OOTP, 14 Revisit: Peeve'd

Episode Transcript
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(00:17):
This is episode three hundred and seventynine of Alohamoa where July twenty nine,
twenty twenty three. Welcome to anotherepisode of Alohamore, the fandom's original Harry

(00:41):
Potter book club. I'm my uncleLynch, I'm Cat Miller, I'm Jeff
Hutton, and I'm at your shoulder. And guys, we have no guests
today. It's just us, justhosts, which is very exciting. It
is just family, which is fine. Actually it's fun because it's the og,
Cat Miller and the three newest membersof our hosting So this is actually
kind of cute, right. Ithought that same thing when I saw that.

(01:03):
I was like, oh, becauseme, Asher and Jeff all started
at the same time. We did, like we're the fresh we're the current
freshman class. Is this like thefirst? Is not the first us?
I thought the most recent episode we'vebeen on all together since like the first
one? Or am I tripping?And we have not done and I don't

(01:25):
know we've actually I know we didit getting to Know You thing that people
can listen to on our Patreon,But did we have we even done like
a proper episode that was just thethree of us? I don't think I
wasn't even like a proper episode.I just met in general. If it
was like, this is like themost like since then since we all joined.
If this was the first like episodewe've all been on, and I

(01:48):
know I haven't been on with katin like forever, so very too long.
Well, I'm not on the showthat much anymore. So passing to
George to y'all the first years.Yeah, yeah, but today we have
a really fun episode for you.We know that we teased we had the
movie episode coming up, but dueto a couple circumstances, we're just pushing
that back one episode. So todaywe're here to talk about Order the Phoenix,

(02:12):
Chapter fourteen, Percy and Padfoot.This makes me feel really old,
but the first time we discussed thiswas all the way back in July twenty
fourteen with Eric, Rosie, Ginaand guest Mary Terry. So oh,
that's ah my god, nine yearsago. I can't believe we've been boadcasting
for this long. That's actually it'sso cool though, like it's coming man,

(02:37):
Like you, when you say Eric, do you mean who I think
you mean? Eric Skull? Yeah, Yeah, the legendary Eric Skull who
I will finally get to meet inperson at leak Ekhan a few weeks after
this recording. Yeah, that's crazy. I actually finally got my flight.
I'm so excited. It's gonna bedope. It is gonna be so much

(02:57):
fun. And of course it wouldn'tbe an episode without our Patreon thank you
and our sponsor for tonight, youknow, so thank you to Sarah and
Eisenbarth on Patreon for sponsoring today snapping. I hope people can hear it,
and of course for an ad freeversion of a little homra or to watch

(03:19):
this video, because like, whywouldn't you want to see our wonderful faces
and expressions, et cetera and soforth. You can head over to our
patren and become a sponsor for aslittle as two dollars a month or whatever
other version of money you want tocalculate that in I'm American, Okay,
visit patreon dot com slash a littlemoreto find out more. Can I just

(03:40):
quickly say I love that? LikeJeff started singing the name of the sponsor,
and I'm like, I think weneed to make that a regular thing.
Whatever the sponsor's name is. Weneed to see, we just need
to be like, go Sarah.I swear I did not. I didn't.
I wish I could say that Imade that up. And I hope
that Sarah likes that I sang theirname. But I swear it was one

(04:03):
of those commercials. You remember whenthere were commercials on TV all the time
for those compilation albums, and halfthe songs on the album were always the
same, and they were always fromthe eighties, and the other songs you
were like one hit wonders that younever heard. I swear there was one
of those compilation albums of hits fromthe eighties and there was a song called
Sarah, and it was the onlytime I ever heard that song, and

(04:24):
it's been stuck in my head forlike twenty years. Very nice. I
don't remember, but I still appreciatethat, So thank you. Well.
I hope Sarah enjoys the story ofwhy I sang their name, not that
it's not great and not that wedon't appreciate Sarah, just that I've had
that song stuck in my head forlike twenty some odd years, and now
hopefully it will finally leave. Imean, what, okay, you have

(04:44):
to tell what's which? Sarah,because I was just looking it up and
there's at least half a dozen songscalled Sarah. I do not know.
I never did, like is itslow in very eighties kind of yeah,
like the drums and the synthesizers inthe backg a very very eighties ish.
I don't know another way to describethem. Although this, Sarah is not

(05:08):
h can't we play it? Arewe gonna get it? Is it this
one? Hang on? It mightbe whatever? Oh no, it's not
that. I wonder which one itis. Then you're gonna have to find

(05:32):
it and let us know. Ipromise I will find out. I will
find the name of this xpert.There's one by Fleetwood Mac, Sarah,
Oh no, that can't possible.No, Please tell me that the song
is not by Fleetwood Mac, becauseif it is, I will be properly
ashamed because I adore Stevie Nicks.I don't know. There's a lot you're

(05:54):
gonna but you have to find itand tell us because now I will definitely
do that, And then you haveto comment link under the episode so everyone
else understand. Ye, stay tuned, Sarah. We're we're gonna get to
the bottom of this. We starteda brand new mystery. Here we will
get to the bottom, but inthe meantime, let's jump into the shout

(06:15):
out maxima, which will be fromepisode three hundred and seventy seven, which
was called Harry was Bleeding. Thiswas deathly deathly hollows chapter two. And
I'll have such a hard time sayingthis word Memoriam. Is that right?
My brain wants to be like Memoriumfor the chapter in Memorium with hosts Allison,

(06:41):
Jeff and Shamany and guests Titia.So this shout out maxima goes to
absent minded Raven, who says peoplecan present an idealized version of themselves via
any medium, not just social media. That's why public relations departments exist.
The difference is that with social mediawe haven't settled on and internalize the quote
unquote body language of posts. Thismakes deception easier, whereas, for example,

(07:06):
with someone making the same statement inperson, we're more likely to pick
up on the subtle cues that theyare trying to fool us. And I
ten thousand percent agree with this.I think that everybody on planet Earth can
probably agree that social media has itsadvantages and disadvantages. And one of those

(07:27):
disadvantages is that essentially it's like ahighlight reel, right, Like people choose
what they want to present, whichisn't necessarily a bad thing. However,
it also means set expectations, likewhat you're saying on social media is what
somebody posted on social media. It'snot something you witnessed in real life.
It's not the full story. It'snot start to finish. You don't even

