody else who we haven’t heard about for a while, and it happens twice that this description of him occurs. First on page 561 – the narration says,

“The firelight made the grimy lenses of Aberforth’s glasses momentarily opaque, a bright flat white, and Harry remembered the blind eyes of the giant spider, Aragog.”

And that similar description comes up again later on [page] 566. It says,

“His eyes were briefly occluded by the firelight on the lenses of his glasses: They shone white and blind again.”

Alison: Okay, why? Rereading this again, this has bugged me every time I have read it. I can’t figure out why she’s comparing Aberforth to Aragog. I literally have no clue. [laughs]

Michael: Well… hmm. Aragog I guess, in a way, also serves perhaps as that test in Chamber, and he’s also not only a test of… the final test before the ending because Aragog gives them the last bit of information that they need sans Hermione and the pipes. But Aragog gives the big crucial piece, which is Moaning Myrtle. But not only that, Aragog also… their faith is being tested in Chamber – not in Dumbledore but in Hagrid. So there’s also another test of faith in a character who is very closely connected to that character whose faith we’re not sure about right now.

Alison: Okay.

Michael: Maybe? I might be stretching it too much. Maybe there’s another point of comparison there.

Micah: Maybe he just looks like Aragog.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: Oh yes, I forgot that line where he’s described as having six other arms in addition to it.

Alison: [laughs] And Harry.

[Michael laughs]

Kristen: But it’s just eye[s]. They’re just talking about eyes, not body.

Michael: [laughs] Yes, a million other eyes.

Kristen: Yeah.

Michael: All over his face. Well, and… what is… I guess… okay, so both descriptions kind of harken to the idea that Aberforth is blind. What is it in relation to that Aberforth is [blind]?

Alison: The importance of what Harry has to do, or maybe even just Harry’s mission in general.

Michael: Ooh, that’s interesting because that’s not what I thought. But why do you say that, Alison?

Alison: I just think the way… this whole conversation they have, it sounds like Aberforth doesn’t know that Harry actually has a chance at this, that he’s got a shot at destroying Voldemort if he can get these last couple of pieces. And I mean, it’s this idea of… anyone outside of Harry’s very immediate group at this moment is blind to what he’s doing, what he’s done, and what he can do.

Michael: Hmm.

Alison: And so if we go back to… he’s kind of setting him a test. He’s testing him to see, “Okay, is Harry really serious about completing this, enough that he will go against someone who doesn’t know what he is doing, who is offering legitimate reasons why he shouldn’t do it?”

Michael: Yeah, because my interpretation of the blindness comes more from what we’re going to talk about next, and that’s Ariana. I always assumed that the blindness was in reference to the fact that Ariana’s death, perhaps, has blinded Aberforth’s perception of Albus.

Alison: Oh!

Michael: And seeing Albus as nothing more than this puppet master who let people die for the greater good. But since I mentioned Ariana, let’s go to her because this is, as I said, the meat and potatoes of this chapter. And we finally get the reveal of Ariana and her story, through Aberforth. And what we essentially find out is that Rita Skeeter got a few things right, but she got a lot of things catastrophically wrong.

Alison: Surprise, surprise.

Michael: Surprise, surprise.

[Alison laughs]

Michael: Yes, that’s never have happened before. So Ariana is revealed to not have been kind of this… Rita Skeeter has made Ariana out to be this thing that the family… actually, that they abused her, that she was a victim of the family. But what actually happened was Ariana was attacked by three Muggle boys because they saw her doing magic and they tried to make her do it again. And what’s kind of unnerving here is [that] the only description [that] Aberforth will give about what happened is he says, [as Aberforth] “They got a bit carried away trying to stop the little freak doing it,” [back to normal voice] and Hermione and Ron have pretty violent reactions to that. I don’t want to put ideas out there because I want to see what you guys thought, but what do you think they did?

[Prolonged silence]

Michael: Nobody wants to say it. [laughs]

Kristen: I know. You can think… it’s, like, the worst thing.

Alison: Yeah, it’s… it can be interpreted in so many ways, and I think that’s…

Kristen: Because it doesn’t give you the age…

Alison: Yeah.

Kristen: … and that’s what freaks me out.

Micah: She was six, right?

