Transcripts

Transcript – Episode 206

[Show music begins]

Eric Scull: This is Episode 206 of Alohomora! for November 12, 2016.

[Show music continues]

Eric: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Alohomora! I am Eric Scull.

Kristen Keys: I’m Kristen Keys.

Michael Harle: I’m Michael Harle. And our guest today is a familiar voice to some of you listeners who may have listened to some of our recent bonus content for Cursed Child. It’s our friend from mugglenet.com, Mary. Hey!

Mary Wojcicki: Woo! Hi, guys! I’m Mary and I work with the News and Social Media Teams on MuggleNet.

Michael: Sweet!

Eric: That’s cool.

Mary: Woo-hoo!

Michael: We need a lot of that news and social media…

Kristen: She’s the best.

Michael: … or where would MuggleNet be without that?

Eric: Not sure. Mary, what’s your Hogwarts House?

Mary: I’m a Slytherin.

Michael: Yay! Some diversity on this show. Finally. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, how about that? And Mary, what’s your Ilvermorny House?

Mary: My Ilvermorny House is Thunderbird.

Eric: Cool.

Michael: Does anybody care about that anymore? [laughs]

Eric: I’m a Thunderbird; I care!

Mary: Everybody cares!

[Michael laughs]

Eric: I’m a Thunderbird. People should care. It’s the way the wizarding world is going these days.

Michael: Yeah. Did you guys see that new 30-second spot for Fantastic Beasts?

Kristen: Don’t say what’s in it, because I’ve stayed away.

Eric: No, I haven’t watched it yet.

Michael: Oh, you’ve stayed completely away, huh?

Kristen: Yeah. Yeah.

Eric: You’re remaining pure?

Kristen: I got the one thing during the movie when they were doing the IMAX. That was the first actual trailer I’ve seen, and I was so pissed.

[Everyone laughs]

Kristen: I was like, “No! I’ve stayed away for so long!”

Michael: Oh, wow.

Kristen: So I’ve seen the one thing and that’s it. I’ve been staying away from everything else.

Michael: Oh. Well, I’ll go over to SpeakBeasty and mention the thing I was going to say instead, I guess, since I can’t say it here.

Eric: You should.

Kristen: Sorry.

Eric: Yeah. Go do that.

Michael: Plug for SpeakBeasty, our fellow podcast.

Kristen: There you go.

Eric: That’s not in the Doc.

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Michael: I never miss a chance to plug them. Especially now with Fantastic Beasts being right around the corner.

Eric: Oh yeah, this is the week. This is the week that entire crowds… In fact, the day this is released, I will be seeing the film in New York with J.K. Rowling and Eddie Redmayne, as well as a huge group of MuggleNet [staff memb]ers.

Michael: Are you going to be sitting right next to them?

Mary: I will be there.

Michael: Are you guys going to be sitting right between them?

Eric: I’ll be sitting next to Mary.

Michael: Woo!

Mary: Yeah, I’m somewhere.

[Michael laughs]

Mary: I’m not sure. I know there'[re] quite a few people from staff who are going, and I’m actually going up on Wednesday to help work the premiere on Thursday.

Eric: Cool.

Michael: That’s awesome.

[Mary laughs]

Michael: Well, I think most of our group today hasn’t been on the show for quite a while, haven’t we?

[Eric laughs]

Michael: It’s been a bit of a break for some of us. Speaking for myself, I got a new job! I’m a librarian again! Yay!

Kristen: Woo-hoo!

Eric and Mary: Yay!

Eric: Congratulations!

Michael: Yay! I’m working with teens at the Austin Central Library in downtown. All of you Alohomora! listeners who are Austinites, you can come visit me at the downtown location.

Eric: “Austinites”?

Michael: Yes, yes.

Eric: Don’t you mean “awesome-ites”? I mean, come on.

Michael: Oho! [laughs]

Eric: Oho!

Michael: Well, sure. I’ve never heard anybody say that, but sure.

[Eric and Michael laugh]

Eric: I’m so sad I missed you. I was just in San Antonio a couple [of] weeks ago for a wedding…

Michael: I know! I know. And Kat was sick.

Eric: But it’s nice to be reconnected. Kristen, I don’t remember the last time you and I were on Alohomora! Probably Cursed Child, maybe?

Kristen: Yeah, it’s been a while. Because the last one I was on, it was just me and Alison and we had two guest hosts with us.

Eric: Yeah. But it’s a thrill to be back. Mary, we are thrilled to have you.

Michael: Yes, especially because we have a very fascinating topic that we’ll be talking about today on Alohomora! And we wanted to make sure we had a guest who was passionate about this topic and wanted to majorly contribute to this because we will be discussing illness and special needs in the wizarding world. It’s a topic that we’ve touched on a lot throughout our chapter discussions of the Harry Potter series, and we’ve taken some of that discussion and collected it here for today.

Eric: Before we get into our discussion for this episode, we’d like to notify you that this episode was sponsored by Crystal Hoover over on our Patreon. You can become a sponsor of Alohomora! on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and we will continue to release exclusive tidbits over there, recorded at the time that we do each episode, as well as some bonus content that’s not.

Michael: Yay, Crystal!

Eric: Yay!

Kristen: Thank you!

Eric: Thank you, Crystal. We have content that’s exclusive for our sponsors; just check it out [at] patreon.com/alohomora.

Michael: And now it’s time to jump into our discussion on illness and special needs within the wizarding world. Now, the first thing I want to point out is that we’ve actually given this episode a few different titles in the planning process: disability, special needs, special abilities… And Kristen, maybe you can weigh in on this too, because I know you have some expertise with this in the community. But from what I have learned, that is still a term that is being decided on and debated on within this community.

Kristen: With some fervor.

Michael: Yes. Everybody you ask will have probably a different opinion on what to call it. I frequently, for most of my life, have used the word “disability.” And “disability” is not meant to be used in a negative way. “Disability” is actually meant to be used usually as a word to acknowledge that the individual has needs that others may not and that we should recognize those needs. But on the same side of that coin, some individuals believe we should be using the term “special needs” to indicate that the individuals [do] not so much [have] a lack of ability, as a unique ability.

Kristen: Yeah, and I guess for me as well, I flip-flop between “disability” or “special needs,” but it’s not… Again, with autism – as we both know – I don’t say “a special needs child” or “a special needs adult”; I say “an adult who has special needs” or “an adult who has a disability.” I always say it that way.

Michael: Yes. Me too.

Kristen: Yeah. My biggest pet peeve is people defining the person right away by saying, “They’re an autistic child,” or something. No.

Michael: Yeah. They’re a child with autism.

Kristen: So I flip-flop between words, but I always put it in that way.

Michael: Yes. So if you hear us jumping between terms, we apologize. We do not mean to offend. Again, this is a topic that is hotly debated and is still in the process of being officially defined, in many ways. And Rowling, in her mentions of these ideas, did use the word “disability” via Pottermore. So that’s the term that you might see crop up a little bit in this discussion, based on what Rowling has chosen to use. And to kick off the discussion, before we get into individual characters, we thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at Rowling’s very short but very informative piece on illness and disability, which she added to Pottermore. It explained a few things, [but] it [also] brought up a few more questions about how the rules of the world work. [laughs] As Rowling put it,

“I pondered the issue of illness and disability very early in the creation of Harry’s world. Did wizards catch colds? Could they cure illnesses that baffled Muggles? Were there disabled wizards? What were the limits of wizarding medicine, or could it fix anything?

“Some of these questions went to the heart of the story, because the theme of death runs through every volume of the Potter books. Having decided that magic could not raise the dead (even the Resurrection Stone does not truly return the dead to life), I then had to decide what might kill a wizard; what kind of illnesses they could catch; what injuries they might sustain, and which of the last two could be cured.

“I decided that, broadly speaking, wizards would have the power to correct or override ‘mundane’ nature, but not ‘magical’ nature. Therefore, a wizard could catch anything a Muggle might catch, but he could cure all of it; he would also comfortably survive a scorpion sting that might kill a Muggle, whereas he might die if bitten by a Venomous Tentacula. Similarly, bones broken in non-magical accidents such as falls or fist fights can be mended by magic, but the consequences of curses or backfiring magic could be serious, permanent or life-threatening. This is the reason that Gilderoy Lockhart, victim of his own mangled Memory Charm, has permanent amnesia, why the poor Longbottoms remain permanently damaged by magical torture, and why Mad-Eye Moody had to resort to a wooden leg and a magical eye when the originals were irreparably damaged in a wizards’ battle; Luna Lovegood’s mother, Pandora, died when one of her own experimental spells went wrong, and Bill Weasley is irreversibly scarred after his meeting with Fenrir Greyback.

“Thus it can be seen that while wizards have an enviable head start over the rest of us in dealing with the flu, and all manner of serious injuries, they have to deal with problems that the rest of us never face. Not only is the Muggle world free of such perils as Devil’s Snare and Blast-Ended Skrewts, the Statute of Secrecy has also kept us free from contact with anyone who could pass on Dragon Pox (as the name implies, originally contracted by wizards working closely with Peruvian Vipertooths) or Spattergroit.

“Remus Lupin’s affliction was a conscious reference to blood-borne diseases such as the HIV infection, with the attendant stigma. The potion Snape brews him is akin to the antiretroviral that will keep him from developing the ‘full-blown’ version of his illness. The sense of ‘apartness’ that the management of a chronic condition can impose on its sufferers was an important part of Lupin’s character. Meanwhile, Mad-Eye Moody is the toughest Auror of them all, and a man who was very much more than his significant disabilities.”

Eric: I like this writing a lot. I think it’s very cut and dry. It makes a lot of sense, at least now that she says it, that that is where the line was drawn. And I like how this is reminiscent of the “Other Minister” chapter – at the end of that chapter in Book 6 when the Prime Minister says, “You guys have magic, right? You can solve anything. You can do anything!” And is it Fudge who’s just like, “Well, the other side has magic too”? There are illnesses that can be cured. A lot of what Muggles would find to be life-threatening can be cured fairly simpl[y] [by] a potion, magic, any odd number of ways. But with that comes a set of even worse conditions that it’s possible to be afflicted by. So I think that’s fair, I guess, right?

Michael: Yeah. To me it makes sense. This reads very similarly to her occasional mentions of the problems that come along with a Time-Turner and the issue that she introduced this thing that can solve all problems and then was like, “Okay, got to take that away now.” And when I say that, that discounts Cursed Child, which…

[Everyone laughs]

Mary: Cursed Child, that little plot hole.

Michael: That little giant plot hole of a book.

[Kristen laughs]

Michael: But with that said, I think this is one of those things that makes Harry Potter so much more complex than a lot of fantasy that you see on the shelves that’s coming out today and a lot of fiction that’s coming out. Because she does acknowledge this rule that,”Hey, I have this basic concept – magic – which I have to bridle, or my world is not going to make sense.”

Eric: Yeah, she limits it and you see such a diverse tapestry of characters with various conditions, such as, for instance, Mad-Eye Moody, who… I never wondered that before, why he’s got a wooden leg. I guess in the movie they turned it into more of a mechanical replacement than a wooden peg leg. But yeah, it didn’t occur to me until she said this, but you have these characters who are dealing with these issues, and she did not only draw the line somewhere, but it’s [also] very illustrated, even in the various books, that just like every other subset that you would want to throw a character into, there are varying degrees and there are groups of people of different mindsets, different abilities, and different categories. It makes for good writing.

Michael: Well, yeah. What I liked, too, [about] this piece of writing is that she specifically connected it to the overarching theme of Harry Potter of death, and she thought to herself, “If I’m already putting the stipulation that magic can’t bring back the dead, that’s naturally going to bring about other stipulations to convey the message of my story.” So I really like that she was just so mindful of that from the start as she was developing those rules. And this is one of the lighter points of the discussion that I thought would be fun to just throw out first, but of course, Rowling says in this piece that basically wizards can handle anything Muggles can encounter. And things that Muggles have solved or are treating, wizards pretty much can take care of…

Eric: Like cancer.

Michael: Well, that’s questionable. [laughs]

Eric: Wizards have cured cancer.

Michael: Well, who knows? See, that’s an issue where this writing gets really gray.

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Michael: Because we haven’t conquered cancer, so could wizards? Because what she was saying – I gathered in the piece – was that we can handle the common cold and we can handle a scorpion sting, but we can’t handle cancer yet. So…

Eric: I think wizards could. I honestly think wizards could. I mean, there’s always unicorn blood, right? Keep you alive even if you’re an inch from death.

Kristen: But that’s a half-life.

Eric: [as Firenze] “A half-life, a cursed life!”

[Kristen, Mary, and Michael laugh]

Michael: That seems like a really not-great way to handle cancer.