(07:49):
have context. You literally see whatthey posted, and at the end of
the day, you just have totake that information and do what you will.
And I think that you know,in terms of um, in terms
of like Harry Potter and if weeven think about like the Daily Prophet and
all the stuff that goes out asreaders, it's so easy to rest to

(08:11):
be like, oh duh, thatstuff's not true. But just you know,
keep that same energy whenever you're scrollingyour social media feed. So I
assume this comment was in response tothe discussion regarding Dumbledore's obituary. Uh huh
yeah, okay, yeah, appsand minded Raven always nails it. Oh
yeah, I agree. But alsoI'm autistic, so like when I even

(08:33):
if someone talks to something tells mesame person. I'll take it at face
value, whatever that may be.So you know, okay, I'm gullible.
It's really easy to convince me tojust whatever you say, I'll more
than more than likely accept as factunless you tell me otherwise. Dude.
Surprisingly a dismay shock. People,I am also very gullible, So uh,

(08:56):
I get it. I get it. It's really it's really easy.
I've fallen for the oh, Gullibleswritten on the ceiling a trick at least
a couple of times, or atleast I've like I've like looked, I've
done that too. I'm not gonnasay I knew it was written there,
but I to make sure. Ihad to fact check. Wait what wait

(09:16):
you fell for what? Okay,there's just like joke. This one's like,
oh, um, did you knowthat Gullibles written on the ceiling?
And then they expect you to likelook up because you're like global enough to
believe that, And like the firsttime I fell for it, but like
the other times, like I knewit wasn't there, but like I had
to make sure so maybe the offchance that maybe it actually was written there,

(09:37):
who knows, I had to check. Okay, do you seriously,
oh for gullible written on this too. Don't come for asher. I fell
for that too. I think mostpeople if you if someone was like,
oh my gosh, look what's thatyou like, you would look It's my
My dad realized there was like thistrick with me that like if you are

(09:58):
like like t talking to me andthen you go like this and look elsewhere,
I'll naturally also do the same things. I think you're looking at something,
and I can know that you're doingit and like looking on purpose just
so trick me, and I'll continueto look there anyway because you're looking there.
Well. It's I think most peoplewould do that because we are naturally
curious as as a as a people. That's true, you know, it's

(10:20):
it's it's the pointing and the notwanting to miss out on something that may
actually be important more than actually takinga beat to process and say, okay,
who writes words on ceilings? Becausemy friends and I used to do
something similar with each other, wehad these two running gags that we did.
I think it was mostly my sophomoreyear of high school. One was,
hey, your socks are untied,and you'd look down because who ties

(10:43):
their socks. My personal favorite,you dropped your pocket. I never heard
no kidding like that actually got mewith. They did not get me with.
Your socks are untied, but theydid get me with. You dropped
your pocket. A couple of times. Because I was always dropping things,
I was terrified that I had actuallydropped something important, and I'd be looking
down before I'd realized they said pocket. It'd be like, wait a minute.

(11:05):
But my brain probably would have heardyou dropped something out of your pocket.
Like my brain probably would have triedto like to fit it and like
make it work. Ashure. WhatI want to know is, did you
ever fall for the It smells likeupdog in here? What? What is
that? What? Okay, Sothere's this joke where people say we just

(11:28):
do the joke, just do thejust do this, do the joke with
me. Okay, Wow, itsmells like updog in here? What's up
dog? I don't know what's upwith you. I thought it was like
that my dog has no nose joke, and I was like trying to like,
you don't know that my dogs mydog has no nose? How does
he smell terrible? That's my firsttime there's a worse version of that joke.

(11:56):
Did you know that there's an Yeah, I once had a dog with
no legs? Oh what did youcall him? I never called him anything
because he could never come terrible.Okay, Well, all jokes aside,
this chapter is not well. Iguess there's some pretty funny things in here,
so let's get to it. Threetuns should do it. Chapter.

(12:18):
Revisit Ladro of Phoenix chapter fourteen,Percy and pat Foot. I mean,
this chapter is real, real heavyon two things, passive aggression and secret

(12:43):
letters. Because here's what happens upin this chapter. So Harry wakes up
and he's actually glad that it's Saturday, and he celebrates by sending a cryptic
letter to his godfather, Sirius Blackwhile he's trying to enjoy a conversation with
Choe and the owlery Filth shows upand claims he's been told Harry might be
ordering dung bombs. Chose stands upfor Harry and he floats all the way

(13:05):
down to breakfast. According to theDaily Prophet, the Ministry of Magic allegedly
knows where Sirius may be hiding.They don't, and Sturge's podmore was arrested
for trespass at the ministry technically hedid. Instead of doing homework, Harry
and Ron decide to show up earlyfor quidditch practice. Between heckling Slytherins,
Ron being nervous, and Fred andGeorge making Katie's nose bleed worse, their

(13:28):
practice goes very badly and doesn't lastvery long. While Ron and Harry are
trying to catch up on their homework, Ron receives a secret letter from his
brother Percy. In this letter,Percy craps all over the rest of his
family while congratulating Ron on becoming aprefect. He also warns Ron that big
changes are coming to Hogwarts and heshould probably stop being friends with Harry.

(13:50):
Right after Ron destroys Percy's letter,Sirius shows up in the fireplace to answer
Harry's letter. According to Sirius,they don't know where Hagrid is and Umbrage
has a reputation for discrimination. Thechapter ends on a sad note when Sirius
makes Harry feel bad for not wantingto meet up in secret. In Hawksmead,
I absolutely love Harry floating down thestairs. That's all I wanted to

(14:13):
say. He does float all theway down the stairs, and it's just
what I love about I love whena chapter either begins and ends in the
same way or total opposites. Becauseone of the very first sentences in this
chapter talks about how Harry wakes upand he's glad that it's Saturday because the
first week has been horrible and he'sgot Quidditch to look forward to. And

(14:35):
then the chapter ends with him beingsad because Sirius Black shows up and he's
like hey, but then Sirius makeshim feel bad for not being his dad,
and it's like, okay, emotionalissues not yea. Yeah, I
forgot how much actually happens in thischapter. It's a long chapter. It's