Michael: I believe…

Alison: She was six, but it doesn’t say how old…

Micah: The boys were.

Alison: … the Muggle boys were.

Kristen: The Muggle boys [were], yeah.

Micah: I think it’s safe to assume… yeah, it’s sort of a difficult topic to discuss. But I think we can assume that she was abused in some way by these three boys…

Michael: Mhm.

Micah: … to the point where it completely disrupted her ability to function as… what would be considered normal.

Kristen: Mhm.

Micah: It’s highly disturbing and we, of course, learn that Aberforth’s and Albus’s father went after these three Muggles, and that was the reason why he was put in jail. And… I think there’s probably not a person here – or really anywhere – that would have faulted a father for going after people who assaulted their daughter or their son or…

Kristen: Mhm.

Micah: It’s really… you really start to learn about the tragic elements of this family in this chapter. I know there [are] moments in the book previously, but you really start to get a full understanding of what has happened to this family. I mean… because I think a lot of times what happens in… you have a character like Albus Dumbledore who you put up on such a high pedestal and… you think there’s… nothing could possibly be… “wrong” is probably not the right word, but you just think of him as this idyllic character where his family is great… everything is great, but then you start to learn more and more and more about his past and his family, and you start to realize that the Dumbledores had problems just like everybody else.

Michael: Mhm.

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: Well, Aberforth goes deeper into Ariana’s condition and explains what happened to her. And Kristen, I’m really glad you’re here because, like me, you’ve worked with a lot of individuals with disabilities, so I think this will be really good to talk about with you here as well. Aberforth says that,

[as Aberforth] “It destroyed her, what they did: She was never right again. She wouldn’t use magic, but she couldn’t get rid of it; it turned inward and drove her mad, it exploded out of her when she couldn’t control it, and at times she was strange and dangerous. But mostly she was sweet and scared and harmless. […] [If] the Ministry had known what Ariana had become, she’d have been locked up in St. Mungo’s for good. They’d have seen her as a serious threat to the International Statute of Secrecy, unbalanced like she was, with magic exploding out of her at moments when she couldn’t keep it in any longer.”

[back to normal voice] So I have to say, on a personal level, I was shocked reading this because this is almost a perfect summary of my brother, who has autism. My brother, Charlie, who I’ve mentioned on the show before, is on the lower spectrum of autism. He is not Asperger’s, so he’s not talkative or social very often. He has a lot of sensory issues, and this is the life that my family lived. This story is very similar to my family’s story. Kristen, I’m hoping you can speak to this more because I have had listeners tell me that I should be careful about equating Ariana’s condition with autism, but I don’t see the harm in that, actually.

Kristen: The only thing – because as I reread it – is I find it more along the lines… like I understand what you’re saying. This paragraph right here, I do see that sudden outburst – kids who have autism have these outbursts that just happen. Most of the time they can be very sweet and harmless and everything like that, but they will have these outbursts. But reading the whole chapter in itself and her… it almost sounds like PTSD…

Michael: Mhm.

Alison: Mhm.

Kristen: … of having that traumatic event happen in her life and then just bottling it up inside and not being able to… here you have a therapist and groups and stuff like that to help you deal with what has happened in the past. Or high anxiety, which could also be PTSD. But I don’t think it’s wrong at all to compare it to autism because, like you said, you have that personal experience – so do I, because I work with kids…

Michael: Mhm.

Kristen: … who have it – and this paragraph right here is definitely… and I guess the same with society. Like, they had to keep her in a house…

Michael: Mhm.

Kristen: … where no one could see her or anything like that, and I could see that as… associating that with autism or anybody with any kind of disability, of people thinking [that] they have to be shut in and nobody can be there to see it and everything like that.

Michael: Yeah, I was going to say, that’s I think one of the most important points about Ariana’s story as a whole. And Micah, what you were saying about how this shows that even a family with members [as] great as Albus had so much chaos in their lives and had so much dysfunction, I think it’s important because we… the thing that’s interesting to me about individuals with disabilities is… and Kristen and I have discussed this before, actually when we were last in Florida at the Wizarding World, about how you can kind of look at the world in a way that… listeners, try this if you’ve never done it before: just idly to yourself in the day, view the world as if everybody around you has a disability, and you’ll realize that everybody, even people who would happily call themselves “normal,” [has] some very interesting quirks about them, but they consider themselves to not be disabled despite their quirks. What Aberforth is talking about here… the line that strikes me the most is what he says about how she would have been shut up in St. Mungo’s, probably put in the same ward that Neville’s parents are on.