Eric: There'[re] always Horcruxes, you guys, although I wouldn’t advise you…

Michael: Those are really horrible solutions.

[Kristen, Mary, and Michael laugh]

Eric: Yeah, but we know there are these things – these devices, these means – that wizards use to extend their lives. But even on a more simple front, [there’re] other opportunities, like Transfiguration, right? You can maybe Transfigure your bad cells, your cancer cells, into healthy ones. There’s got to be a way to achieve that. Or Polyjuice [Potion] – turning into someone who’s healthy and doesn’t have cancer – anything along those [lines]. You can see how it would fit in with what wizards are capable of, just in general.

Michael: Do you think there’s anything textually that suggests that they couldn’t handle cancer?

Eric: I don’t think so.

Michael: Mary? Kristen? Any[thing]?

Mary: I mean, I guess the thing for me is, if you’re talking about wizards theoretically transfiguring cells, I mean, you have to think about the fact that – within the Muggle world – we have MRIs and CT scans and all manner of computer-generated imagery that we use for diagnostic purposes and that sort of thing. But how, in theory, would a wizard or a witch be able to tell, “Oh, this is benign,” or “this is malignant”?

Eric: Right, right, this ability to heal wounds with the flick of a wand is juxtaposed against their very medieval science aptitude, right? Like, beakers but no microscope, no computers, no MRIs. That’s a fair enough point.

Michael: Yeah. Also, they’ve just started examining the concept of stitches.

Kristen: Stitches!

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Well, no, but think about it this way, okay? Think about it this way: As long as there’s been time, they have never needed stitches. And there were a whole lot of things that could cut you 500 years ago that just aren’t around now. So think about it that way. They’ve never needed stitches all this time. And when you think about going into it as a career and becoming a Healer, for instance, what do those guys do day in, day out?

[Michael laughs]

Eric: I mean, just minor cuts and bruises? There’s got to be higher-level healing spells and healing learning that these people can do, because it’s a career!

Kristen: And they might not have, for say, cancer stuff due to different environments as well.

Eric: Maybe they’re not susceptible or something weird like that.

Michael: Okay, so yeah, because that… First of all, listeners, that wasn’t the light topic I was meaning to bring up.

[Eric, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Michael: Cancer’s not a light topic. What I meant to bring up… because this is also a muddy area, which one of our MuggleNet staff [members], Eleanor Harrison, insisted we talk about. And I’ve actually heard this discussion brought up before, and this goes along with more muddy definitions of illness, disability, and different conditions, but of course, we in the Muggle world have mostly conquered issues of vision and needing glasses with things like LASIK surgery and contacts and such things like that, so why do so many wizards wear glasses? Including our boy hero, Harry Potter, who never gets his vision corrected.

Kristen: They never mastered it.

Eric: Yeah, that stumps me.

[Michael laughs]

Eric: I’m stumped. I don’t have an answer for you. Find someone else.

Kristen: Would you trust a wand?

Michael: [laughs] On your eyes.

Kristen: Directed at your eye?

[Michael laughs]

Eric: Yeah! Sure, sure!

Michael: Well, wizards seem to trust their wands in lots of other places, so I…

Eric: Well, in this writing, JKR said, or alluded to the fact, that Mad-Eye couldn’t replace his eye because it had been cursed off [by] magical means. But presumably, you could heal – right? – any part of your body, the same way that Harry regrows his bones, which humans [in] my understanding don’t do that. So there’s a certain ability to heal. But the glasses just completely destroys it.

Kristen: But a bone is different from your eye and all your optic nerves and everything dealing with that. I don’t know. A bone seems easier because you get a clean break. It’s like, “Ah!” It’s easier to repair that bone than it is your nerve endings and everything.

Eric: Well, I mean, all the bones in Harry’s arm are removed, though. They’re not just broken enough where you can mend them with a… They’re regrown and there’s presumably this sentient…

Kristen: But it’s, like, two bones. That’s it. Your eye has so much more that’s going on with it.

Eric: Yeah, but I don’t see why it should be any different, really.

Michael: That’s interesting, though, Kristen, that you mentioned kind of nerves versus bones. Because so far, the things that Rowling has defined as things that wizards can cure that Muggles get are more… Most of them aren’t based in more complicated systems like the nerves or the cells. Some of them are – I guess a cough would be – but the things wizards seem to be able to fix more immediately are more based in the bone structure and the muscular structure.

Kristen: And there’re little viruses.

Michael: Yes, and viruses. And yeah, and easily curable viruses.

Eric: Remind me if… I hope it’s a movieism, but Harry doesn’t still need glasses when he’s Crabbe – or is it Goyle? – right? In Year Two? That’s a movieism where he has his glasses. But wait, doesn’t he even take them off?

Kristen and Michael: He takes them off.

Eric: Oh! And again, I hate using Polyjuice Potion as the end-all be-all…

[Michael laughs]

Eric: But think about that magic. And there’s got to be a hundred other things that are similar that “There you go.” His eyes are fixed because they’re somebody else’s eyes. But there has to be a way.

Kristen: Yeah, but he’s a completely different person.

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Eric: No, but I mean, the magic is there to take… because it’s still within his…

Kristen: Yeah, I get what you’re saying.

Eric: … the part of the body that his brain is controlling even if it’s not really…

Kristen: I feel like it would just mask it. It wouldn’t cure it.

Michael: Yeah. That’s getting into another particular character’s illness that we’re going to talk about further down, but yeah, I mean, personally, the argument I give for that is not necessarily canon based, but more textually based, which is that, to be frank, glasses are a visually interesting item. And they carry certain symbolism with them.

Eric: Descriptors.

Michael: So, I mean, McGonagall, Dumbledore, Harry… Many of the characters have…

Eric: All the characters that look cool wear glasses.

Michael: [laughs] Have glasses.

[Eric laughs]

Michael: So if you want to look…

Mary: Percy!

Michael: Percy, yes, yes. Mr. Weasley, I believe, wears glasses too, right? So yeah, glasses are… yeah. In the Harry Potter world, especially… McGonagall’s, I think, transfers to her Animagus form. Dumbledore’s help with the symbolism with his piercing blue eyes and looking through Harry and his half-moon spectacles. They’re interesting visually, and they have certain representations, so I think that, plus the fact that glasses give you more of that medieval olden-time feel, I think that’s possibly… Maybe wizards just keep them because they like the aesthetic.

[Eric and Michael laugh]

Kristen: And I mean, my dad had LASIK, but he still has to use glasses for reading.

Michael: See, there you go! Yeah. It’s not a perfect… yeah. And I agree with you, Kristen. I’m not going to tap my eye with a wand.

[Eric, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Michael: That’s a horrible idea!

Eric: [in a British accent]Reparo.”

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Eric: You repair glasses really well, though.

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Eric: The one thing I wanted to mention about this JKR thing is the scorpion bite again because the way she words it, “He would also comfortably survive a scorpion sting that might kill a Muggle,” “he” being a wizard. So I’m wondering if this is because his blood is [less] susceptible to scorpion venom or it’s just that he has a spell at the ready or a potion at the ready that could save him. It’s got to be the latter, right? It can’t possibly be that wizards en masse are just not as susceptible to scorpion stings.

Mary: Yeah, it would have to be either a potion or a spell because I mean, going on to the magical creature side of things, when Arthur Weasley was bitten by Nagini, he had to have Blood-Replenishing Potion.

Michael: That’s true, but we also have the thing with werewolves where Muggles who are bitten by a werewolf usually die because they can’t take the strain, but a wizard can survive it and will just become a werewolf because the blood will be infected.

Eric: So the blood of a wizard is sort of stronger in that way.

Michael: But of course, a werewolf is a magical being. We’re not talking about a mundane beast.

Eric: Right, which blends the line.

Michael: Does it go the opposite way, where a mundane beast…? Do wizards also have just extra…?

Eric: … protection?

Michael: Yeah, against regular old beasts and things?

Eric: Your garden variety deadly scorpion.

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Michael: Yeah, and as we get into more of these characters, we are going to see where this piece by Rowling on Pottermore goes from being a good explanation to just barely sufficient [laughs] with some of the issues we’ve got.

Eric: [laughs] Can’t wait!

Michael: And speaking of, we actually have a[n] audioBoom from a very special someone who brings Rowling’s piece into question. So let’s take a listen to that.

Ariel Taranski: Hi, Michael, Eric, Mary, and Kristen. It’s Ariel. For those who don’t know me, I’m a writer for MuggleNet and I also host for the sister podcast SpeakBeasty. I wanted to be on this show, but because of scheduling, that wasn’t going to happen, but as someone who has personal stake in this topic, I did want to address a few things that I would’ve had I been able to record today, and I also wanted to pose a question to the hosts. So I have two chronic health conditions, and I wasn’t diagnosed until after the Harry Potter series had ended, and I never really looked at the series in terms of illness and disability because, truth be told, I wasn’t personally affected by it and never really had that mindset before. But having looked back on it, it’s definitely something that I think about much, much more. And it’s a question I wish I could have posed to J.K. Rowling a long time ago, and she kind of addressed it with Pottermore and said that all Muggle ailments have cures in the wizarding world, and I think that’s a bit too broad and vague and kind of swept under the rug a bit. And we do, of course, have Lupin and Mad-Eye Moody, Lupin having his chronic health condition and Mad-Eye Moody with his disabilities, and they address that to a certain degree, with Lupin and his potion and Mad-Eye Moody and his walking stick and his accessible broomstick. And it kind of gets a bit disappointing because there is not a lot of inclusivity in the media for chronic illness and disability in a way that’s not a Lifetime movie with plot devices and how it drives other able-bodied characters. So I would love to see more of that in J.K. Rowling’s future works, that being Fantastic Beasts. And it also makes me think of, what in the wizarding world would have been better or more efficient at tackling chronic illness or disability? What would a magical wheelchair look like? What would all sorts of these things…? Why are they so much more effective at all of this? And so I guess my question for you is, what do you think about how they handled chronic illness and disability as a whole, and what can Jo do better from here? Sorry I couldn’t be on the show with you guys, but I’m looking forward to hearing your discussion based on what I’ve said and what I’ve asked. Good luck, and I’ll talk to you all later.

Mary: Okay, so first of all, I think that what Ariel said about disability having been swept under the rug, I think that’s definitely accurate. I mean, for me personally, I was born prematurely and still have some residual issues because of that, as well as mental and learning disabilities, and so I think, from the standpoint of chronic illness, specifically – because we’ve seen a few different physical ailments – I think chronic illness, especially invisible illness, is a major thing that isn’t really addressed within the series. We have Lupin and his lycanthropy, and that’s supposed to be a metaphor for HIV/AIDS, but what else is there? What other conditions might wizards and witches have that might not be apparent from their physical appearance? So I think that’s the main question that I have.

Michael: Yeah. I think what Ariel said about sweeping it under the rug is that this Pottermore piece does that in that, as we’ve brought up with cancer and other issues previously – and as we’re going to talk about – there’s a blind spot. And there are other characters that we’re going to discuss as we go along here that I think are actually meant to be metaphors and parallels for certain illnesses and disabilities, but there’s also the issue of, while those things are parallels in the wizarding world, do those disabilities themselves also actually exist in the wizarding world? The example that I think of prominently is Ariana Dumbledore, and I read her as a metaphor for autism. She can also easily be read as a parallel for lots of disabilities, and I think while that’s there to represent various mental/neurological disabilities, does autism exist in the wizarding world? Does Down syndrome exist in the wizarding world? Does MS exist in the wizarding world? There are all kinds of different ailments that aren’t brought up in that way. I love that Ariel addressed, too, the issue of a wheelchair. Is there a magical wheelchair?

Eric: Yeah, she mentioned the accessible broomstick, which I thought was awesome. It’s nice to remember that.

Michael: Yeah, and is Moody’s broomstick accessible in the book or is it just that way in the movie? Because he has that special foothold.

Eric: Place to put his leg.

Michael: Yeah. That’s different from… I don’t remember that being in the book. But I could be wrong.

Eric: No. I think brooms just naturally have foot pedals in the books, to be honest. If you read carefully whenever they’re describing a broom, I think it’s actually… So maybe it’s in the movie that that was the first time they had really illustrated that. Because I think all the other brooms were just brooms.

Michael: Yeah, I think Quidditch Through the Ages might also define foot pedals being part of a broom.

Mary: Yeah, even looking at the Studio Tour with the photo opportunity with the brooms on the green screen, there’s a foot pedal sort of thing like a stirrup.

Michael: Yeah. Well, and the wheelchair, that made me think of Cursed Child, because isn’t Amos in a wheelchair?

Mary: Yeah, Amos is in a wheelchair. And there’s also, I think, mention of, when they’re talking about… I can’t remember the name of it now, but the nursing home. They’re talking about the old people with their wheelchairs and walkers and stuff at some point and how they’re causing chaos and whatever when the kids come in and see the place.