(14:56):
forty eight minutes on the audiobook,I know, huge chapter. Does anybody
else judge I don't get to readas many physical books as I listen to
audio books. I know I've saidthis before, but does anybody else judge
the length of chapters by how manyminutes it takes for the narrator to read
them as opposed to page count?Well, I mean I don't often listen
to audiobooks, so I would sayit's the opposite for me, right,
I just like I had to likescant. I'd like page through and figure

(15:20):
out where the ending is and thenstick my hand there and be like,
all right, that's how many pagesI got to read. So, but
what do you mean by judging,Jeff, what do you mean? I
don't mean judging as in like,oh, I have an opinion about that.
I mean like when you feel likea chapter, like you said,
it's a long chapter. It is. But if I was reading the hard
copy of the book all the time, then I would probably not be thinking

(15:43):
about how long the chapter is byhow long it takes to read, but
by how many more pages I haveleft to go. But I listen to
audio books a lot, so Itend to think about how long chapters are
in terms of how many total minutesit takes to read them. That makes
okay checks. I think that forthese I kind of expect most of them
to be around this, because Iremember one of the really short chapters is

(16:04):
like the one um the only onehe ever feared. I know I'm saying
that wrong. Someone's going to butcherme for it, but I remember especially
that chapter being really short. ButI feel like I expect most of them
to be anywhere between like forty minutesto an hour or so, but it
is, it's definitely. It's definitelya Meadi chapter. A guy exp was

(16:25):
forty eight minutes. I feel likeit didn't take me forty eight minutes to
read it. I mean, Iknow everyone reads faster than they and they
read out loud, but it's justalways like such a weird like I don't
think it took to read that,but maybe it did. I don't really
know. It's like three am.Audio books are actually paced slower too.
They purposely read very measured and veryslow. So if you listen to an

(16:48):
audio book, I think I thinkthe research shows one point seven speed is
actually the speed did most people readon Interesting, I listened on one point
too whenever I'm like listening for theepisode, so I always end up speeding
it up anyways, Oh I listen, I listen. I double it up
for the episodes because two time ofspeed curly, I could, Oh my

(17:10):
god, how do you do that? Because I have the book in front
of me, and I listen whileI'm scanning the book, so it helps.
It helps me comprehend it in bothways, in two different ways.
Interesting, my family or a bunchof fast talker, so I can listen
at two times speed and kind ofprocess that people are saying, since we're
all sharing our processes. If I'mlistening to if I'm listening to a book

(17:32):
that I have listened to many,many, many times and it's not among
my most favorites, so I don'tneed to savor it as much. I'm
like one point five speed. IfI'm listening to a book that I have
listened too many times, but Iwant to make it last a little longer,
usually about one point two five orone point three, depending on how
slow the narrator is. Like recently, I got through the complete works of
Edgar Allan Poe. That narrator washeck in slow, so I had to

(17:56):
put that thing on one point forone point five. I have one point
six speed just to get him toread it a reasonable speed. Same thing
for the narrator who reads all ofthe Song of Ice and Fire George RR.
Martin books. That dude is slowas heck, and there is a
lot to get through in those books. Also, it repeats a lot.
I'm just sam But when it comesto preparing for a podcast, if I

(18:17):
have to stop and have thoughts andmake notes. Then I actually listen to
it at regular speed because I don'twant to have to constantly pause the book
while I'm like documenting what I thinkabout what I just heard audiobook for a
Game of Thrones must be must bea very awkward red oh my gosh,
like I can only imagine. Ican only imagine the kind of like the

(18:40):
guy has to read that stuff.Anyway, Bringing it back to the book
that we are actually talking about,does this seem a little messed up?
That Peeves is waiting around the cornerto give somebody a concussion like some of
his pranks. Some of his pranksseem like pranks. Some of his pranks
seemed like assault by a spirit.He's dropping busts on people's heads, and

(19:07):
he's setting people's pants on fire.I mean, honestly, not to be
a cliche, but I even thinkabout that year. It wasn't the fourth
year where he was dropping like thewater balloons, and I was literally just
thinking how angry I would have beenif he would have like messed my hair
up by like dropping that water onthere. And I've always wondered, and
someone please tell me, because Idon't know, are there any do we

(19:30):
ever witness Dumbledore and Peeves like inthe same scenario, I know that we've
I know mcgonawall, yes, okay, so in that scenario, tell me,
just tell me, Jeff. Theonly time we ever see Dumbledore and
Peeve's face to face is they changeit in the movie. It's the moment
when the Gryffindors get back to GryffindoorTower and the painting of the Gryffindor Guardian.

(19:56):
I don't like to say that Iknow it's Cannon in the books.
I know it's her name, butI don't like calling her that. We
all know who I mean. Butportrait the portrait, she gets to tell
her own story of what ha happenedin the movie. But in the book
it's Peeves shows up and says,oh, professor head serious Black has got

(20:18):
such a nasty temper. She wouldn'tlet him in sa puff thing. I
love that audiobook narration with that part. That's one of my favorite. I
don't like the characters doing good PeevesMan impressive, Larry jim Dale, Yes,
thank you, But I love Ilove when they read Peeves. I
just don't like when Peace shows upbecause he does things that are either really

(20:41):
annoying or basically assault. So he'sa Poulter guist. They can't charge him,
just like I wish they could justlike bake him go away, But
I feel like Dumbledore can't make himgo away. And I know that there's
someone who's going to make the argumentof Dumbledore also hired Um Gilderoy and Dumbledore
also, and I know that thatis the argument. But so it sounds

(21:03):
like there is no occasion where Peeveswas actually doing something such as about to
give someone a concussion or about tomess up somebody's hair when Dumbledore was there.
Because I am just curious, likewhy does Dumbledore let Peeves hang around?
Do they ever hang out? Arethey friends? I have an answer
for that. I'm sure you're surprisedto hear that. So way back in

(21:25):
the day, I forget exactly whatyear was, two thousand and four six,
is it in the thing here?Nope. Anyway, Leaky Cauldron and
Muggle Nat had a chance to chatwith the author and this specific question came
up. So I just want toread from the transcript for you the discussion.
So the three people talking are Emersonfrom MuggleNet Melissa from Leaky and the