Alison: Mhm.

Michael: My parents were told, when Charlie was diagnosed with autism back in the early nineties, that they should just institutionalize him immediately and not even bother with trying to teach him anything or treating him normally.

Kristen: That hurts my heart.

Michael: And the saddest thing is that people are still told this today about individuals with disabilities all the time. Our society has developed into a place where we would prefer to not see individuals with disabilities because they’re socially different than us and they rock our social world a little too much. They have behaviors that we don’t find normal, or acceptable, or common…

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: … and so it’s better to just put it away.

Kristen: I don’t know how many looks I get from a kid in a store having a complete meltdown and they just think, “Oh, that’s a horrible woman. She’s just standing by watching.” Well, he wants a toy, I said no, he’s going to have a meltdown. He’ll calm down eventually – he’ll realize he can’t have it, but people… the looks, and people coming up and… it’s ridiculous how some people act, unfortunately.

Michael: Mhm. Well, I remember… here’s a wonderful example of how society – an organized institution in society – handles this. I remember my dad told me about how… and this was years ago, and Disney constantly changes their policies on how to deal with individuals with disabilities, but my brother actually had a meltdown in the middle of Disney World, and my dad was alone with my brother, and he kind of just had to let Charlie go through the meltdown. And my dad said that he so distinctly remembers that a group of Disney cast members kind of just surrounded him and blocked them from view so that other people couldn’t see him. They didn’t offer help. They didn’t really do anything – they just very subtly blocked them from view. But on the other side of that coin, when my brother was at Disney [World] with my dad, Charlie wanted to meet Quasimodo because Quasimodo was nearby and Charlie sees a lot of himself in Quasimodo. And Quasimodo noticed that Charlie was standing away from the group and didn’t seem to be comfortable talking around the other children. So Quasimodo went up to him and gave him a high-five and talked to him for a little bit. And I know that the Disney cast members who play the characters there are excellently trained, actually, in dealing with individuals with special needs. They give them a lot of extra attention. They talk to them really well. They pick up on their body language and mannerisms so they know what they’re comfortable with and uncomfortable with. So there [are] people and things in this world that are so good at dealing with individuals with disabilities and people who are so bad at it, and it’s interesting in the magical community that Rowling introduces this idea that we have a community where ostensibly everything can be fixed, but it can’t.

Kristen: Mhm.

Alison: Mhm.

Michael: And Ariana is a victim of that. Ariana is one of those people who [were] shut away because of the consequence[s] that would happen if… she would almost definitely be taken away from her family. And sadly, Kendra Dumbledore is a victim of that. We learn a little bit more about her. Rita portrays Kendra as kind of the leader of this abuse upon Ariana, and that’s wrong. Completely. Interestingly, Aberforth seems to be a little twitchy when discussing his mother. He says first… his first mention of Kendra in this chapter is, [as Aberforth] “I knew my brother, Potter. He learned secrecy at our mother’s knee. Secrets and lies, that’s how we grew up.” [back to normal voice] But we come to see that he doesn’t necessarily mean that in the way that it comes off as. He says later on about Ariana, [as Aberforth] “We had to keep her safe and quiet. We moved the house, put it about that she was ill, and my mother looked after her, and tried to keep her calm and happy.” [back to normal voice] And tragically, Kendra actually dies in one of Ariana’s unintended fits of rage. I’ll tell you too, listeners, that my parents experienced quite a bit of abuse at the hands of my brother, as did I, in his rages. My mother actually had a piece of her thumb bitten off by my brother, so…

Kristen: Ew.

Michael: Yeah. So just another… in a family with autism, in lower spectrum, you kind of learn to take those things in stride, bizarrely. It’s just the day-to-day life.

Kristen: It’s always fun going in for a human bite.

Michael: Yep.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Kristen: You always get weird looks from the doctors. I’ve gone a few times.

Michael: Mhm. What I loved about this piece, though, because it so surprised me that this was where Rowling went. I wasn’t expecting this to be Ariana’s story at all when it was revealed.