Michael: Yeah, he lives in St. Oswald’s Home for Old Witches and Wizards, if you care to take Cursed Child.

Eric: “Old.”

Michael: Yeah, yeah, just old people.

Eric: They’re old.

[Michael laughs]

Eric: If you can bewitch a car to fly, my guess is that you could bewitch a wheelchair to fly. And that would be pretty cool.

Michael: Yeah, Amos’s wheelchair is not depicted to have any magical abilities in the stage show, at least as far as I’m aware from the script. But yeah, I feel like a wheelchair could easily be magicked to assist you.

Eric: You could set it in motion.

Michael: Yes. Well, yeah, because there are various individuals who use wheelchairs, [and] it’s harder for them to operate a wheelchair than others. And different wheelchairs that have various special bells and whistles for different individuals depending on their needs. So I feel like, yeah, wheelchairs should be way more awesome in the wizarding world than just a wheelchair, [laughs] if they even have them. Because I don’t remember seeing wheelchairs in the seven books. I can’t recall just off the top of my head seeing a wheelchair used in the wizarding world.

Mary: No. The only instance of a wheelchair, even in the films, was that one instance after McGonagall came back and she was in the wooden-looking wheelchair and people always used that image [when] talking about Maggie Smith having had breast cancer. And I’m like, “Okay, sure.”

Eric: When is this? What movie is this?

Michael: That’s Order of the Phoenix. And it’s unsure because she was going through treatment at the time, and so people have pondered if the photograph is actually meant to be evidence that the scene where she was taken out by Umbridge was cut, but other people have said, “Well, no, that’s just her sitting to the side, relaxing,” because she’s reading a Daily Prophet, sitting in the chair. But I mean, the cast has talked about how fascinating the props were and that they were all fully detailed, so she was probably just sitting there relaxing in between takes, reading. [laughs] But yeah, and then of course that scene didn’t make it into the film anyway. But before we get more into the details of each character, I thought it was worthwhile to mention J.K. Rowling’s mother, Anne Rowling. Because as Rowling herself has discussed in many an interview, her mother was a victim of multiple sclerosis and died when Rowling was very young [age 25]. And Rowling has said that the experience she went through with watching her mother succumb to this disease was very affecting to her and very much something that shaped Harry Potter. And so I just thought it was worthwhile to point that out. For those of you who are unaware, multiple sclerosis… If you haven’t read more on the disease, it’s a degenerative disease that attacks the nerv[ous] system and basically breaks down the communication between the body and the brain. It has a multitude of side effects and it can actually attack the body in various ways. From the little details that Rowling has revealed, it sounds like her mother’s was a progressive multiple sclerosis, meaning that it just kept escalating. But the interesting and bizarre thing about multiple sclerosis – and probably the thing that makes it very difficult, extra difficult, for not only the individual but [also] their families to deal with – is that there are periods between symptoms where nothing is happening at all. And the individual can seem like they’ve even gone completely back to good health. In addition to that, in between those periods, the individual can lose major functions that cannot be returned to them as the disease continues to attack.

Eric: Yeah, so this article that’s on the nationalmssociety.org site that’s linked to in our Doc and we should definitely put into the show notes, the title of the writing is “I Miss My Mother So Much” by J.K. Rowling. And it really does talk about [that] it was a rapidly progressive version of MS and her mother died when her mother was 45, and so diagnosed at 35 and she died at 45. And it’s actually really upsetting reading how full of life her mother was and how her mother fought, essentially, to retain normality in the early years of the disease and how, eventually, it became impossible. But it’s worth reading because it’s Jo’s writing and it actually just continues to shed light on what a unique and strange and quite scary disease MS is. And this story was written, actually, to gain funding and to [raise] awareness and to change policies in Scotland, public policy, in terms of certain drugs that were more difficult to find, I think, back in 2001. So Jo did a lot of this writing and a lot of this talking about MS and a lot of traveling. She very early became a Patron [of] the MS Society in Britain as a result of all of this. But she wrote this story to make change happen.

Michael: I think one of the quotes that was pulled from [the introduction to] her piece that I think is really important to keep in mind, especially with some of the characters that we’re going to discuss that Rowling wrote, is, “It was not only the rapid progression of the illness that affected my mother and us, her family. It was the rapid deterioration of the quality of her life, her self-esteem, her independence. Quality of life is something we must all fight for in every country around the world.” And of course, Rowling continues to do that with such organizations as Lumos as well as the Anne Rowling [Regenerative Neurology] Clinic, which she donated to, started up, and named after her mother. But I put that here because I think it’s really important to keep in mind as we go through these different characters and how we read them. Because I think we have all come to the conclusion through this reread experience that Rowling never does anything just because in Harry Potter or really with anything that she does write. And I think it’s just important to keep that context in mind because, while we can’t always, perhaps, examine material through the lens of auteur theory, where whatever the writer or director’s intention was, I think in this case that’s very important as we go through these characters. And so the first one we’re going to talk about that we’ve got on our list here is Ariana Dumbledore. We have now had extensive conversation on her in the Deathly Hallows chapter, so listeners, make sure [to] head over to alohomora.mugglenet.com, where you can actually check out our archive of the reread and you can head over to the chapters that specifically discuss Ariana. And we’ve got a lot more discussion on her, but I thought it was worthwhile to bring her up again, especially because, for me, Ariana was a shocking inclusion, because I read so much of my personal life experience in the Dumbledores’ story. And I was not expecting to see that particular part of my life narrated in Harry Potter. The thing that really got me was just how the Dumbledores’ actions to protect Ariana were so desperate and were so misinterpreted by the public. And I thought that was such an important and again, surprising piece that I just was not expecting to see show up in Harry Potter. And Kristen, I imagine you can speak more to that too, just because you’ve also worked a lot with individuals with disabilities, specifically in the autism community, and their families.

Kristen: Definitely, and I put in here the way they always kept her hidden from everyone, I see this a lot as it relates to a lot of my families, that they feel, just due to societ[al] rules and everything like that, that they’re embarrassed to bring them out into the community or anything like that. They always want to keep them shut away in the house because they feel [that] other people in the outside just don’t understand, so that’s what I come in and help them do. There'[ve] been so many kids… I mean, I had one kid I worked with who was 14 who’d never been bowling or had gone to the movies. He’d been through the McDonald’s drive-through but had never actually been to a McDonald’s. So I was like, “Well, we’re going to do all of this.”

[Michael laughs]

Kristen: And he was fine! He did great. But it’s the fear that the parents have of all the judgment from the outside, that that’s what I really see with this family as well, is that they’re always just keeping her hidden. They don’t want people to see her, how she’s acting, or anything like that.

Eric: Well, I find this all very fascinating.

Michael: The added element of Ariana’s story in Deathly Hallows… and it[‘s] such a shame that this was left out of the films. I actually consider this more egregious of a dropped plot point than the Marauders from Prisoner.

Eric: No, don’t!

Michael: I do, I do, I do. I really do. Because it’s just so much more unexpected in so many ways, and really, the way that the movie deals with the Dumbledore family is so disjointed and you’re just like, “Well, I guess I’m going to have to read the book because I have no idea what is going on here.”

[Eric, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Eric: Okay, that’s fair, that’s fair.

Michael: But I think the other element that’s so important to Ariana’s story is the mention that the Dumbledores keep her locked away because they’re worried that she will be put in the incurable ward at St. Mungo’s and that there’s no treatment for her because she’s a danger to the magical community because she has bursts of magic in her tantrums that break the Statute of Secrecy. And I think that’s an excellent parallel in that – what you were talking about, Kristen – families with individuals with disabilities have such a hard time bringing their family members out in public because there is so much judgment in every action as you go out. And no outing is fun. [laughs] When you start doing outings, they are exhausting, and for years, they can be exhausting. Some families never make it to the point where outings are enjoyable affairs. I am [in] one of the lucky families that we can take my brother, Charlie, who[m] I’ve mentioned many times on the episode, who is now… oh, 25? I mean, but last time I went to visit them, I wanted to go out to a restaurant. We went out. Charlie was a little butt the whole time.

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Michael: And he does that sometimes because he doesn’t want to go out sometimes. And consequently, he does odd behaviors while he’s out to get attention…

Kristen: Yes, attention.

Michael: … and to express his…

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Michael: Yes, attention seeking is a big thing in the autism community. And so that coupled with the very real concern that these individuals don’t have the proper care and treatments that they need out there for them is still a very major reality for individuals with disabilities. When my brother was diagnosed, my parents were told to just put him in a home, a group home, and be done with because there was nothing they would be able to do. And that’s how things were back then. And that was just the early ’90s.

Kristen: That’s crazy.

Michael: And my family was lucky because my parents were both nurses and they know how to navigate the medical world. And that gave them a huge advantage with Charlie. Not every family has that advantage. It’s an uphill battle and there are so many things against you, and I think it’s interesting that in these small snippets of Ariana’s story, Rowling highlights that even in the wizarding community there is still a lack of proper services for all individuals in medical care.

Eric: Yeah, that’s definitely true. Reading her pieces on trying to get the country to make changes for available drugs, available care for patients suffering from MS, you can see the very real parallel between Ariana Dumbledore… She never got the help she needed. And you can imagine that if the wizarding world were more up to scruff, they would have specialists who could deal with her particular case of the bursts of magic and would be able to work with her and have sort of therapeutic remedies at least to make it safer for Ariana to live, to survive, to not die, to not succumb to her accidents.

Michael: Well, and isn’t it interesting, too, that she has what the book describes as “bursts of uncontrollable magic,” and in a way, wouldn’t that be interesting if wizards had bothered to find out if there was something positive about her bursts of magic or some way to harness that and turn it in to something good?

Eric: I would hate the idea that they would hook her up to a machine that runs so much better when she’s having a burst of magic, but…

[Kristen laughs]

Michael: Yeah, no, not like a Monsters, Inc.-type thing! [laughs]

Eric: [laughs] I just saw a Monsters, Inc. sort of thing.

Michael: But I mean, more in the idea that… And that goes back to how we term disability versus special needs versus special ability and the idea that maybe these differences in these individuals [are] not something negative, but something positive and that there’s actually something worthwhile about these. There are many studies about autism that suggest that, actually, individuals with autism in caveman times gave them distinct advantages that others did not have.

Eric: So can you refresh my memory, or I might have missed an Ariana discussion or two, but reading the character as autistic did not occur to me until this episode. My thoughts as to her uncontrollable bursts of magic came from the fact that she suffered physical trauma when she was coming of age. And that the magic that would normally have begun to manifest itself was corrupted, essentially, by the physical trauma. And so I saw it as [being] physical damage that was causing these bursts, almost as if you suffer head trauma and thereafter have fits and seizures.

Michael: Oh yeah. I think that’s the thing about Ariana. As a reminder to our listeners, even though I personally use autism as the parallel, that’s because of my personal read. But you can easily match her up with a variety of special needs. She can easily be compared to cerebral palsy. There are many things about MS that actually can compare to her. The reason I see that particular parallel with my personal experience is that Charlie was actually physically abused by teachers and caretakers who[m] we left him with and he’s gone through a lot. It’s amazing that he’s so well adjusted. And he does have PTSD. And that internalized in him and created these outbursts that were catastrophic. Charlie would have physical outbursts that lasted for an hour and required my parents to restrain him. It was such an impractical way of living, but it was the only thing we knew to do.

Kristen: Because once you get to that point, you can’t stop.

Michael: You can’t go back. Yeah.

Kristen: And that’s what it reminds me of her as well with those outbursts. They’ll maybe want to, but they’re just already so far gone that, I mean, you just have to ride it out.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And luckily for Charlie, poor thing, he’s been tested on so many medications and we finally found a medication balance that really works for him and keeps him tempered. And he’s also taken the initiative of his own self to learn how to manage his anger, and it’s been an amazing transformation. And of course, now that he’s 25, his frontal lobe is fully developed, and I’m fascinated to see how that will affect the rest of his life because the frontal lobe is where your good decision-making is housed in your brain. That’s why when you turn 25 you start – some of us start – making better decisions.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: That’s making a lot of sense now.