(21:48):
author, so Emerson says, whydoes Dumbledore allow Peeves to stay in the
castle? Author replies with can't gethim out? But he's Dumbledore, he
can do anything, says Emerson.The author says, no, no,
no, no, no no no. Peeves has like dry rot. You
can try to eradicate it. Itcomes with the building. You're stuck.
If you've got Peeves, you're stuck. And Emerson says, but Peeves answers

(22:11):
to Dumbledore, and the author saysallegedly. Melissa says allegedly, and the
author says, yes, I seePeeves as like a severe plumbing problem in
a very old building in Dumbledore isslightly better with the spanner than most people,
so he can maybe make a functionbetter for a few weeks, but
then it's going to start leaking again. Would you want Peeves gone? Honestly?
And then they have a discussion abouthow much they actually really enjoy Peeves

(22:33):
even though he's a bit of apain in the ass, so Dumbledore can't
get him out. Yeah, wecan believe what we want, right.
The author doesn't have the final say, but that is her input on the
situation. So on the one hand, like, am I happy that he's
trying to set Neville's pants on firelike he's a liar liar? No?

(22:53):
Not really. Am I happy thathe's throwing water balloons on people when they
didn't ask for it? No?I don't like that dropping busts on people's
heads. Definitely not. But onthe other hand, does he make filch
miserable? He does? And Fredand George run off, Yeah, and
on Bridge and especially like I willsay it is a very satisfying moment when

(23:14):
Fred and George take off and theysay, give her hell from us Peeves,
and he like springs to a saluteand then does give her hell.
I enjoy that. Yeah, he'san agent of chaos. And his songs
are funny? Why it is?Yeah, his his songs are funny.
Like Peeves is the guy Like ifI'm if I'm like putting together a rap
cipher with characters from the story,I definitely want Peeves because he's got rhymes.

(23:38):
Oh Potter you Rodder exactly, OhPotter you Rodder the mixtape. Does
someone know the lore of whether ornot a poultr Geist was originally human or
if they've always been like an entity? Does anyone know if I remember,
right, that's the kind of thingwhere That's one of the differences between a
poulter geist and a ghost is thata post is an imprint of a living

(24:00):
soul. So a ghost used tobe a living thing, but a poulter
geist is like a spirit of somekind of energy. That's why it builds
up until it That's exactly probably whyI can get rid of them, because
you can only get you can getrid of like you can just spell the
energy, but like it still likesticks around. But like I asked that
because I think a lot of thelack of compassion for people and the willingness

(24:22):
to hurt people is because he wasnever a human to begin with, so
that there's lack there's like a levelof like, oh, well, humans
don't matter to me. I don'tknow what it's like to even be alive.
But like I when I read this, I thought it was like a
full on statue statue, and I'mlike, that's gonna kill someone. A
statue falling on someone's going to killthem. And I'm like, my bust

(24:44):
falling on someone could kill them becausetheoretically, theoretically, but I was thinking,
like a whole, like a wholestatue, like you know, come
crashing down like that's that is deathin its final form. Well, protypical.
I went and I did some researchabout the person who the bust is
for. But Jeff, I wantedto point out that you missed the most
important characteristic of a ghost. What'sthat that they're transparent? Oh? Very

(25:11):
good cat ghosts. And yes,so the bust is Paracellis, I think
if I'm saying that right. AndI had to look it up. There's
a world of there's a world ofinformation about paracels out there, but I
just sort of pulled out two things. So Paracellis was a Fostian I believe

(25:33):
I'm saying that right, character witha fabulous thirst for knowledge and given to
wandering. Though reports of his travelsthrough China and Asia Minor are probably inaccurate,
this part particularly was interesting to me. He was considered arrogant and surely
lacked tack. And this is fromthe website I have up here from.

(25:53):
Of course, my screen is blocking. Where is the name of this website.
It's aaas dot org. They don'thave what that stands for history of
something. You say that, butthere's there's the other quote here is most
of his work was not published untilafter his death, and his influence increased

(26:15):
posthumus posthumius. I can never someonesay that word. I always I always
put too much of an emphasis onthe age. Humorously. Yes, but
so I you know, maybe thiswas just like something that she pulled out
of thin air for no particular reason. But I feel like it's something to

(26:38):
very briefly discuss. Do we thinkthat there's a reason she picked this particular
person. He was really well knownfor bringing the science into bringing science into
medicine. That was a big thingthat he did. The sentence here,
particularly that mentioned that his influence increasedafter death made me think about nearly had
this nick in this scene. Idon't know, I just maybe maybe there

(27:00):
was something there. Maybe there's not, but I wanted to bring it up.
Yeah. I think she just haslike this list of famous people's names
that she could whip out every nowand then. Because it's the second time
that he's mentioned. The first timehe's mentioned is when Harry and Ron are
on their way to school and Harry'slearning about chocolate frog cards for the first
time. Because it gives a listof people whose frog cards he gets on

(27:23):
that first go around him. Oneof them is Paracelsus. Really, oh
yeah, it's right, but it'sI remember that because the last that's the
next to last one. The lastone is Merlin. Because it's like person,
I've never heard of person, I'venever heard of Paracelsus and Merlin.
Wow, so you heard about he'sheard of Paracelsus, I guess, because
I guess that's not that specifically WizardingWorld history. I don't know where I

(27:47):
heard it, but at some pointI heard that name, and I think
it stuck with me because I pictureda pair of Seltzer bottles. Oh okay,
I get okay, that's you know, that's that's that's fair word association.
Couple couple of soda stream bottles.I'm not weird. You have a
good memory. I have a selectivememory. I don't know why I remember.

(28:07):
See I remember that. I rememberpart of a song about Sarah from
the eighties, but I don't knowwho did it. But I cannot remember
what I was doing one week agotoday. One week ago today, I
was probably at a convention of somekind, because I go to so many
of those lately. And I havegot a ton more coming up, So
I just assume if I can't rememberwhat I was doing on a weekend,
I was probably at a convention eitherway, Okay, so irrelevant bust getting

(28:33):
dropped on, somebody murders them,it's fine, whatever. But then they'll
get to see the threstrals festrals,right, anyone who's there to witness the
death can see the festrals. Whata bonus? What's silver lining that?
Yeah? Who? No, this, I never thought about this before now,
but these I know. Hagrid tellsus specifically where we got this heard

(28:53):
of festrals because we start with amail in, you know, five females,
and Hagrid makes it sound like hewas breeding them the whole time,
Like have these thestrals been pulling thecarriages the whole time? Or just like
since Hagrid took over as gamekeeper fiftysome odd years ago, Because obviously people
take it as a given, andnobody has thought to mention thestrals before now.