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: And what so surprised me is that there’s this element of… having gone through a lot of programs for people who are trained to advocate for individuals with disabilities, this is advocating for individuals with disabilities. I have my answers for this, but I’m interested to see what you guys think about why this is introduced now and where it might come from, from Rowling.

Alison: Part of me wonders if she has any firsthand experience [with] anything like this. But I honestly don’t know, nor is it any of my business, but that would be very interesting to learn.

Michael: Didn’t her mother have multiple sclerosis?

Alison: She did, didn’t she?

Micah: Yeah.

Kristen: And I wonder… so when was she writing this? Mid-2000s?

Michael: Oh, Deathly Hallows?

Alison: It came out in 2007, yeah.

Michael: Yeah.

Kristen: Yeah. So you got to think what are… autism has been around for a long time, but it’s just been increasing as of lately. So maybe our society as a whole, she’s seeing more about disabilities and everything like that.

Michael: Mhm.

Kristen: The stigma of it…

Alison: Yeah.

Kristen: … in our society maybe increased at that time.

Alison: Yeah. This may have been more recently, I’m not sure how far back this goes, but I feel like these kinds of issues have been… people have been more open about them in order to increase awareness and to correct these stigmas that have cropped up about them. So I wonder if she just had noticed that trend… not trend, but you know what I mean. [laughs]

Michael: No, no, yeah. That element that’s pervaded our culture.

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: And how we view individuals with disabilities and how we care for them. Because, of course, Rowling has also set up her charity Lumos, which serves to take care of children of all backgrounds who have been put in institutions, not proper care, whatever that may be.

Kristen: And did she suffer from anxiety at all?

Michael: She suffered from depression.

Alison: Yeah.

Kristen: I know depression. I didn’t know…

Michael: Anxiety usually goes hand-in-hand with depression.

Alison: Yeah, I was going to say.

Kristen: Yeah.

Alison: [laughs] They kind of go together…

Michael: Yeah.

Alison: … so it wouldn’t surprise me.

Kristen: I don’t know if she’s publicly said that or not, but this in itself too could be a form of something maybe she has dealt with.

Michael: Mhm.

Kristen: Maybe not to the extreme that this is, but people with anxiety have their own kind of attacks.

Michael: Mhm. And that’s what I’ll make clear here, is by talking about my brother and about Charlie and my experiences with him… I, in no way, mean that Ariana’s condition is definitively autism. I’m hoping to get across to what you’re saying, Kristen, that this is… Ariana is a parallel for any disability.

Kristen: Mhm.

Michael: And that by… I think what’s important about Ariana’s story and why I’m compelled by this to share my story with Charlie is that the biggest… the most important thing, I think, in that element of this story is that… and I saw this… me and my family saw this as members of the community with individuals with autism, and my parents were both nurses, and my dad worked extensively with the autism community, is that the families do what the Dumbledores did. The families hole up and they don’t talk to other people. You’ll even find that a lot of families don’t talk to other families with individuals with disabilities…

Kristen: Mhm.

Michael: … because every family feels like their situation is not possibly mirrored by the situations of others and that they must be doing something wrong, or they are going through something that other people couldn’t understand. And I think that’s the most important thing about Ariana’s story, as Micah said, that anybody can be affected by chaos in their lives…

Kristen: Mhm.

Michael: … and dysfunction in their family. I think, in fact, everybody is. But we’re in a… we tend to be in a social society set-up where people are discouraged to talk… encouraged not to talk about bizarre happenings in their family.

Micah: One other thing that I would add, too, is around the time that she would have been writing Deathly Hallows she would have had two young children…

Alison: Yeah.

Micah: … and I would think that on some level that would play in to her decision to write about this. I’m not sure what experiences she had outside of… you’d mentioned her work with Lumos and the Children’s High Level Group, but it seems like it would be something that she would want to call attention to and that she would think is important, and there [are] so many things throughout the course of the series that are more adult themes, and I’m sure you’ve talked about them on this podcast.

Michael: Mhm.

Micah: Even going back to… you referenced the parallels between the rise of Voldemort and the rise of Hitler earlier in the show, but those types of things are there and they’re there for a reason. And yes, this could be considered a children’s series and it is by many people, but I think the reason why we’re sitting here having these discussions is that it goes so far beyond that because there are so many themes within the subtext that you can call attention to and you can have deeper discussions on, and I think this is one of those things.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely.