Michael: Yeah, so that’s where I see that parallel. And within the family situation, the idea that their father was defending her against these boys who attacked her and got sent to Azkaban because he couldn’t properly explain what was happening. And the other thing to consider is that Ariana’s timeline… Her story takes place in the late 1800s to the early 1900s, which is an especially catastrophic time for individuals with disabilities. So factor that in as well and you’ve got a very, very difficult family situation coupled with, as Kristen put here… It’s excellent, Kristen, that you put “societ[al] rules” because that would’ve been an even bigger issue back then, so… Yeah, I think what you said, Kristen, though, too, about families being so fearful of sharing their experiences because people don’t understand, I think, is just… We live in an age now where we can share everything, and I think there’s a certain level of understanding that’s slowly coming into the public consciousness about individuals with disabilities. We’re seeing a little more representation here and there. Which is very exciting for those of us in the community and being a support in the community. The other major piece why I bring up Ariana is because she’s very important to Dumbledore’s character arc. And as I mentioned in the episode, Dumbledore makes the choice to come back to his family, but he is a[n] ill-equipped caretaker and Aberforth is much better suited to it and Dumbledore eventually departs again and ignores his famil[ial] responsibilities. And of course, Grindelwald is factored into that as well. And I feel that it’s just important to, when you consider how you feel about Dumbledore, be careful how you view his treatment of his family, because those of us who are siblings of individuals with disabilities have a lot of difficult choices to make in life about how we live our own lives. Parents face those same choices. Just be careful how you judge Dumbledore with that particular aspect of his life. We face a lot of all-or-nothing decisions: Do we go live our lives, or do we give up ourselves for our family members? And it’s not as easy an answer as one might assume. But yeah, I think that Ariana is an excellent example of not brushing these more complicated ideas under the rug on Rowling’s part and actually bringing them to the forefront to make them a very important aspect of the Harry Potter story. I think it’s one of the more successful attempts at that.

Mary: I mean, I think it’s interesting from the standpoint of looking at it as autism, necessarily, because in my mind, I’ve always seen it… and I believe we’re going to be talking about this a little bit later, but in relation to more of a mental condition such as schizophrenia is more how I’ve always thought about it, and so I think it’s interesting because even though wizards and witches – and we discussed this earlier on in the topic – can cure all manner of what have you, they still have some deficits, and I think it’s interesting to see that Jo recognizes that as well.

Michael: Yeah, and that gets into that mix of “Well, if this condition, whatever it may be, of Ariana’s exists, does she actually have one of these disabilities that we in the Muggle world have or does she have…? It’s implied that what she has is wizard-based; it’s magical. But it’s brought on by very real trauma. And we had commenters mention this on the main site when we discussed Ariana more in-depth, but that’s the brilliance of Rowling’s writing in this section, is that it’s left ambiguous what her trauma is and what exactly her symptoms are, because that allows the reader to impose their own personal experience on that rather than say, “Well, she’s a symbol for this or this or this,” definitively.

Eric: Yeah. Like she did with Lupin.

Michael: Yes. Who, I think, is our next character to talk about and I think is probably… We’ve mentioned Lupin already many times before we’ve even gotten to him, probably because he might just be one of the most successful portrayals of a more major character who addresses these issues.

Eric: So yeah, these are the two quotes that we have pulled from J.K. Rowling’s thoughts on Remus Lupin, which are on Pottermore, and I’m just going to read the two quotes now:

“Lupin’s condition of lycanthropy (being a werewolf) was a metaphor for those illnesses that carry a stigma, like HIV and AIDS. All kinds of superstitions seem to surround blood-borne conditions, probably due to taboos surrounding blood itself. The wizarding community is as prone to hysteria and prejudice as the Muggle one, and the character of Lupin gave me a chance to examine those attitudes.”

This is the second quote:

“Remus Lupin’s affliction was a conscious reference to blood-borne diseases such as the HIV infection, with the attendant stigma. The potion Snape brews him is akin to the antiretroviral that will keep him from developing the ‘full-blown’ version of his illness. The sense of ‘apartness’ that the management of a chronic condition can impose on its sufferers was an important part of Lupin’s character.”

So we have Remus Lupin, whose Latin name literally means “werewolf,” suffering from lycanthropy. And this is something that I think not only is a big deal and it’s important in the book he’s introduced, in Prisoner of Azkaban, but we [also] begin to see throughout the course of the seven-book series how Remus’s identity is continually driven as a result of his illness and actually, it might be Dumbledore’s fault. Dumbledore sends him off to report on the werewolves, but you do see Remus sort of embracing or harnessing his condition for the greater good, and actually, he’s able to produce valid and useful insight into the Dark Lord because of the result of his illness.

Michael: Yeah, that’s interesting too because we didn’t get this answer by Pottermore and I think everybody was hoping we would, but we still don’t really know how Remus used that ability to hobnob with the werewolves. Because that brought up a lot of questions such as [that] Fenrir Greyback bit him and had a pretty long history with his family, so wouldn’t he recognize Lupin either in wolf or human form? Are they hanging out as humans, or are they hanging out as wolves? How is that even [possible]?

Eric: Well, it’s like that art print of the dogs playing poker.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: That’s definitely what they’re doing.

Eric: Well, he was a child when he was bitten, so unless Fenrir Greyback either recognizes his scent… and then there’s the possibility that if Greyback was with the upper echelon of Death Eaters, it’s possible that he wasn’t with the common werewolves who were on Voldemort’s side. So there’s an opportunity. Maybe they didn’t go to the same meetings.

Michael: Yeah, it’s very unclear what they were up to, and it was always very disturbing to me in Half-Blood that Lupin… Lupin, of course, is a very self-degrading character, and at one point, when he’s talking to Harry over Christmas, he says, “I’m with my own kind.” And he’s being so dramatic!

[Kristen laughs]

Michael: And Harry rebuttals with “That’s not you – that’s them. You’re different.” And Lupin shrugs that off because again, he’s terribly self-depreciating, and his…

Eric: “You’re this man; you’re this heart.”

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Eric: “One heart, one body,” whatever BS they wrote into that [movie].

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Michael: Had to get his Prisoner of Azkaban jab in there. [laughs]

Eric: I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I don’t like it. I don’t like it. No, it’s a question because for Lupin, too – and being a werewolf, that’s almost a different species of human – we find it’s a blood-borne illness. You can view it that way, but it’s also [that] he can transform, and when he transforms, he’s a different species. Like being an Animagus, it’s unlike anything else specifically. So I don’t know. It’s interesting. I was leading into it, going like, “Oh yeah, he talks with these other werewolves,” [but] I’m also thinking that the fact that when he gets to Hogwarts, he’s able to relate to these fellow humans who are not werewolves speaks to their friendship. But then they became Animagi who can sort of interact and make him feel a little bit [saner]. So there’s still a bridge between the worlds. And I guess it’s worth noting, though – trying to get back on topic – when Lupin was at Hogwarts, when Lupin was a child and could not for the longest time, according to Pottermore, be housed or be schooled anywhere, no one would take him because of his condition. The Wolfsbane Potion, which later is shown to ease his symptoms, was not in existence yet, and this was only in the 1970s, right? So the Wolfsbane Potion that is later developed and Snape is able to make for him was not around yet, and that’s a fair parallel to medicine – new medicine that treats illnesses, vaccines and such – that simply as they’re being developed, more people can benefit from them. But if you were a child before that existed, then you’re pretty much in Lupin’s situation.

Michael: Yeah. I like what you put down in the Doc, Eric, about Dumbledore being very open-minded about that in this particular situation because there was no treatment at the time. And the excerpt, which you should definitely read, from Lupin’s bio really speaks to… It’s lovely that Rowling wrote this, the first step that we should all take when putting out a helping hand to individuals with disabilities. Dumbledore does it very excellently; he does exactly the thing you’re supposed to do. He treats him like an individual. He doesn’t discuss the illness, the disability, as the first talking point. He doesn’t define Remus by his disability.

Eric: Right, he goes and meets him for himself. I’ll read that, maybe, because this is sort of a pretty good evolution of Albus Dumbledore’s character because following Ariana’s death and following the defeat of Grindelwald and following this big character transition for Dumbledore, he’s later the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry when he shows up at Lyall Lupin’s house with young Remus there. And here’s the quote from Pottermore:

“Shortly before Remus’s eleventh birthday, no less a person than Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, arrived uninvited on the Lupins’ doorstep. Flustered and frightened, Lyall and Hope tried to block his entrance, but somehow, five minutes later, Dumbledore was sitting at the fireside, eating crumpets and playing Gobstones with Remus.

“Dumbledore explained to the Lupins that he knew what had happened to their son. Greyback had boasted of what he had done and Dumbledore had spies among Dark creatures. However, Dumbledore told the Lupins that he saw no reason why Remus should not come to school, and described the arrangements that he had made to give the boy a safe and secure place for his transformations. Due to the widespread prejudice around werewolves, Dumbledore agreed that for Remus’s own sake his condition should not be broadcast. Once a month, he would leave for a secure and comfortable house in the village of Hogsmeade, guarded by many spells and reached only by an underground passage from the Hogwarts grounds, where he could transform in peace.”

So from this reading, it sounds like Dumbledore already made all of those arrangements before showing up [at] their door and basically breaking into their living room.

[Eric and Michael laugh]

Eric: It seems like he was really intent on righting a wrong, perhaps the wrong that he had caused with Ariana. But Dumbledore as a character… and you hear in Book 3 – which it’s longer in the book than it is in the movie – how much love Remus has for Dumbledore and how much that it changed his life that Remus could go to school, that Remus could be with the other children his age and learn magic and do everything to lead a fulfilling life, and this destiny, this path that was simply not open to him before Dumbledore made it so is huge, absolutely huge. And so Dumbledore, even though in reading that part just then it sounds like he just showed up uninvited – just… that’s sort of problematic – he really did do good for this kid.

Michael: I think that’s interesting, what you brought up, Eric, about how maybe his personal experience with Ariana maybe inspired his assistance to Lupin because… And I can’t speak for all individuals who have family members with disabilities, but because of the personal experience you go through, you tend to be very good with individuals with disabilities depending on your experience level, and the funny thing is, I think a lot of —especially — siblings are occasionally pressured by people around them to become caretakers because they’re so good at it with their sibling. But because you’re a good caretaker for your sibling does not mean you’re going to be a good caretaker for other individuals, and so I think it’s really great that Dumbledore knows how to take his life experiences and extend them to others, but at the same time, it’s important to note that Dumbledore is not saying he’s going to completely take care of Remus and…

Eric: No. No, no, no.

Kristen: He’s just going to help him out.

Eric: But that’s true enough, right?

Michael: Yeah.

Eric: I imagine that they didn’t… It’s not like Dumbledore sits with Lupin as he transforms, but I think the goal was [to] construct a safe space for him to transform [since] he has to and [since] it’s not negotiable but allow him to go to school all the same. So Dumbledore put in place the mechanisms that would allow Remus to lead a fulfilling, normal life despite his illness, though, and that’s huge, but…

Kristen: He’s allowing him to have all these opportunities that no one else would’ve had, and like you said, he’s seen it on the Ariana side. He’s — like you said — not going to sit with Remus the whole time, but he’s going to give him these opportunities because he’s seen it in the past.

Eric: Yeah. Presumably, he would’ve delegated somebody else who would’ve been taking Remus the first year or two when he was still 11 and 12 to the Shrieking Shack. Surely all of the teachers would know about Remus’s condition.

Mary: I think Madam Pomfrey was the one who was responsible for that. I believe in canon, it was…

Michael: Yeah, that’s correct.

Eric: You might be right.

Michael: Yeah, and that perfectly lined up with information that we got about Madam Pomfrey before Book 3 in that she’s very good at discretion and not asking questions.

[Kristen laughs]

Eric: She’s not too good at spotting any manner of illnesses, though, that the children lie about.

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Michael: Well, that’s because she doesn’t ask questions, so she tends to…

Eric: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael: Despite her very overbearing demeanor, I think she’s actually a lot [softer] than she sometimes… She’s very similar to McGonagall in that way, as far as being a caretaker, in that she’s strict but she really will pamper you and take excellent care of you.

[Eric and Kristen laugh]

Michael: Which is good because in particular issues like this, she can be very discreet, which is important in cases like this. And the other thing that’s fascinating about this piece with Remus that you read, Eric, especially from Rowling’s thoughts on Pottermore, is that, unlike with Ariana, Rowling specifically points to Lupin being a reference to HIV. Now, she says that it also can be a catch-all for blood-borne pathogens and diseases and as well as the stigma attached to those diseases, and of course, the issue with Lupin is that there is a way to spread his disease. It’s unlikely that his disease would spread, but it can be spread. And the issue of probability of how it would spread because of course, all of the necessary precautions have been taken, but once Lupin is outed in Book 3 because of a moment of carelessness, it’s the be-all, end-all for him, and he leaves. And of course, the backlash that he’s expecting that doesn’t as far as we know even happen due to the students liking him as a teacher. And this question was actually, I think… and I dug for this comment, and I could not find it, so I apologize, listeners. We have a lot of comments, which we love, but there was a comment brought up around the Ariana episodes that does relate to Lupin here in this parallel to HIV and the question of whether we should even be using the characters in this way to be parallels for real-world illnesses and disabilities and because they’re… I have heard discussion about the taboo, perhaps, of linking the idea of HIV to a character who physically transforms into an uncontrollable monster and becomes unrecognizable and dangerous and whether that… And then, too, Ariana, who is in this… Her disability is not clearly defined and her behaviors might not line up with one disability versus another. And whether this is okay? Unwise? Should it be done, should it not be done? Is there a better way to approach it?