(29:15):
It's not in a Hogwarts a history, or Hermione would have brought it
up. So well, I pulledthis quote that was published in the Pottermore
Presents ebook, So take it witha grain of salt. There's really no
confirmation that these were actually written bythe author. A lot of people think
they were written by the pottermore correspondenceof the day. But anyway, the

(29:37):
quote here says the herd started witha male and five females. They've lived
in the Forbidden for Us for years, and is believed that the original members
of the herd came to Hogwarts asmeans of transportation for some students before the
introduction of the Hogwarts Express. Andthe Hogwarts Express has been around for how
long since? Like the twelve twelvehundred, twelve ninety six or something like

(30:00):
that, like a long time.Wait, trains are as old as the
thirteenth century. Get out. Okay, maybe I'm mixing up to dates.
We wrote about it in one ofthe companions. Hang well, meanwhile,
while Kat's looking for us. It'sfunny because when I was on the I
think the chapter about Lunar love goodUmar like a few I don't know how
many episodes ago. Yeah, Ihad this. I think I mentioned the

(30:22):
same thing where I'm like, well, if this has been going on for
a while, like it would likeHermione would knows would be and you know
be in Hogwarts of History, andI was saying that too, because I'm
like, oh, like, noone knows like that that they just not
cite that, and as like atransportation laders. Everyone was like oh,
because I mean, like no onewould like, look, you know,
a second guess a moving carriage byitself, because like that's like not the
word lakes, that's not nearly theweirdest thing they've seen. So I had

(30:45):
twelve thousand percent think that Hagrid Brothosreally, yeah, I do, So
I had three of the four digitscorrect. It was sixteen ninety two,
not thirteen ninety two, but stillthat checks out. Yeah. Um,
in sixteen ninety two is when portkeys were set up to get the students.
A lot of them were missed,so Minister from Magic at the time
suggested the use of a train.So that's when they started using the Hogwarts

(31:07):
express. So I think we cansafely assume, if you take that Potter
Moore sentence as canon or even secondarycannon to just help inform some other things,
I think we can assume the Festralshave been there for a long time.
I would pause it that the authorof Hogwarts of History had never seen
death, and Argo never wrote aboutthe Thestrals because they didn't know they existed.

(31:34):
Any book that doesn't have an aldisdidn't see death. Wolla, en,
Wait, who did Haggard see die? Do we know? No?
Did he watch his dad die?His father? Okay, yeah, okay,
that's what I thought I would think. It doesn't stayed explicitly. I
was there when my father died,but we do know that his father did
die, and it's obviously very upsettingfor him because his father was his only

(31:57):
you know, family, and hisfather loved him. But it would make
sense that Hagrid would be there whenhis father passed. I'm surprised him and
Lena don't like bond over that moreor like, you know, no one's
like, hey, you guys talk. I don't even like they like they
both like watch their parents, likeI don't know, yeah, but they

(32:20):
know that about when Hagrid tells themabout the Thestrals, he does seem to
get like temporarily hung up on thefact that they are misunderstood, which I
think lends credence to the argument thathe brought them in because he would know
all about magical creatures and he wouldknow which ones are probably most misunderstood by
wizard kind because he kind of vibeswith those sort of creatures. And I

(32:44):
think there's also at one point.I think it's actually in two books after
this one, Hermione does mention thatBetilda Bagshot doesn't cover anything in a history
of magic passed a certain point inhistory, So okay, but one point
in history we have to find theday of the twentieth century. Anything earlier

(33:05):
than the twentieth century, Okay,So then I would just continue to argue
that. But till the Bagshot hadnever seen death and doesn't know the Festrals,
I can't listen. I like Haggardand whatever. I just I don't
think I can credit him for forbringing the Thestrals to Hogwarts. I think
we can credit him for domesticating themand making them easier to be with than
handle, and having people understand thema bit better. But yeah, I

(33:30):
think they've been there longer than Haggard. I don't think he brought them to
the Forbidden Forest. I think thathe's the one that started using them for
the carriages, because even whenever Iknow this is like later in the book,
but I think there was something abouthow the Ministry of Magic technically considers
them dangerous, and so I wasactually looking at him from the perspective of
Haggard is the only person who wouldhave the gall the all decity to bring

(33:54):
them in even though they are considereddangerous. So I was not even giving
Hagrid it was actually the opposite.I was thinking, like, yeah,
obviously in theory, we know thatthey are harmless, you know, unless
they are defending themselves. But Iwas just thinking Hagrid was like, oh,
yeah, thestrals, let's do it. I don't think that he I

(34:15):
don't think he like brought them intothe forest. But what really confuses me
is like, Okay, I understandthat we're going to have things like new
things introduced in new books, butI'm like, we're what five years in
now, and like, no onehas mentioned these and Neville, I mean,
I guess, do we is itconfirmed when Neville's grandfather died or no,

(34:37):
do we have the win or dowe just have the not exactly when
younger, That's what I would assume. So I'm like, and considering that
Neville normally is with them whenever they'retaken to the castle, I'm like,
how has Neville never brought this up. I mean, like we saw how

(34:58):
everyone kind of reactive went here mentionedthem. So I mean, if I
was Neville, given all the crapthat people give me as is, I
wouldn't be the one to want tobe the one to first mention, like,
oh, hey, do y'all seethe horse? But he wouldn't even
know that other people couldn't see him. He could literally just say something like,
oh, I wonder what these are. He would have no idea that
other people couldn't see them. Yeah, because Luna says the same thing.