Alison: Yeah.

Kristen: Mhm.

Michael: Yeah. And again it’s just… it was surprising to me because I just found so many parallels to my life in this story, and I wasn’t expecting to have that from this story. And it’s not to say too that there wasn’t a lead-up to this because Rowling has addressed individuals with disabilities in previous Potter books. I think one of the big examples that I mentioned earlier was Neville’s parents [who] are a shining example of that as well.

Kristen: Mhm.

Michael: And we get more examples through the books, but this is kind of where all of that comes to ahead and where… I think what’s so good about this too is… I think this also encourages the idea that magic, perhaps, isn’t even going to be the solution to the end of the story. That there’s something more human that’s going to end Voldemort in Harry’s story rather than the wave of a wand necessarily being the only factor. And all of Ariana’s story also leads up to the final discussion point here, which is about Albus Dumbledore himself and… first of all, Aberforth asks Harry very pointedly, [as Aberforth] “Think you knew Albus better than I did?” [back to normal voice] Do you think he did? Do you think Harry might have some knowledge about Dumbledore that is worthwhile that Aberforth didn’t know?

Micah: Pig for slaughter.

Alison: [laughs] I feel like he knew it but forgot it, through everything with Ariana, through their estrangement. But I feel like it might have taken Harry reminding him of that, to see it again and for Aberforth to come in during the last battle and decide that maybe his brother was working towards something that was worthwhile.

Michael: That’s kind of where I was… and that’s exactly where I think the descriptions of blindness come from, that he’s been so blinded by the experience with Ariana that he forgot who… he perhaps stopped seeing Dumbledore as he was and only remembered him as he was when he was a boy.

Alison: Yeah.

Kristen: Mhm.

Michael: And never saw his growth from that. And, of course, we know that the crucial piece of information that perhaps opens Aberforth’s eyes is that Harry reveals what he believes Dumbledore was seeing the night that he drank the potion…

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: … in Half-Blood Prince, which is… and Rowling has confirmed that that is what she thinks Dumbledore saw, which is that he saw his family being tortured, probably by Grindelwald, and that Dumbledore is trying to stop it and he couldn’t. That’s kind of the big reveal of that. And interestingly, the other point that Aberforth makes is he says, “One young girl got neglected, what did that matter, when Albus was working for the greater good?” And with all of these reveals about Dumbledore, I find it interesting that the fandom… there is still a huge chunk of the fandom that is still so angry at Dumbledore. Is that anger merited? And is it so one-sided that Dumbledore really was just the puppet master and that Ariana was a victim of the puppet mastery, or is there more to it than that?

Micah: That’s a loaded question.

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: Well, now is the time to answer it! [laughs] Because Dumbledore is pretty much… other than when he appears and gives his answers… his magical answers for everything.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: This is kind of his… I feel like this is the key moment of belief in Dumbledore and how people feel about Dumbledore.

Micah: I think that it just proves that he’s fallible…

Alison: Yeah.

Micah: … and that he can make mistakes and… again, going back to… he’s not what we thought he was through these first couple of books. At least… like I said, you put him up on a pedestal because he’s this prototypical mentor that is going to…

Alison: He’s not Gandalf.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: That’s probably a whole other discussion.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Micah: But he’s the ultimate teacher, and just the way that Rowling writes him up until we get to Deathly Hallows, you believe in him. And you believe in his cause and you believe in what he’s doing and that he’s taking Harry in the right direction, and yet here you are in this chapter. You’re learning about the truth; you’re learning about his family; you’re learning about his own desire for power, his own quest for power, and how he ultimately fell short of it. And because he fell short of it, [he] came to realize that he needed to change what he was doing, and he did. And now Harry is his way to really rid the world of the evil that has surfaced over these last several years. It’s not going to be easy, it’s not going to be clean, and I think he puts a lot of trust in his ability to create this plan in the hopes that it works out, because quite honestly there are a lot of things that could go wrong.

Michael: Mhm. Yeah, with this issue… I’m more on the side of Dumbledore… he made mistakes, but overall he did the right thing. And I don’t really have that ill-will towards him because – like you were saying, Micah – there was so much that could have gone wrong and it’s… Dumbledore, in his own way… his portrait kind of admits, [as Dumbledore] “Yeah, I was pretty sure it was going to go right, but I wasn’t completely.”