Eric: I think that it’s important to be able to have the types of discussions that we’re having about it, though. And to see characters that suffer from illnesses and disabilities and have special abilities, needs, and requirements, it’s so important for inclusivity in Harry Potter that there are these characters. And I disagree with one of the tenants of what Ariel’s audioBoom said – that I’m just now remembering too – which was that the characters exist to give a leg up to the normal, healthy characters who aren’t suffering. I don’t agree with that in the scope of the Harry Potter books. I think that, actually, a case could be made for having these characters [because] it strengthens our view of humanity, and including these characters, such as Mad-Eye Moody [and] Remus, who are heroes and who are dealing with their disabilities in such a way, I think it’s empowering. I think it’s meant to be empowering.

Mary: I think as well part of the issue, at least for me, as someone who does have various issues… I think what Ariel was trying to get at was, we want to see representation of people with, whether they be physical or mental or whatever form of disability… not seen as something other than normal, seeing that as something that isn’t separate from… I lost my train of thought here. To not having them as a support as much as, say, having Newt in Fantastic Beasts have some sort of physical impairment or something.

Michael: No, I think… and correct me if I’m wrong, Mary, if I’m not interpreting this right, but seeing them as just players in the game rather than being highlighted for their disability…

Mary: Yeah. Having them there and not being, “Oh yeah, Moody is the one with the wooden leg.”

Eric: Oh, now I see it. Because he’s called “Mad-Eye,” right? [laughs]

Mary: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah, and Lupin’s whole story is really based around his lack of self-esteem, which is based on his condition. And yeah, so I think for me personally with that… and not having a disability myself particularly, but I think what Eric said is somewhat closer to how I feel, which is that these things at least spark discussion. And this is always the hard part with writing [from] a writer’s perspective, [which] is also an issue we’ve gotten into with Rowling over her newer writings on Pottermore – especially her American stuff – where she was writing about things that she didn’t really know about…

[Mary laughs]

Michael: … and how controversial that became because she was, unfortunately, and likely unintentionally, committing appropriation, however innocent and well intentioned it may have been. I guess the issue here is that we’ve laid on a lot of expectations on Rowling, especially because of her fame and the level of renown that Harry Potter has gotten. And I think it’s important to remember that, as much as she knows, she doesn’t know everything, and she doesn’t have a lot of personal experience that I think a lot of us could lend to making a character that way. I’m not saying she can’t and that other writers can’t do that, or that Harry Potter didn’t even have room for it, but at the same time, considering as much as she did put in, that’s why I’m so impressed with the Ariana story, because I just didn’t expect that to be such a major component to the story. And when you look at the idea [of] Lupin, the reason why Rowling maybe doesn’t have those characters as players in that respect and highlights their conditions the way she does is [that] she is looking to criticize how we as society treat those characters.

Eric: That’s interesting.

Michael: So her particular commentary is an attempt to criticize that, so she’s not going to integrate those characters in that way because she wants to make that commentary. But at the same time, as you were saying, Mary, I think there is also a value in – and a progressive element of – integrating those characters not in that way – very similarly to issues we have of integrating people of color into our stories and integrating them in a way that they’re players in the story without having to acknowledge their heritage and their background as the defining trait – that they can just be characters.

Eric: Now I get it.

Michael: Same issue.

Eric: Yeah, now I get it. Now I get it. Okay.

Michael: But yeah, I’m hesitant to criticize Rowling on that because to me she did such a good job of even bringing these issues up in a genre where this isn’t normally brought up. And I always try to remember that she did write these back in the mid-’90s through the 2000s. And we do have to give her a little bit of the benefit of the doubt on that because she was writing in a particular time period. And while it may not seem that long ago, things were very different then. Especially when we roll back around to Lupin and the idea of HIV and AIDS. And going back to that question of whether it’s a good idea or not to do this, Rowling is not the first one to do this. Blood-borne ailments have been used as metaphors. There’s a very bizarre film out there, listeners, if you’ve never seen it – and make sure you’re of the proper age before you go watching this one and hunting it out – it’s called The Hunger. It was a 1983 film with Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon, and David Bowie. So if you’re a Bowie fan, check it out. It’s a very bizarre film about vampires, and it’s definitely supposed to be an allegory for AIDS – the effect of AIDS – and the idea of transfer of blood.

Eric: And they’re all monsters.

Michael: Yeah. So it brings up that issue again. It’s a parallel. And Rowling, I think, treats that with more respect than…

Eric: Yeah, Lupin is not a monster. He transforms, but Lupin is the best character there is.

Michael: [laughs] He’s perceived as a monster, but he’s not, and I think that parallel of perception versus reality is what makes Lupin such a good representation for that. I think the other thing we mentioned when we talked about Lupin’s backstory that really makes this element interesting is that HIV and AIDS are ailments that are commonly associated with the gay community, but Lupin is not gay.

Eric and Michael: Not canonically.

Michael: Well, and in many ways, this is actually one of the reasons why some people have read Lupin as gay, and as I have argued, there [are] easily ways to read Lupin as gay. But by Rowling’s intention – if we’re going with auteur theory – he’s not and how interesting that she chose to disassociate that.

Eric: Yeah, I guess that is interesting.

Michael: To break that stigma that the…

Eric: Yeah, ugly causality thing.

Michael: So that’s Lupin.

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Eric: Yeah, let’s talk about… We have so many more…

Michael: There'[re] quite a few, yeah. There'[re] quite a few more.

Eric: Yeah, there won’t be as much time devoted to many of the others. [There’re] a lot less of them than there is of Lupin or even Ariana, but [they’re] worth discussing. And we’ve already got Mad-Eye down, I think, but the next two that were on the list: Mad-Eye Moody and Silvanus Kettleburn. Kettleburn, who [laughs] retired to spend more time with “his remaining limbs.”

[Eric, Mary, and Michael laugh]

Kristen: Ohh. I was trying to remember who that was, and you saying that now, I’m like, “Oh yeah!”

[Michael laughs]

Eric: That’s limbless over there.

[Kristen laughs]

Eric: Presumably, he had substitutions.

Michael: So that’s the thing about Kettleburn and why he’s put alongside Mad-Eye Moody here, is because Kettleburn was also given wooden extremities for limbs, but he can never keep his because, like Hagrid, Kettleburn had a propensity for throwing himself into dangerous situations…

[Kristen laughs]

Michael: … and Dumbledore kept presenting him with wooden limbs and he kept getting into situations where he’d burn them off, so… Why I thought Kettleburn was worth bringing up is because of course, his inclusion and his mentions are meant to be asides and they’re meant to be humorous, but the weird thing about Kettleburn is that they keep giving him things that don’t work, and it’s like, “Maybe let’s not use wood anymore.” [laughs]

Kristen: Right, after the first three times.

[Eric, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Michael: Yeah. Well, maybe not something so flammable.

Eric: Yeah. Kettleburn to me is a very obvious homage to Monty Python’s black knight…

[Kristen, Mary, and Michael laugh]

Eric: … from The Holy Grail. [as the Black Knight] “It’s just a flesh wound!”

Kristen: [as the Black Knight] “[‘Tis but] a scratch!”

[Michael laughs]

Eric: Because he loses these [limbs] and he keeps going back for more. I’m reading this on the HP Lexicon, but it’s paraphrased from Pottermore, but it’s because he “loved dangerous creatures (and often underestimated them)”

[Kristen laughs]

Eric: … that he lost “most of his limbs, and by the time he retired [in 1993], he only had one arm and half a leg remaining.”

[Michael laughs]

Eric: Now, as a retirement present, Dumbledore gave him an enchanted set of limbs. (Yes, of course, they were wooden.) They did often need replacing because Kettleburn kept going to dragon sanctuaries…

[Kristen laughs]

Eric: … and he keeps flobberworms as pets. And this guy really flirts with danger, but he’s not a character who is limited, in any sense, by his physical destruction. He revisits and revisits it upon himself so often.

Michael: Well, yeah. What Rowling puts at the end of the “Illness and Disability” piece about Moody and that he is he is very much, as she says it exactly, a man who is “very much more than his significant disabilities”… And to clarify, I don’t think that’s meant to say that those out there who don’t necessarily master their disabilities or harness them are weak, but rather to say… and Kristen, maybe you can speak to this too, as well as you, Mary, but that maybe that’s meant to be more to say that that’s what we encourage all of our individuals with disabilities in our lives to achieve their goals.

Kristen: It doesn’t define them.

Michael: Yes, to not be defined by their disability and yeah, to set goals that they can achieve, that they can look to achieve. Being in librarian work, that’s really changed my perspective, in addition to my experiences with Charlie. Think of it this way, listeners, that, really, as a librarian, I often get frequent complaints from patrons. Luckily not at my new job yet, but I’ve only been there for three weeks. But once upon a time, I would often have to deal with patrons who would come up and feel that it was perfectly reasonable to approach me and yell at me for not solving all of their problems with the printer or to… [laughs] I had a patron once who used to go around the library and she was a grumpy, little old lady and she would burp at people.

Michael: Just burp.

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Michael: And that was okay to her. She didn’t seem to mind doing that. And that is the tip of the iceberg of bizarre behaviors that I would see from people who I don’t think would particularly define themselves as having a disability. I think the thing that’s important to remember, actually, is that – and Kristen, I know you and I have talked about this before – everybody has a disability.

Kristen: Yes, everybody’s got something with them. [laughs]

Michael: Yeah. If you think of it that way, we all have something that makes us different, sometimes we feel holds us back, but that we have to overcome in our daily lives. I believe I have mild OCD and I know I have been diagnosed with mild anxiety. Those are definitely things that affect my daily life and things that I have to overcome on a daily basis. We all have that stuff, so I think that’s important to remember when we talk about these characters and when we talk about individuals with disabilities in general. It helps you realize that those particular disabilities that we highlight are not that unusual when you look at how “average” people behave on a daily basis. [laughs]

Kristen: I know. Those neurotypical people.

Michael: Yes, those neurotypical people.

Kristen: That’s what we… yeah.

Michael: [laughs] That’s a great term. I’ve never heard that before.

Kristen: Yeah, that’s one I use a lot.

Mary: Yes, that would be the “normal” person.

Kristen: Basically, yeah. As I’m doing air quotes right now with my fingers: “neurotypical” people.

Michael: Yes, very much.

[Mary and Michael laugh]

Mary: Yeah, same. I was doing that as well.

[Michael laughs]

Eric: That’s good to know.

Michael: But going back to Mad-Eye Moody and Kettleburn, it is interesting that the movie did choose to make Moody’s prosthetic limbs metal instead of wood because that would have obviously solved Kettleburn’s problem…

[Kristen and Michael laughs]

Michael: … if they had just used metal. Because the movie actually goes with more of…

Kristen: … a little more realistic…

Michael: Yes. Aesthetically.

Kristen: Like what we would see in…

Eric: Multi-jointed. An actual prosthetic versus…

Michael: Yeah, because his foot is shaped like a booted foot in the movie, but I think in the book isn’t ita claw foot or something like that?

Eric: Not a hundred percent.

Michael: Yeah. It’s not quite proper.

Kristen: It’s not like an actual foot. Yeah. It’s something very different.

Michael: Yeah, so… And then of course there’s the magical eye, which is a whole other “what the heck is going on?” I think we talked about that in Goblet because it seems like such advanced magic.

Eric: It’s way unique.

Michael: Yeah. We don’t meet anybody else in the series who has one.

Eric: Except Umbridge, ooh.

[Kristen laughs]

Michael: Ooh! Ooh!

[Eric and Kristen laugh]

Michael: Always too soon.

Kristen: I know, and that’s immediately what popped up in my head as well, but I was like, “I’m not going to say it.”

[Eric, Kristen, and Michael laugh]

Eric: Thank you!

Michael: Well, and that’s just what adds to Umbridge being such a horrible individual…

Kristen: Yep. [laughs]

Michael: … is that she uses someone’s disability as a tool. Which is yet another reason she is one of the most disgusting individuals on the planet.

Eric: I am so glad we’re not talking about her at length on this episode.

Michael: No. No.

[Kristen and Mary laugh]

Michael: Well, and okay, so that does stretch into something that might be worth talking about. I don’t really know how we address this one. [It] might be a larger topic to even carry on past this episode, but almost all of our characters we have to talk about here are from the “light” side, the good side, the Harry side. Can we think of individuals with disabilities [on] the Voldemort side?