(35:20):
Lena says, I've been able tosee them ever since my first arrived at
Hogwarts. She probably would have knowna little bit better than Neville what they
are, because that seems a littlebit more on the eccentric side of magical
creatures, which is her father's niche. That's like his thing. But it
I don't think she would have thoughtto mention them to anybody, because well,

(35:42):
she wasn't even friends with them untilthen. Una, nobody really pays
attention to her anyway. Cat's likefirst year they took the boats, didn't
say the festivals. Second year,Harry and Ron flew in a car right,
third year they take the carriages.Okay, so third year they take
the carriages, fourth year they takethe carriages. Okay, sure. So

(36:07):
my point is there haven't been yousay we're five years in, we're really
only four because we're at the beginningof the fifth year. There's only been
two opportunities for them to say something. In the third year in prisoner,
they were so concerned about like seriousand the crookshanks and scabbers stuff that like
why would they comment on the horsesthat they assume everybody can see, but

(36:30):
don't forget they also can't see them, so why are they commenting on them?
Was never even with them in thethird year, And I don't know
think so I still find it oddthat in let's say four years, not
one person, I mean, becauseyou can also feel them, so like
no one even like accidentally like walkinto it and was like, what is

(36:50):
going I know, we'll never actuallyhave an answer to this. I just
think it's interesting that at no pointthis has never been brought up, other
than the fact that, of coursethis is the book where there are introduced,
this is the book where they becomerelevant. Yeah, I think it's
just circum I think it's just becauseof the circumstances of their arrival and the
other things that were going on.I also think and have always thought that

(37:12):
the author didn't think of festrels untilbook five ergo, or maybe like she
had them in her mind previously,but like never thought that they were pulling
the carriages. I don't know,we'll never really know the like inner workings
there, but I do think maybeat least half of it was the fact
that she was like, oh,I never brought these up before, and

(37:34):
now I need to bring them up. So yeah, because there was that
whole discussion after book five came outabout why Harry couldn't see them at the
end of the fourth year when Cedricdied. That was I don't know if
you all were on the internet orin the asher you were like in Amiba
then, but but but there was, I mean, that was like one

(37:57):
of the topics after five. Yeah, it was like why Harry couldn't see
the fastils at the end of thefourth book. I remember that from Alohama,
like from listening to the first threeraid I remember that very big discussion.
But also, like like you mentioned, they also Harry and Ron,
which every obviously everything's in that perspectiveof Harry. Weren't even there like during

(38:21):
like a few of the of theof the of the them, like coming
to Hogwarts. So maybe Neville mentionedit and like you know, Chamber of
Secrets, and then no one's everyonewas like, what are you talking about?
And so you just never mentioned again. I would be bringing that up
every year every year. I'd belike, y'all don't see him, y'all
don't see that yat every year,Like I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't
want to give more reason for peopleto make fun of me, Like I'm

(38:43):
already being bullied as it is.I don't really want to like give more
ammunition. But I always picture thatthe thestral um like inspiration comes from the
fake horse, like the ghost horsedrawn carriage from the Haunted Mansion, if
anyone knows about like the little likefloating harness for the Haunted Mansion. And
that's always what I think about wheneverI think of faster roles, is like
that, that's what I think of. That's I mean, that's fair.

(39:06):
No, But speaking of Hotted Mansion, I'm just going to drop this one
line and say that I saw thetrailer for that, and that is too
scary to be Disney, and I'mgonna just leave that. I mean,
Disney is branching out though, likethey've made a lot more like not Kids
context. I was going to goon Disney Plus like they're they got like
more, you know, I don'tknow, like stuff. I don't know.

(39:27):
I think the original Wanted Mansion movieisn't the most like unscary thing.
It's just a lot funnier because uh, you know Eddie Murphy. Yeah,
one of my that we'll do thisand then we'll go talk about albums for
one. But one of my favoritethings at Disney, disney World Magic Kingdoms
specifically used to be Alien Encounter.It was like modeled after Yeah, the
Alien and it's it. I rememberlike clutching my brother's arm next to me

(39:52):
the first time that I went onthat ride, and then they traded it
in for La Stitches a Great Escape. Yes Stitch is Great Escape, which
just ruined the whole damn thing.But you know, Disney's not afraid of
scary. I think scary Coolhuna mentionslike a top five ride for me.
Hana mentioned is the Icon Legend thatmy favorite but that's a topic for another
episode. Power of Tarra and HauntedMansion. My dad's as a haunted mansioned

(40:13):
like freaky, like has like thedoom Buggy license plate for his car for
the longest time, Like he hasthe entire like sequence, memorize, the
entire all the ghost hoastlines, everythingmemorized. He got yelled at for mouthing
them during one of our times atDisney Iconic. Anyway, owls, I'll
never talk about these and Alaho morenever, I know. Owls, owl

(40:35):
Reese, owl ling, just peoplebeing owl ish up in the owl tower
whatever it's called the owl Tower.Hey, you know what, Harry just
wants to send a secret message viaowl, which makes me think owls don't
seem that expensive. Ten galleons isprobably kind of a lot, but they

(40:58):
make them pay like galleons for apotion book. If you're in sixth year,
you pay like eight galleons for awand so if you can afford those,
you could probably afford ten galleons foran owl that will carry your mail
and develop a personality and like beyour friend and sass you when you kind
of deserve it. So like,how come more people don't have owls.

(41:24):
I'm glad they don't have. Noone should own an owl. Nobody should
own an owl. Owl shouldn't befree. Well, I mean, I
don't mean own an owl, likekeep it in a cage, Like I
don't like I'm not in favor ofputting animals in cages. I'm just saying,
like, have an owl companion,like let it fly off when it
needs to, like take care ofit. But like be buds. You

(41:45):
know, in this universe they carryyour mail. This is how people communicate
with each other. So it kindof feels like everybody having an owl in
the Wizarding World is like everybody inour universe having a cell phone. Yeah,
except cell phones aren't stient. Yeah, but it's literally they're making an

(42:05):
AI. You might not know that. You could argue, you could argue
that they're they're getting there. Okay, Well AI can go suck it.
And also, cats and dogs havebeen domesticated. Owls are not domesticated animals.
But how do we know that they'renot domesticated in the Wizarding World,
Like they clearly are, like theyknow how, they don't how to bring
mail, they are domesticated. Yeah, I would argue they are domesticated.