[Alison laughs]

Michael: [as Dumbledore] “I’m glad it did!” [back to normal voice] I think the part that gets passed over about both Dumbledore and Aberforth that’s, again, very important to me… I know the listeners have mentioned in the comments, they’re like, “Oh, Michael. We know it’s Michael talking because he’s doing another personal anecdote.”

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: I want to make sure, listeners, that I clarify that I don’t do personal anecdotes just because I like talking about myself, which I do, but also because I hope that you out there who are listening might be encouraged to share your own stories in some way that you don’t share, because I think that’s what’s so important about this particular chapter, is that a lot of what went unsaid between Aberforth and Albus about Ariana was important to have been said. It was cathartic – it’s clearly important that Aberforth gets this out. The thing that really strikes me about Albus in this story is that he had to make… him and Aberforth had to make one of the most difficult decisions that I think a lot of siblings of individuals with disabilities have to make, which is, do you give up your life for your sibling and give your life wholly to your sibling, or do you depart from your sibling’s life – to some degree, whatever that may be – to go live your own life? And I can speak to that as a very recent experience because I have just moved away from my family after living with them for 26 years and now I am living an entire state away in Austin, Texas. And my family called me in the first few weeks with things like, “What do we do? There were things that you were really good at with Charlie that we don’t have the same rapport with him.” And that’s, I think, the challenge that a lot more people face than perhaps is known in families. It’s an ordeal with separating with any family, but I cite specifically individuals with disabilities because… that’s why I don’t hold so much against Albus, because he made an incredibly difficult choice and he recognized… he didn’t recognize in himself early on that he was not a good caretaker for Ariana, but he tried. And Aberforth even casually admits that he actually did a pretty good job until Grindelwald showed up. But in that same moment, Dumbledore recognized that there was perhaps not only hope for his sister through what Grindelwald was advertising but also hope for a life of his own that he hadn’t had before, and that’s something that a lot of siblings [of] individuals with disabilities… we all come to that realization at some point that eventually we’re going to have to leave the nest, and do we go have a life of our own or do we give our life up to our families? And it’s one of the most difficult choices we have to make. So I think it’s important to consider that when you reflect on your feelings, listeners, about Dumbledore. But that’s why I feel that way about Dumbledore and why I don’t hold as much against him as I think a lot of people do. There’s still a lot of people I’ve seen in the fandom who say that Dumbledore did put Ariana on the chopping block, and I don’t think that’s fair.

Kristen: I agree with you.

Michael: I don’t think that was the intention. So how does everybody feel about Dumbledore now?

Alison: I still… I feel like at the beginning he was a little bit more puppet mastery.

Michael: Mhm.

Alison: More to the fact that he knew things were happening and chose not to step in in the first few books. But I think as the series progressed, things got out of hand, and he really was just trying to do what was best and kind of gave himself over to that cause. So… I don’t know. Like, I can see his flaws, but I don’t dislike him necessarily.

Michael: Well, I think that goes in hand with what Micah said, which is that just because Dumbledore was fallible that doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person.

Alison: Yeah.

Kristen: Yeah. I mean, I don’t think he’s a bad person. I just don’t like everything he’s done later on in life…

Michael: Mhm.

Kristen: … with Harry and how he dealt with Harry the whole time. But I completely agree with you on the fact that he had to drop everything to take care of his family. Which is a great attribute, but he’s still not my favorite.

[Dogs bark in the background; Michael laughs]

Kristen: And my dogs agree.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: Some people have that gift for working with individuals with disabilities and some of them do not.

Kristen: True. [laughs]

Michael: And it’s important to recognize that. So after all that heaviness, here’s a little treat for you all: Let’s talk about the goat before we’re done [laughs] because… the goat. Micah, I’m sure you’ve probably read this before, but Rowling addressed the goat in…

Micah: What are you talking about?

Michael: [laughs] What goat?

[Kristen laughs]

Michael: In her Carnagie Hall chat in 2007 after Deathly Hallows was published, she got a question…

Micah: I was there.