Kristen: Bellatrix is psychotic?

Mary: Peter Pettigrew has the silver hand and missing…

Michael: Hand. That’s true. He has a magical prosthetic. He was missing a finger too.

Kristen: Bellatrix is a sociopath. [laughs]

Michael: Yes. I think Bellatrix definitely has… That’s interesting, because we have Sirius here on the list. And Bellatrix is the flip side because they both spend an extended amount of time in Azkaban.

Eric: Yeah, I don’t really think Sirius should be on this list, necessarily, under depression insofar as that is a side effect of presence [in] the Dementors, which…

Michael: But that’s important because Rowling did specifically create the Dementors to be that, so… Because…

Eric: Yes and no. I don’t agree that Sirius suffers from depression once he leaves Azkaban.

Kristen: Uhh, I highly disagree on that.

Michael: Ooh. Yeah, I disagree with that!

Eric: Not… I think he has reasons to be depressed.

Kristen: Everybody is in his house during Christmas time, yet he’s still locked away and hidden in a room by himself.

Eric: Yes. But that’s not atypical. You can be depressed without suffering from depression, right?

Michael: Actually, I think that’s one of the issues of how we view depression as a society because…

Kristen: He definitely suffers…

Eric: Let me… I don’t want to commit any grand errors here. I’m just…

Michael: Well, no, no, no, I think that’s a good thing to bring up, is that depression is a condition that we as a society are still struggling to acknowledge as a medical condition and not something as a just “Well, buck up and get over it” kind of a thing. [laughs]

Kristen: And there'[re] all different kinds. Because you can also have depression, but you can have that manic side of that depression as well. It’s that you’re not bipolar, but it’s still considered under that category of depression, and I think he has it even after leaving.

Michael: Yeah, and depression can be long-term or it can be temporary. I’ve suffered from depression. I know I had. Anybody who was in my family situation during the worst parts of that would definitely suffer depression. [laughs] It’s inevitable. And I do think that Sirius is a[n] actually pretty good example of an individual with depression in Book 5.

Kristen: Yes, that’s exactly what I thought. That book specifically really shows it.

Michael: And I think, really, in a way, we can maybe look back and wonder if maybe we weren’t too hard on Sirius in our examination of him in Order of the Phoenix because we were examining him as a potential father figure for Harry, but I think we pointed out that he was not a fit father figure for Harry. And we were pointing more to a stunted growth, which is an issue because he was imprisoned at 21, [laughs] which is absurd. But I think, yeah, there is an added element to the depression issue because it’s very admirable that he managed to not succumb completely to the Dementors during his time in Azkaban, they did leave him with major PTSD.

Kristen: And I feel like they captured in the movies, too, those scenes. You’ll just see him. He will be staring off, but then he sees [that] Harry is looking at him and he puts on that smile. Like, “Oh, I’m going to be around you; I will try to be happy, but really, underneath, I’m not.”

Michael: Yeah, especially Movie 5 took a very different approach to addressing that. And the way you’re summarizing, Kristen, I think, was probably a more subtle acting choice on Gary Oldman’s part.

Eric: He’s so much more lively and fiery in the books, shouting at Molly and trying to play a more active role in… Actually, he’s quite restless in Book 5 if I’m remembering correctly, always trying to go out and always trying to protect Harry and always trying to do these things very… I don’t know.

Kristen: But then not being able to those, he sinks back into it and being away and stuff like that.

Michael: Well, yeah, being housebound.

Kristen: And you can still want to fight for this boy and try to help him out. Doesn’t mean you’re still not depressed.

Eric: Well, Dumbledore definitely failed. Anything he did for Lupin, in Lupin’s life, he definitely didn’t do for Sirius come Book 5 time.

Kristen: I totally agree.

Michael: Oh yeah, and I think Harry excellently addresses that in his final rant to Dumbledore in Order when he yells at him. And Dumbledore actually puts his hands up and goes [as Dumbledore] “Yep, you’re right. I really screwed that up.” [laughs] And it’s [a] good thing that Dumbledore acknowledges that. Of course, Dumbledore has to go back to his greater good issue and unfortunately, Sirius is collateral damage from all of that. But that’s not okay. And it’s interesting, Kristen, that you brought up Bellatrix as the flip side because she is, I think, the more extreme version of what happens when you’re left, perhaps, without… Bellatrix is never given proper care or treatment. And she’s also surrounded by bad people. And the part that makes her beautifully tragic is that Voldemort completely takes advantage of it. And that’s interesting in how it ties back to Voldemort as being a parallel for Hitler because of course, Hitler attempted to wipe out all individuals with disabilities. Many people forget that Hitler was not just killing Jews, which already makes him a horrible individual, but in addition to that, he was pretty much killing anybody [whom] he didn’t like. And individuals with disabilities fell under that, as well as gays and people basically who weren’t white, blond, and blue-eyed. [laughs]

Eric: He did a lot worse than kill them too.

Michael: Oh yes, yes, absolutely. And so I can’t imagine Voldemort being any… Voldemort’s view on lesser beings ends up being more of a parallel in that he views individuals who are not of a certain heritage to be [un]worthy of his attention, but I imagine he wouldn’t be much more in favor… I mean, that comes up with Lupin, right? The discussion they have at the Malfoy Manor in Deathly Hallows at the beginning, [Voldemort] encourages Bellatrix and takes great pride in the idea that Lupin will be eradicated and that Tonks will be eradicated by proxy for associating with him, so that doesn’t bode well. And then of course, then – again, another parallel with Hitler and World War II – Grindelwald. Grindelwald suggests to Dumbledore that… Well, the reason Dumbledore is actually pursuing Grindelwald’s ideals is not only because of where he sees things lining up with Grindelwald, but he does also suggest that things might be better for Ariana and that the world might be better for her. But as he finds out… and I think why Dumbledore is so hurt by what Grindelwald does is that that’s not what Grindelwald’s real intention is. He doesn’t really care about Ariana, as evidenced by the fact that he probably killed her.

Mary: Yeah, no big deal there.

[Michael laughs]

Eric: For more information on that, see the Fantastic Beasts series.

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Michael: Possibly, maybe, Johnny Depp might be involved.

Mary: Yes, [he] is. Kat just posted it in the Riddikulusly Fun Chat as a side note.

Michael: Oh God, there it is. Well, yeah. That’s a whole other thing, though. Head to SpeakBeasty for that. [laughs] But yeah, I think that maybe answers the question of how Voldemort’s and even Grindelwald’s regime[s] might have dealt with that if we’re looking at it as a Hitler parallel, which I believe it’s meant to be looked at as. It doesn’t come up too much, but I think the evidence that we have points to that. They’d either be taken advantage of or disposed of. So [those are] the dark characters. And in fact, actually, that leads into the next point, which covers three characters, but that point is actually a […] larger, broad[er] idea of memory loss and memory damage. And we have three prominent characters who suffer that: Bathilda Bagshot, Bertha Jorkins, and Gilderoy Lockhart.

[Mary and Michael laugh]

Eric: Remind me of Bathilda, if her memory loss is attributed to anything other than her excessively old age.

Michael: So that’s the fascinating thing about Bathilda is, her condition is actually not so different from Alzheimer’s.

Mary: Yeah, okay, that’s what I was thinking.

Michael: Yeah, she’s summarized as just having degenerative memory loss due to age, but the magical element is that Rita toys with her memory to get stuff out of her. To a much more severe extent, Voldemort does the same thing to Bertha Jorkins, and both characters seem to be left from those experiences worse for [the] wear, Bertha in particular. And it’s interesting because we have two characters here who are not used in a humorous way. Lockhart, on the other hand, is more of a humorous depiction of memory loss, if we can consider it that. And I was actually wondering why… We actually have a device that can store memories, so why is this a problem if we have things like Pensieves?

Kristen: Does everybody have those?

Michael: No. That’s a good point.

Mary: I mean, my understanding is that they’re probably pretty rare.

Michael: I just felt like… How does St. Mungo’s not have a Pensieve, though?

Eric: Yeah, that’s fair. Also, I mean, I know it’s oversimplified in film, but you can presumably encapsulate memories – individual memories – into whatever vial or tube you happen to have on your hand, just like that. I mean, even if there’s an incantation for it, you can physically remove a memory, that there’s some sort of substance that goes somewhere, so with all these memory charms and the wizards’ wiping of Muggles’ memories, where do those memories go, then? Are they just somehow absorbed, dissolved…

[Michael laughs]

Eric: … versus being stored somewhere sort of interests me. So when you’re talking about wizards who’ve suffered great memory losses and also tying in as well what Slughorn does to bastardize his memory and recollection and how that all works. It’s interesting to think of it all being tied into the same… I wouldn’t have connected Pensieves with Gilderoy in St. Mungo’s at all, so that was pretty cool.

Michael: Yeah, of course, there’s an element here that wizards aren’t storing their memories. All of these individuals didn’t store their memories before their brains were messed with, so… The other thing that I thought was interesting to consider in tandem with this is that we get a depiction in Order of the Phoenix of a section of the Ministry where they preserve brains and seem to be studying them as well as the memories that are within them, because of course, when Ron touches one of the brains, it comes out and coils around him, and actually, I believe the writing says something about a stream of imagery that’s tied to these brains. Mary GrandPré depicts it, actually – in her illustration in the American edition – with pictures coming out of the brain. And as Madam Pomfrey says, memories can leave scars, so there seems to be an active attempt by the Ministry to study something about this. I’ve never really been sure, even, [that] what the Ministry’s studying is actually for the purposes of medical research. I would assume that was something that would be conducted at St. Mungo’s.

Eric: Maybe it’s too high-end. Maybe it’s too experimental, right? Like love itself. It’s sort of the top-secret facility, right? So you have labs that are just around, storing – so your local CDC and stuff – but then you have the high government Pentagon labs, which are just…

Michael: That’s true. I shouldn’t be blowing that off so easily. I come from New Mexico. We have a gazillion of those. [laughs] All over the place.

Kristen: Area 51.

Michael: Yeah, well, we have Sandia Labs. Yeah, we have all kinds of labs [where] they’re doing high-end government work, that’s true. And of course, I think Gilderoy is used as a more humorous aspect because… And Rowling, I think, was asked, actually, near the end of Hallows during either the live chat or her appearance for Hallows, if Lockhart ever recovered his memories, and she said, “No. He’s got permanent memory loss, and he’s quite happy where he is, and I’m really happy to keep him there because he got what he deserved.” And I think that’s the important thing to remember about Lockhart, is that he’s a victim of what is called “poetic justice”…

[Eric, Kristen, Michael laugh]

Michael: … in that he was doing this to others and so it shall be done unto him. Versus poor Bertha and Bathilda. The interesting thing, too, about Bertha that’s never explicitly stated but constantly hinted by characters is that she was kind of slow.

Eric: Yeah!

[Eric and Michael laugh]

Eric: I had forgotten about that. Yeah, Barty… Is it Barty…?

Michael: It’s everybody who talks about her. [laughs]

Kristen: Yeah, and it’s Ludo Bagman.

Eric: There’s a line though, yeah.

Michael: Yeah. I think even Sirius mentions it.

Eric: Oh, it might have been Ludo [who] was just like, “She was kind of slow anyway,” right?

Kristen: Yeah, she’d go missing for days and she’d be fine.

[Eric, Kristen, Michael laugh]

Michael: So it’s suggested… Now, the thing that… Okay, so that’s equatable to suggesting that Bertha actually already had some form of what I guess we would equate to brain damage, whether that was brought on by something or whether she was simply born with that. It’s kind of suggested that that’s part of her personality and that’s how she just always was. And it’s also, I think, meant to contribute to the grotesqueness of what Voldemort does to her.

Eric: It gets much worse if you begin to theorize, too, with Bertha. And the only reason I even think about bringing this up is [that] we were on a thread earlier of people with disabilities being abused by those around them and the propensity for it to happen in secrecy and stuff. But Bertha Jorkins, I was talking about her at Leviosa in July, I think it was, and somebody brought this up and I’d never thought of this or heard of this theory before, but Voldemort appears at the beginning of Goblet of Fire in sort of a fetal form. He’s sort of like a young baby, and the theory, I guess, is that he would have somehow possessed and assaulted Bertha and that she would have actually birthed this form.

Kristen: Eww.

Michael: Ugh!

Eric: While Wormtail found her and while whatever evil torture and extraction and things that he was doing with her, that that was actually how Voldemort acquired his form. [It] would have been way too intense to show in the book, which is why it’s not in the book and the book opens with them talking about having met Bertha and how it was the key to everything. But they could have used her for far worse purposes than the books even hint at.