(42:27):
These are magical owls we're talking about. You don't even have to give them
an address. You just have togive them a name. Name. You
can give them like a yeah,just give them the letter and say here
a headwig, and then headwigs offto like prime day delivery one or two
days. Your letter will get thereunless you're intercepted by the ministry. I
do think it is the same becausethey're clearly breeded and they're sold, and

(42:50):
people are making money off the owls. I believe if you um want to
have an owl to deliver your mailor something, there shouldn't be like breeding
practice and all that stuff for them. So just puppy mills. It's just
puppy mills, which is not whichis not better. So I was curious.
I looked it up to like theexchange rate to know how much ten
gallions would be an. I said, that's about two hundred and fifty dollars

(43:14):
um. So where'd you look thatup? Did you use the galleon converter
on the wiki con No, youknow, I'm actually never mind. I'm
not trusting that. I just realizedthere's a there's a converter. Hold on,
oh, it's on the lexicon.The it's there's an arrow. It
doesn't work. If someone else wantto try, don't. I don't.
I don't trust that. I mean, fifty dollars would sound about right,

(43:37):
because when you go to adopt umthese days, if depending on who you
go through, like what channels yougo through to go and adopt most domesticated
animals as a pet, and thenif you live in say an apartment,
you have to add them to yourlease. It costs about not much in
my experience. What's concerning me isthat you said a textbook calls costs nine

(44:00):
galleys, and if you're telling methat, actually that's still accurate. Though
that's a lot of textbooks, SoJeff, I would actually because you were
like, oh, well, ifyou can afford the textbook, why can't
you afford an al. I'm like, I can't afford the ale the owl
because I bought the textbooks. SoI'm looking at it from like the opposite,

(44:21):
like you have to choose, likeit's one or the other. Most
textbooks now are like in the couplehundred dollars rangers, like, especially when
you get up to college and likeif you've got a situation like the one
that they were in three books beforethis, where you have a professor making
every student by a complete set ofeverything they've ever written, and those things

(44:42):
are on the best seller list,so the retail price is probably super high.
And the funny thing is they stilldo that. I've had professors literally
plugged their books as as like classlike reading stuff, like we've reused a
professors actual books as I required liketextbooks and classes as they do that.
As of nineteen ninety four, tengalleons is about seventy eight US dollars.

(45:05):
Okay, So that's okay, Sothat I would expect it was that lying
the crap that I just read.I didn't even I wasn't reading, like
I didn't read who wrote it.It was like business insider. I'm like,
okay, they don't know anything,Like I'm not going to trust one
galleon. One galleon is about sevenUS dollars and it's like just slightly higher
in pounds. I think it's likeeight and a half or eight point seven

(45:28):
exchange, right lord. But alsoyeah, in that case, I don't
know, there's like free public owls. I would just I would choose a
public owl, because can't you onlyhave one pet? Like, aren't you
will only permitted? Yeah you anowl or a cat? Or yeah,
yeah, of course I would choosea cat. I'm sorry, Like this
is that's just that's just the truth. So I mean, like I would

(45:51):
use the public free owl. Ohso then you just choose I think maybe
you were just saying this, Ohthere were just the public owls like Hogwarts
offers. I will just belay,all right, I'll use one of them.
Like your home and you want tosend me ol do you just maybe
there's a post office? Yeah,I mean a post office in hogs means,
so assume you assume that there'd bea magical post office somewhere near you.

(46:14):
Yeah, I don't go. Idon't not go to the post office
in the muggle world. I'm notgoing anywhere. Like it's imply that most
families have like a family owl.Yeah, Like it's kind of like I
wouldn't need my own personal owl ifmy family, if my theoretical family had
an owl, So like I wouldjust choose the cat, like I can
I can say that as a solidargument in general, I am like petrified

(46:37):
of birds. Um, I loveheavy, but I think, but what
I like about a cat is likeyou can cuddle a cat and like,
so I can see how like ifyou wanted like a pet, but Harry
doesn't give I want a pet thatI can snuggle vibes so you can snuggle
an owl. I do not seeanybody snuggle like an owl. I will

(46:57):
send you some videos. I haveproof you can ugle and ow. Okay,
well you can. I have obvioulyhave a girl hugging a bear.
That doesn't mean that like it's acommon practice. There's an exception to every
rule. But I think if youif you actually want more of like a
pet, like like a best friend, like a you know, then yes,
I agree that like a cat makesmore sense. I would be very

(47:19):
peeved like and Harry's circumstance if Iwas like allowed permitted like a cat and
that was yes and I was andI and I was forcibly given an owl
like I know it was a gift, but like I would be so I
cannot see Harry wanting a cat.I think he was like perfect me personally.
I would be so bothered if someonelike it's like here's an owl,

(47:40):
like that's not what I wanted.People want a toad? What is the
toad for? Like exploit? AndI've actually very for like two days.
I had a pet toad when Iwas like ten, and I was like,
yeah it did. I was like, we gotta let you go.
This is I mean for people withallergies, a lot of people what happens
if you're allergic to an animal andhave someone else has it as a pet.

(48:01):
Also, some people just like toads, I mean talk about animals that
are misunderstood. Toads are never goingto be somebody's first choice. Maybe somebody
sees a toad at a pet storeand knows how that feels. That's how,
that's how it's so perfect for Yeah, but then you gotta have like
water, it just seems like alot. It's a lot more maintenance in
my opinion. They need to eatlike live insects, Like you know,

(48:22):
how hard isn't try to catch alive fly and like that, Like it
is not like is easy as itsound. So your statement it was perfect
though, because you're like, oh, well, someone wouldn't want to choose
like the last like chosen like pet. Often most people wouldn't want and that
that's very much fits Nevill's characteristic.Even if he wasn't didn't choose the toad,
it just fits the metaphor that isNevil. Yeah, I think it

(48:45):
fits him well either way. AlthoughNevill hated Trevor, and I'm certain Trevor,
if anything, it was the otherway around, Trevor hated away trying
to get away. I guess youcould ask why he was trying to TV.