Michael: You were there, so you heard this – probably full on. So the question was, “In […] Goblet of Fire Dumbledore said his brother was prosecuted for practicing inappropriate charms (and it says here that Rowling buried her head as everybody started laughing) on a goat. What were the inappropriate charms he was practicing on that goat?” Rowling asked, “How old are you?” Which pretty much sums up the answer to the question already.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: The questioner replied, “Eight.” So Rowling said, “I think that he was trying to make a goat that was easy to keep clean… curly horns. That’s a joke that works on a couple of levels. I really like Aberforth and his goats. But you know Aberforth having this strange fondness for goats – if you’ve read Book 7 – came in really useful to Harry later on because a goat, a stag… you know, if you’re a stupid Death Eater, what’s the difference? So that is my answer to YOU.” And that’s all she had to say on the goats. Micah, after all of these years, what is your response?

[Alison laughs]

[Dog barks in the background]

Micah: I think the dog speaks for me.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: It was really interesting because I think the Dumbledore question [about his love life] came right after that.

Alison: Yeah.

Micah: So you got a lot of information on the Dumbledore family in a very short period of time.

Michael: Mhm.

Micah: But I don’t know. I mean, let the speculation continue.

[Michael laughs]

Micah: It’s funny that you bring that up because I actually did a little bit of research on my part to try and find some of the older transcripts from MuggleCast that referenced the goats and Aberforth.

[Michael laughs]

Micah: I happened to come across what I’m assuming is one of our April Fools Day episodes. I’ll just read it and hopefully, like you said, we can end on a much lighter note.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Micah: This was from one of the news segments – it was Episode 140 – and it says,

“And finally, the younger brother of world-renowned wizard Albus Dumbledore was arrested earlier this week outside the Hog’s Head for his involvement in an underground illegal goat trafficking ring…”

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: [continues]

“Madam Rosemerta noticed an alarming number of goats walking limply around Hogsmeade one afternoon and decided to alert the Ministry. It was later discovered that the goats who failed to show Aberforth considerable attention were fated to enter an outside pen, which served as a holding area until they were taken underground at night and had various charms performed on them. The Ministry seized what looked to be plans for an underground goat fighting league. A rather irritated Aberforth said it was his way of showing them ‘tough love’ and the animals spoke to him in a way humans never could.”

Michael: Head canon accepted.

[Alison and Kristen gasp for air while laughing]

Michael: Goat Fight Club.

Alison: [laughs] Definitely!

Michael: Rule Number One about Goat Fight Club: you don’t [imitates a goat noise] about Goat…

[Everyone laughs]

Kristen: That’s so corny.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: That was hilarious, and that’s definitely what she intended with the writing. That is the lightest way we can possibly end with Chapter 28, “The Missing Mirror” – which funnily enough, we didn’t even talk about the mirror. By the way, Aberforth had the mirror. Stupid mirror, it’s even dumber in the movie.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: Deus ex mirror.

Kristen: Wait, there’s a mirror?

Micah: He and Dobby were BFFs.

Michael: Yep.

Kristen: Yeah, they were. He loved goats and…

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: No, no, no!

Micah: And house-elves? Did he make Dobby ride the goat around the Hog’s Head?

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: No, he just…

Kristen: [unintelligible] … again, Dobby.

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: Oh my gosh!

Kristen: All right, let’s go ahead and dive into this week’s Podcast Question of the Week, and our question to you is, “This is the chapter where the final pieces of Dumbledore’s story come to light, thanks to candid reveals by Aberforth. Aberforth and Harry represent the two extremes of belief in Dumbledore; was he a puppet master, sacrificing lives for the ‘greater good’ or did Dumbledore and the meaning of the ‘greater good’ evolve into something more enlightened? How has your personal view of Dumbledore evolved from your initial read to now?” You can head on over to our main site at alohomora.mugglenet.com and respond to this question. I look forward to hearing – or reading – your responses.

Michael: And we want to make sure and thank our wonderful guest – six times over, gunning for a seventh – Mr. Micah Tannenbaum. Micah, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Micah: Yeah, I had a great time. So if you want to slot me in for a seventh podcast before you officially go off…

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: Are you guys going off here? What’s the plan? Am I spoiling something – breaking news?

Michael: Well, if you donate to Patreon, you can find out a little early about that.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: You’ve got a dollar in your pocket?