Kristen: Blech.

Eric: Which, again, just something I heard, but I thought it would be possible and terrifying.

Kristen: Yes, it’s disturbing. [laughs]

Michael: Wormtail coerces her at a bar or something like that. He just encounters her just around, and that’s…

Eric: Well, she encounters him, I think, is how it went, right?

Michael: Oh, she goes snooping, yeah.

Eric: She’s like, “Oh, but I recognize you!” and he’s like, “Oh snap!”

Michael: “I can use you!” Yeah. Yeah, that’s pretty messed up. I’ve never heard that theory, but that’s a fascinating and completely disturbing theory.

[Kristen laughs]

Michael: But, I mean I think there’s room for that interpretation because, like you said, the fact that she’s constantly pointed out by the other characters to have been “slow,” as they put it, it is meant to amplify the tragedy of her being taken advantage of and being used the way she was by Voldemort.

Eric: And I think it’s basically said – right? – like “She was no good to us after what we did to her,” and “We had to kill her because there was no way she would’ve just ever…”

Michael: Well, yeah, the way they suggest it is that they basically turned her into a vegetable because they damaged her head so much that she wasn’t functional anymore. Not too dissimilar to what a Dementor would do to an individual, from the sound of it. And then, of course, Bathilda Bagshot. Yet again highlighting our horrible characters, Miss Rita Skeeter completely taking advantage of Bathilda’s…

Eric: Of Bathilda, yeah. I mean, that’s honestly all over the books, then, now that we’re talking about it, people taking advantage of these disadvantaged characters.

Michael: Yeah! Yeah absolutely. And then, of course, Bathilda, unfortunately, with her defenses further lowered, meets a sticky end, and one might even be able to suggest that that is in part Rita’s fault for leaving her in that state. Because Rita knows what she did, because when she leaves her that note when she sends her the book that says – what does she say? – like, “I’ll remember it even if you don’t” or something like that.

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Michael: It’s just… What the heck?

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Michael: And the ideas of memory loss and damage, I think, extend perfectly into our last set of characters that we have here: Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom.

Eric: Aww, Frank and Alice.

Michael: Yes, they are probably one of the most affecting characters who make such a short appearance, but they have such a long-lasting effect on readers in their short appearance. The interesting thing about the Longbottoms is, again, they are a victim of magical torture, but their condition is not clearly defined and never openly stated. And it’s another one that can kind of be a catch-all for a lot of different things. We mentioned briefly with Bathilda Bagshot, Alzheimer’s. It’s definitely brain damage.

Kristen: Yeah, those TBIs, all those traumatic brain injuries.

Michael: Yeah. Almost complete incapacitation of…

Eric: Yeah, I mean, you have these great Aurors. They’re analogous to the Potters as far as their successes: They had thrice defied Voldemort. They’re Neville’s parents. When you meet them in St. Mungo’s, I think it’s Alice [who] is writing notes on paper, folding them up and handing them to Neville, and you get the sense that they’re nonsensical, that there’s a disconnect, that even if they do say something, he’s not able to ever really find out what it is.

Michael: So yeah, and that’s a good point to bring up because there was a theory floating around the fandom for a while that the Longbottoms were actually trying to communicate to Neville something important through the gum wrappers. I’m kind of glad that that wasn’t the case…

Eric: Oh?

Michael: Yes.

Mary: Yeah, I would have to say the same, just… And I’ll let Michael continue his thought and see if…

Michael: Yeah, no go ahead, Mary. Go ahead, Mary.

Mary: Okay, so I think with the whole “communicating with the gum wrappers,” I mean, we know for a fact that there were a lot of things Jo was going to put in the plot if she had had the space and time at one point for it. Florean Fortescue was supposed to be telling Harry about – I think it was – the Deathly Hallows.

Eric: Yeah, I think you’re right, you’re right.

Mary: And then it ended up being Xenophilius Lovegood.

Michael: Yeah, he was going to be a replacement for Helena Ravenclaw.

Mary: So from that standpoint, I mean, having brought the Longbottoms into that, I think that would have complicated things too much. And I think it would have done them a disservice, almost, to have them incapacitated by the Cruciatus Curse and basically incapable of functioning on their own, essentially at a very child-like level. If you look at Augusta Longbottom speaking to Frank and Alice, it’s obvious that their understanding is only that of a small child. So to suddenly have them be like, “Oh, no, we’re actually communicating through what means we can,” I think that’s…

Eric: The version of the theory that I remember – and I actually really loved it – was from Galadriel Waters and Astre Mithrandir [of] Wizarding World Press, one of their books. It came with the caveat that St. Mungo’s was dirty and corrupt. And the evidence for it in the text is, characters like Lucius Malfoy are said to be heavy donors to St. Mungo’s. And so the idea was that these enemies of the Death Eaters are basically funding “dirty [St.] Mungo’s” to keep Frank and Alice down, essentially, that if Alice Longbottom is being forcibly put in that state and kept in that state, that the gum wrappers are then her escape, are her way of breaking out, her way to communicate to her son that something is going wrong. So there’s actually sort of malpractice, and Alice, in that theory, is a hero, is a survivor, who is escaping that. And it would eventually have been revealed that [St.] Mungo’s is dirty and that Voldemort, Dark forces, whatever, are controlling it. That would, I thought, have been an interesting twist to the state of magical welfare in the wizarding world. I definitely agree, it would have made the story too complicated or significantly more complicated.

Michael: Yeah. See, to build on Mary’s point, I think that the devaluing of the Longbottoms, if that were the case, would be that their parallel in the real world is that there are disabilities and illnesses that are incurable. And putting that story idea on them places an unrealistic expectation or almost a wish fulfillment kind of idea on them.

Eric: Yeah, well, but again, this was never actually alleged. It was just a theory. I was a cool and escapism…

Michael: That was a theory with legs. I think that was a pretty popular one for a while. And understandably so, because Rowling, again, never does anything without purpose. But I think sometimes we forget that there’s already plenty of purpose in some of the things she’s done that we’re reading into.

Eric: Yes, that’s fair.

Michael: And the purpose there is to say, of course, the emotional impact is that Neville’s parents communicate through the only means that they can to show affection to their son. And Neville reciprocates that. Whether or not people think that that’s a valid form of communication is irrelevant to Neville. And that’s what’s important. I mean, I experience that with Charlie because – and I discovered this over a period of many years – I communicate with Charlie in a very physical way. We hug. We hold hands. We have games that we play with our hands that communicate to each other. He speaks, and I know he understands everything I say, even when he’s pretending not to because he’s a little butt sometimes. But yeah, no, we have other forms of communication that other people cannot understand. If somebody else tried to communicate with Charlie the same way I did, it would take a while to build that communication with him. And your form of communication with him would be different [from] mine. My parents communicate different[ly] with Charlie than I do. And other people who have met Charlie communicate with him in different ways because he develops connections with people on a very individual basis. So I think that’s the value of Neville’s parents, is that communication aspect, just that little reminder that, as disabled as they have become, they are still in there enough to know that Neville is important to them. They don’t know maybe why, but they know he’s important. And that’s what’s so integral about their role. And of course, adding to Harry’s experience, if we tie it all back to Harry, Harry is so embittered by the fact that his parents are dead, but of course, then he realizes that there… This is part of his journey of realizing what Dumbledore [means when he] says that there are worse things than death. And the Longbottoms, unfortunately, are an example of that for Harry. So one more point to move on to. Well, and Kristen, you brought this one up in our planning discussions.

Eric: Yes, it’s yours.

Michael: And it’s super interesting.

Kristen: Yeah. It always popped out for me, though, about that. Just so Knockturn Alley in especially that movie scene where the guy is just talking to the wall…

[Michael laughs]

Kristen: … is more of these Muggle mental illnesses that these wizards may have, especially the guy talking to the wall. To me, that seems like an obvious sign of schizophrenia and just…

Eric: Was the wall talking back?

Kristen: No. So…

[Eric and Michael laugh]

Michael: Yeah, in the wizarding world, that is a possibility, but no. [laughs]

Kristen: To him, maybe. But to everybody else, no.

[Eric and Michael laugh]

Kristen: The wall was saying all sorts of stuff. But just… I didn’t know if Knockturn Alley was something where they’ve cast aside these wizards or witches who they have no idea what to do with them because it’s not more so the stuff you would see in St. Mungo’s because it’s not magical effects from them, but it’s something that we would see. Have they sent them to Knockturn Alley to be – I don’t know – just in that grimy place where nobody cares about anybody and all the people just seem to be “weird and different”? I don’t know.

Michael: Well, yeah, even Diagon Alley by Books 6 and 7 becomes a place where the impoverished go, and it becomes a last-ditch effort for people who are escaping Voldemort’s regime. And Harry definitely encounters more oddballs in Knockturn Alley, people who are outside the realm of his usual interactions, like that witch who’s carrying a tray of fingernails. [laughs]

Kristen: Human fingers, yeah.

Michael: Yeah. And I think, yeah, the movie does definitely, I think, more portrays this idea that you’re getting at, Kristen, with individuals who cast off mental illness and mental illnesses that are often associated with the homeless and transient population. And it’s interesting that Half-Blood is the point where they decided to do that visually. Because it’s in Chamber of Secrets.

Eric: Well, because you can’t have these bums scaring Harry and making it a not-so-wonderous world, right? In the most, most, colorful, vibrant version – perfect version – of the ideal Diagon Alley approach shot in Book 1, right? But you’re right. I mean, it’s remarkable that they do seem to show… And well, in Knockturn Alley, just… I love the implication that these people who are down here aren’t necessarily Dark wizards practicing Dark things. It’s just [that] Knockturn Alley is the place that they have been relegated to, essentially, because there’s less strict policing. You never really see a cop in Diagon Alley going, “Oh, you there, you’re loitering. Shoo!”

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Eric: But you can imagine that one exists and you can imagine that if it did exist, they’d be pushed to Knockturn Alley and that Knockturn Alley’s set of guidelines would be less stringent because down there, it’s a natural fit to be left alone, where people leave each other alone because everybody’s up to something. But in that essence, in thinking about how much of a proportion of the homeless are mentally ill, you can just see how the real-world implications would take root.

Mary: And I mean, think when you were going off of “Oh, there’s not a cop there because everyone’s up to something,” I think that could also be said, too, of the Hog’s Head. Before the whole thing with it being used as a go-between for the Order and DA, in terms of “you go into the Hog’s Head, you don’t really know who’s going to be there, and everyone’s doing some shifty stuff.”

Michael: Well, and isn’t that interesting? Because of course, the Hog’s Head is run by Aberforth, and not only is, of course, Aberforth obviously sympathetic to individuals who are outside of the social norms, thanks to his care of Ariana, but it’s also implied that Aberforth himself is a bit… Like Bertha Jorkins, Aberforth is never clearly defined in that way, but he is also often referred to as slow and odd. Dumbledore seems to take great glee, actually, in talking about how his brother is kind of simple. And he often…

[Eric laughs]

Michael: I mean, I think because Dumbledore is the brother, he feels that he has the right to do that, like when I say that Charlie is a butt, when he is. It’s a similar bizarrely affectionate thing that Dumbledore does, but at the same time, it’s damaging because Aberforth’s public persona is not very good. Obviously, pretty much all he’s in the news for is being Dumbledore’s naughty brother who does weird things with goats.

[Kristen laughs]

Eric: Yeah, but weird fetishes too, weird… anything out of the realm of – what is it? “Neurotypical”? – is all relegated to this sort of category.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And though wouldn’t it make sense, though, with what you’re saying, Mary, that the Hog’s Head would be a place like that? Because maybe Aberforth needed a place like that intentionally, based on his worldview. Because people like him aren’t really… Aberforth strikes me as not feeling really welcome at Hogwarts, especially when it comes to going… Dumbledore goes to visit him. He doesn’t go to visit Dumbledore. That’s made pretty clear in the dialogue, so I could see him setting up the Hog’s Head as a place for that, for people as he would view like him, who are on the outskirts of society. It’s not necessarily a bad place. It just seems like that, like we were talking about with Knockturn Alley. The wizarding world, very much like the real Muggle world, also has a penchant for pushing things that aren’t as pretty to the sidelines, pushing things out of the spotlight that they don’t want to deal with or that don’t conform to their pretty world that they’ve built up. I think that’s another one of the core pieces of Harry Potter, is that we as humans tend to have a nasty penchant for putting things out of sight and out of mind that we really shouldn’t. But I mean, at the end of our discussion here, maybe going back around to Ariel’s question that she left us with her audioBoom, do we think that Rowling… How do we think she did with her approach to illness and disability and special needs within the wizarding world? How do we each feel, overall, after having maybe further examined each of these characters and situations?