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: Well, we thank you very much, Micah. We know, of course – all joking aside – you are behemoth in the Harry Potter fandom world. You’ve done a lot for Harry Potter fandom, so we’re so honored that you were able to come, not once but six times onto the show – and like I said, gunning for a seventh! We’ll see if we can make that work out for you.

Micah: Yeah, see what you can do. Talk to some people.

[Alison and Kristen laugh]

Michael: Yes, I’ll pull some strings…

Micah: Just like Dumbledore.

Michael: I’ll see what I can manage. Yep. I’m a puppet master, too.

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: And if you want to be on the show, just like Micah…

Michael: Then do your own podcast! [laughs] And then maybe we’ll invite you on.

Alison: … We do have spots available, so go to our “Be on the Show!” page at alohomora.mugglenet.com. If you’ve got a basic set of headphones, you are all set – you don’t need any fancy equipment – and we look forward to hearing from you.

Michael: And if you want to stay in touch with us, there’s a lot of ways to do that – none via owl, interestingly enough – but you can find us on Twitter (@AlohomoraMN), our Facebook page (facebook.com/openthedumbledore), our Tumblr (mnalohomorapodcast@alohomoramn), [and] obviously our main website (alohomora.mugglenet.com) where you can leave comments on the show, as well as explore the forums where there’s a lot of discussion going on. You can also download a ringtone for free while you’re hanging out on the website. And you can also send us an audioBoom to alohomora.mugglenet.com on the main website – you’ll see the little widget for audioBoom. Kristen is like, “But there is a way to use an owl! You can owl us on audioBoom!”

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: I still don’t think I’ve figured out what an audioBoom is. I think I’ve asked this on other episodes, but it’ll remain a mystery to me.

Michael: I know, the kids with their technology today.

Micah: Yeah. And you know what’s interesting… I assume you’re saying that they need to keep the audioBoom under 60 seconds?

Michael: Yes, that’s preferred…

Micah: I thought the note was for you to keep the entire contact section under 60 seconds.

Kristen: Say it as fast as you can!

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: Just rattle them off.

Michael: That warning is specifically for Michael and Eric…

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: Nobody else. But yes, listeners, please do keep your audioBooms under 60 seconds so that we can feature them on the show.

Kristen: And while you’re over on our main site, don’t forget to check out our store because we sell stuff!

Michael: We sell stuff!

Micah: What do you guys sell?

Kristen: Stuff.

Alison: [laughs] Stuff.

Kristen: Stuff, apparently stuff. We have T-shirts, and tote bags, and stuff, and stuff, and pretty much more stuff.

Micah: Wait, so I’ve been on this show six times. I have not gotten a shirt, a bag, a sandal…

Alison: Wow!

Kristen: That’s because you have to go to our main site and pay for it.

[Alison, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Kristen: You don’t get free swag until you’re on seven times!

Michael: That’s why he wants to be on seven times so bad.

Kristen: Once you hit that seventh [time], I will personally give you a tote bag.

[Alison laughs]

Michael: Wait, he wants a sandal, not sandals.

Micah: Just one sandal.

[Alison, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Kristen: Done.

Michael: We’ll pull some strings, we’ll talk…

Kristen: Yeah. I’ll get you that sandal.

Alison: But you know what you can get for free? You can get our…

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: Clearly nothing!

Alison: No, you can! You can get our smartphone app for free! Just search Podcast Source in your phone’s app store, and you will find our little app, and then you will find us with all our awesome bonus features, including this week – hopefully – an extra listener comment that we discussed a little bit. Well, we’re going to head on back to Hogwarts. I’m Alison Siggard.

[Show music begins]

Michael: I’m Michael Harle.

Kristen: And I’m Kristen Keys. Thank you for listening to Episode 179 of Alohomora!

Michael: Open the Dumbledores!

[Show music continues]

Michael: I kind of worry that the listeners are going to be like, [in a whiny teenager voice] “No, of course not! Why would he do that?”

Alison and Kristen: Yeah.

Kristen: [in a whiny voice] “Oh my God!”

Michael: [in a whiny voice] “That’s such a stupid question!”

Kristen: [in a whiny voice] “Eww!”

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: [in a whiny voice] “That question is so eww!”