Mary: All right, so I think, from the standpoint of… and you can look at this too, from what Jo is doing now in the real world with Lumos and that kind of thing, but I think one of the things that she did really, really well with the series was maybe bringing up the more underlying issues in relation to illness and disability. We have St. Mungo’s and the Longbottoms having to be institutionalized because they can’t function. We have Ariana Dumbledore, [for whom] that was one of the concerns, was that she would be put in St. Mungo’s. We have this whole implication that some of these characters might be a little bit slow, that maybe they have something wrong with them, but everyone’s just more gossipy about it, whereas we don’t have as much in the way of concrete representation of characters as much as it is the themes beyond that, if that makes sense.

Michael: Yeah, we have characters who… A lot of these characters are background or they are — what Ariel suggested — meant to boost up the story of the main character. And I think that’s an important thing to also discuss here too, as we wrap up is how this all ties back to Harry, our lead, and even maybe wondering if there aren’t disabilities within the trio, within Harry. We talked about different degrees of depression. I would say Harry definitely suffers depression in Book 5. And I think maybe that would be possibly for a future topic, but I think you could even examine this in the characters who are neurotypical, maybe even breaking down their… Because I think we’ve even seen that to some degree with some of our discussion. I think Hermione has been a big discussion about that and her inability to properly socialize with others. She’s very smart, but she’s not very savvy with human interaction, something that she learns over the course of the seven books. Ron has a very severe lack of empathy in many cases and…

Eric: [laughs] He’s a blunt, blunt person.

Mary: [in a British accent] Emotional range of a teaspoon.

Eric: Yeah, there you go.

Michael: Yes. We have a lot of characters in the neurotypical group that have varying degrees of social anxiety. Luna Lovegood would be an excellent example of that, where she’s socially atypical. And as well as…

Mary: So right, because everybody’s got a little bit of something, even these “neurotypical” people. Nobody’s neurotypical. [laughs]

Michael: Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that’s an important thing to take away from the discussion too, is that while we cherry-picked these characters who were highlighted for their special needs, that doesn’t mean that the — as we termed it — neurotypical characters within the series don’t have these disabilities, these needs. They can be examined just as much too, and of course, we invite you, the listeners, to examine that in the comments that you leave for us. But also, Kristen, Eric, your final wrap-up thoughts.

Kristen: So mine was just going back to Ariel’s question that she asked. I thought the book definitely highlighted more of those mental illnesses and the physical limitations and physical disabilities, but I can see where Ariel’s side is coming from of those chronic illnesses. In what we were talking about earlier too, the cancer and everything like that, we don’t see that side. There'[re] so many other illnesses of your body, like all those autoimmune diseases and everything like that, that this doesn’t go into it all. So I see how she can see that side of illnesses that aren’t really covered at all in the books. But I don’t know. I think she did a good depiction of a lot of these things that we see in society now even though she wrote these quite a few years ago. It’s unfortunate that people are just now accepting of them, but even today, they’re not. But she’s still trying to educate everybody even though these books were written quite a few years ago. I don’t know. [laughs] That’s just my take.

Michael: Yeah, no. That’s great. Absolutely.

Eric: My final thoughts are just how fortunate I feel to have discussed this with people who know what they’re talking about…

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Eric: … and who’ve experienced it [first]hand because I actually didn’t know what to expect going into this discussion other than what we’d fleshed out in the Doc, but I feel like it was really insightful, really informative, and I just love that we can take something that we all love, Harry Potter, look at it in a new light, shine a new, fresh spotlight on it, and come out with such a richness having been discussed. So I’m just grateful to you guys and if I said…

[Kristen laughs]

Eric: … anything [that] was offensive or ignorant, please forgive me. It was not intended to be that way, and I just feel like I’ve begun to learn and think critically in a new way.

Michael: No, I think, Eric, that’s great because (1) I think it’s always worth saying that individuals out there who might be listening, who may not think that you have been [affected] by illness or disability within your life, think about it and examine it and think about the people you know in your life and the experiences you’ve had because you have been affected by that in some way. Everyone has. It’s inevitable. And if you haven’t, you will be. And I don’t mean that as a threat. I mean that as a…

Kristen and Michael: [in threatening voices] You will be.

[Mary laughs]

Michael: I mean that as a “be aware of that” because that is an experience that by listening to discussions like these and by examining texts like Harry Potter in this way, you can be better prepared for that.

Kristen: Yes. Don’t be judgmental. Try not to be.

Michael: Yes. Yes, be open-minded and approach it with an open worldview and you’ll… The other thing, too, is — to share a final personal experience — often, when we took Charlie out, Charlie would throw tantrums, and all people would do is stare. And if they really went the extra mile…

Eric: No.

Michael: … they’d comment, make horrible, nasty comments about Charlie’s behavior. And the one thing that people rarely, so rarely ever did, was offer…

Kristen: To help.

Michael: … words of condolence or help, yes. And that is all you need to do is offer…

Kristen: I’ve perfected my stare back at those people.

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Michael: Good. Good, because they need a stare back as a… Oh yeah, I remember my dad — and I would get so embarrassed, but I’m so proud of my dad for doing that now — used to snap at people. He would snap them and basically give a short summary of our life story, which, now that I think about it, what an amazing thing to do. And I still remember one time, Charlie was… You know how they have those ridiculous playland PlayPlaces in McDonald’s and Burger King and stuff like that?

Eric: Yay.

Michael: Charlie was stuck up in the top of one of those one time, and my mother sent me up to get him, and I was so nervous to go get him, but I went up there, and he was stuck up there because there were children up there and they were teasing him. And of course, Charlie had no idea what they were doing or saying. And I did and that’s one of the few times where I verbally defended Charlie in my youth, and I was so angry at those children and so appalled that children their age would be already so judgmental.

Kristen: It’s awful.

Michael: Because that’s not something… However much people may argue, that is not something children are born with. You are not born judgmental; you are taught it. And that always comes from somewhere, so if we continue to go forward with discussions like these and be open to listening to these aspects and worldviews, I think the world will be a better place for it. And I, for one, applaud Rowling for introducing and opening these discussions in a genre where this really does not happen. You don’t see a lot of disability even being incorporated into the fantasy genre. That’s not common. And I think it’s become more common because she made it interesting. She made these characters fully fleshed out, part of the world, an integral part of the world. And I, for one, am very excited to see where she goes next with that. I think it’s good that we continue to demand more of Rowling because we know she’s coming out with more material. We already know that Newt is another example of a socially awkward individual who does not relate to people very well. So that’ll be interesting to see how that plays out and if that will really be a major plot point or not. But I think that’ll… I’m sure – because, again, going back to the beginning – that Rowling has so much rich, personal experience with this, I don’t think this is a theme that she would ever completely abandon in her work. I think we can expect more of this from her in [the] future as we go through – what? – five movies now of Fantastic Beasts? [laughs]

Kristen: Yeah, yep. [laughs]

Mary: Yeah, five movies.

[Michael laughs]

Eric: Can you think of examples, real[ly] quickly, having read the Cormoran Strike series, I mean, can you think of any, besides Strike, in a hero with…? I think he’s got a prosthetic leg, right?

Michael: I am so embarassed to admit I haven’t finished it.

Eric: Geezum!

Michael: Hey, but I finished Casual Vacancy, which [laughs] not many people can claim.

Eric: Yeah, well, [I] can’t claim that myself, yeah.

Michael: And actually, Casual Vacancy includes a lot of that. There are not only individuals with disabilities, but Casual Vacancy also includes individuals who are impoverished, who are in various degrees on the wealth scale.

Mary: Socioeconomic levels.

Michael: Yes, thank you, that’s a much better word for that.

[Kristen laughs]

Michael: That is the actual term for that.

[Eric and Kristen laugh]

Michael: That’s words. But yes, no there are individuals with varying degrees of disabilities in Casual Vacancy that definitely affect how they play in the story. Casual Vacancy is a very carefully mapped-out puzzle of how these characters cross paths and interact with each other. So I definitely saw it in that. I’ve started reading Cuckoo’s Calling, and I never got the chance to finish it, is all it is, but I felt like there were themes of illness and disability that were inevitably going to come up. And she said that Cormoran Strike is going to go on for much longer than Harry Potter, so there’s going to be plenty more opportunity for that.

Eric: When did she say that?

Michael: Somebody asked her – I think on Twitter – if it was going to be seven again or if there was a set number, and she was like, “Nope, I’m going to do whatever I want.”

[Eric and Michael laugh]

Eric: Nope. We [have] got to end this.

Michael: Yeah. So I think the ending there is that we can easily expect more from Rowling on this theme, and we invite you again and remind you, the listeners, in the comments… I’m sure, as you’ve listened to this episode, that you are panicking because we have forgotten something because there were seven books and so much to talk about. That’s why we do Alohomora! the way we do it. We want you to contribute to that by going to alohomora.mugglenet.com and leaving your comments and thoughts about this episode. And if we missed anything, please, start up a discussion about it because we want to see your thoughts on this topic.

Eric: And this is the point in the show where we thank our guest, our lovely, wonderful guest, Mary. Thank you for coming on and speaking to us about this topic.

Mary: You’re welcome. It was fun.

Michael: Yes, thank you so much, Mary. We really appreciate you stepping in and doing this and having the willingness to share your personal experience on the show. We really appreciate that.

Kristen: Our next topic will be on Albus Dumbledore, so be prepared to listen to that great one.

Michael: Woo-hoo-hoo. Now – and as a reminder, listeners – with these new topic-based episodes, not only can you submit topics, but also, if you’re interested in a topic, the reason we tell you what the next topic is going to be is because we want you to contact us if you’re interested in being on that episode. We really want to get those of you who are interested in a particular topic on that topic episode. So please, when you hear the next topic and you’re interested, shoot us an email. And the way you can do that, you can go to our topic submit page on the main site, alohomora.mugglenet.com, to suggest a topic, and we give you the opportunity to say whether you would like to actually be on for that topic or not. [There are] plenty of topics to cover. We don’t have a lot of submissions nearly for things that could run the gamut here. So please, send in your topics. If you have a set of headphones and a recording program on your computer, as well as a built-in mic or a separate mic to plug into your computer, you’re all set. You do not require any fancy equipment to be on Alohomora! so we please ask you to join us on these discussions.

Eric: And between episodes, you can find us in one of our many social outlets, such as Twitter at @AlohomoraMN [or] Facebook (we’re facebook.com/openthedumbledore). Our website, of course, is alohomora.mugglenet.com, and just like Ariel did at the top of our show, you can send an owl to our audioBoom, which is also found on our website, alohomora.mugglenet.com. Click on the little thing that says “audioBoom” on the website and try [to] keep it under 60 seconds. We’ll have to punish Ariel for not doing that, but nevertheless, it was wonderful that she submitted it, and this is getting weird and long.

Michael: No, no, no. She gets privileges because she… being her, like Dumbledore…

Eric: MuggleNet is hiring.

[Michael laughs]

Eric: So if you want to work for the site and get privileges…

[Kristen, Mary, and Michael laugh]

Eric: … as Ariel did on her audioBoom, then come work for us and then you can get extended-play audioBooms. It’s a plug for MuggleNet internships, everybody!

[Kristen and Michael laugh]

Michael: And one more time, we want to remind you, listeners, about checking out our Patreon and thank our sponsor for this episode one more time. Crystal Hoover, thank you so much. It’s important that you, the listeners, help us out with this. We really appreciate it because that’s what keeps Alohomora! going. You can sponsor us at patreon.com/Alohomora for as low as a dollar a month. It doesn’t take much to keep Alohomora! going, but we really appreciate it because that allows us to continue these discussions beyond the chapter-by-chapter discussion we were originally doing into these great topics that you suggest. But for now, we will wrap up this discussion, and thank you all once again for listening to this episode. I’m Michael Harle.

[Show music begins]

Eric: I’m Eric Scull.

Kristen: And I’m Kristen Keys. Thank you for listening to Episode 206 of Alohomora!

Michael: [as Dumbledore] Open the Dumbledore.

[Show music continues]

Michael: And sign in… [sighs]

Eric: [sings] “The sweep is as lucky as lucky can be…”

[Michael laughs]

Mary and Michael: [sings] “Chim chiminey, chim chiminey, chim chim cher-ee!”

Michael: [sings in a Cockney accent] “Good luck will rub off when I…”

Kristen: [sings in a Cockney accent] “… shakes ‘ands with [you]…”

Michael: [sings in a Cockney accent] “Or blow me a kiss and that’s lucky too…”

[Kristen laughs]

Eric: It says, “Someone has posted a new clip to your channel,” [sings] the Owlery. It has been queued and is waiting moderation by you. You can view your pending clips and…”

[Kristen, Mary, and Michael laugh]

Eric: [continues singing unintelligibly]/p>