(49:05):
Yeah. I do think Neville didnot like Trevor. I think that
he felt um very embarrassed by Trevor. I think that he I think that
he despised having to take that toadto Hogwarts, which is why Trevor eventually
just disappears into the night and Umruns away and Neville never tries to find

(49:27):
him again. So he was forced. How did he get I don't remember.
Neville inherited Trevor from his uncle alyea, his great uncle Algie was
What Neville says is that his familythought he wouldn't be magic enough to go
to Hogwarts, but then when itturned out he was a wizard, his
great uncle Algie was so pleased hebought him his toad, so he was

(49:50):
a present. Technically, inherited.Makes it sound like it was passed down
to him like Scabber Scabbers was inherited. But that's like a whole thing.
So as we forgot, we canalso have a rat again the cat.
I mean, you can't technically havea rat, but for some reason.
Okay, well, I'm gonna standby the I stand by the opinion that

(50:10):
if it is pocket sized, youare allowed to have it at I mean
you tighter. But then there's youknow that you know, Jenny Lee Jordan
tried to bring a tarantulata Hogwarts.That's book one. Yeah, that's true.
I mean, if you can sneakit in, then, like I
said, pocket size exactly. Butgetting back to this book, which is

(50:32):
like the third or fourth time I'vesaid that this episode which these tangents are
magical, I live for them.Uh filch shows up and ruins a perfectly
good impromptu you know, sending stuffto our relatives date in the owlry between
Harry and Choe, and he sayshe got a tip off that Harry is

(50:55):
sending an order for dung bombs.No one believes that, right, Like
that's bologny. Now he can blamemade that up. You know what.
I What I wonder though, isexactly at what point was he given this
assignment that he needs to keep aneye on what Harry is doing, Because

(51:15):
I think it was pretty much fromthe jump because Filch knows the ins and
outs of Hogwarts. He likes totry to bust the students anyway, So
I think that was one of Umbridge'sfirst priorities was get the caretaker to spy
on this kid in particular, andif you see him sending a letter,
like bust him and try to getit from him. Because this is the

(51:36):
first time Harry goes up to theowlry to send a letter, isn't it.
Yeah, this whole since he gotsince he got to school. It
is. I know he sent otherletters earlier in the book, but like,
this is Filch doing a really badjob at espionage work, because first
of all, Harry sends the letterand then he shows up, so he's

(51:59):
gotten nothing. Yeah, and heuses the sorriest excuse. I mean,
I think it's also, just likeyou said, the very tactical choice to
make sure it's like Filch that's doingdoing the work for her. Because also
he literally has like you know,a companion that is known to also assessed
with roaming the halls. That's foureyes instead of two even Yeah, I

(52:22):
would also remind us that despite thefact that this is chapter fourteen, we're
only about a week and a half, two weeks into the term, so
this is still like early mid September. And I think Jeff was totally right
um that Umbridge's first task is toget Filch on her side and missus Norris
by association with Filch, and she'sand she still has this idea that because

(52:49):
she is a ministry official, allshe has to do is flex her authority
and people will fall in line,because that's her thing, is just dominating
people, and if they don't doas she says, she makes them sorry
because she just takes it for grantedthat people will either respect her authority or

(53:12):
they will eventually bow down to it, because she does it all throughout the
book. She thinks that all shehas to do is give these ministry style
commands and she'll get what she wants. But she doesn't do enough research when
she shows up to figure out,Yeah, Filch is a student hater.
Yeah he knows the ins and outsof Hogwarts, but every time he goes

(53:34):
out to try to accomplish busting students. How often does it actually work?
It doesn't. Yeah, Filter isforever going to Dumbledore saying round the students
are at it again, and Dumbledorejust says, oh, Filch, you're
so sick. But she does eventuallysee that like, okay, like it's
good to have Filter on my side, but obviously I need more. Because
then she ended up doing the whatis it the inquisitorial squad, and when

(53:58):
that Daco joined her whatever, soI you know, she she she started
out with like just Filch slash missusNorris and then she she upgraded, so
you know it's it was. Itwas an optimization tactic, she assessed.
She looked at the data and waslike, all right, Filch is good
to have him on my side,but it's not enough. And then she
stepped it up. I mean,I think she quickly relized that Filch and

(54:21):
himself is not very good busting peoplemost of the time. He's not good
at most. Let me ask Philcha very fair question, what does he
do successfully? That's also very true. He was cleaning up that water in
Chamber of Secrets. Look at thatwater he held up Snake six, he

(54:45):
helped Snape bandage his lag after Snapewas bit um. I would also remind
us that that Umbridge has a sortof a hatred for squibs anyway because of
her brother as well. So umI think that at Umbridge probably didn't.
You know, philch tries very hardto keep it a secret that he's a

(55:06):
squib, So Umbridge probably didn't knowat first, probably very quickly realized that
he's not only incompetent, but perhapsthat he's a squib. I don't know
that she knows that information, butI think that, yeah, we are
all on a grant, and thefact that she that was the right move
on her part to get filled onher side right off the bat, even
if he is not the most competent, the most competent of caretakers is at

(55:30):
the school. If someone's status asa squibs like knowledge that like the ministry
has like as like you know,is that something that like she would be
able to access within her like likejurisdiction technically speaking, like which I kind
of sere as a person like youback, I think everyone and I feel
like she's like in there, likelooking at people's files, like uh,
like this, this, and thatis the information I need to know about

(55:52):
this person, So, like,is it possible shared in you? We
know that they can do that becausethey they do that to missus Fig during
Harry's try. They say that they'regoing to be checking to make sure that
she's actually a squib because somebody whois adjacent to, and knowledgeable of,
and able to access the wizarding world, but has no magical powers and no
record of ever having studied at Hogwartsor anywhere else. Yeah, they would

(56:15):
probably need to have a way ofchecking that to make sure that muggles aren't
accidentally violating the statute. I agree, Yeah, so I feel like she
definitely was doing some snooping. Shedefinitely utilizes that power by far. I'm
not sure she would have been suspiciousso filch immediately because he's at Hogwarts,

(56:36):
and most squibs choose not to livein the magical world, very specifically because
it's too hard, it's too sad, it's too depressing. They get picked
on all that stuff. So Idon't think she would have been immediately suspicious
of him, and I don't thinkshe would have looked him up preemptively because
I don't think she cares enough aboutcaring about filch. She only just wants

(56:58):
to be in power. I guessit was like after he was not succeeding
well, but she's like, Ineeded to see what's going up with this
guy. Maybe or she just pushedit a sign like Bianca said, made
the inquisitorial squad because they're clearly morecompetent. Maybe she just thinks he's a
really crabby wizard. I mean,I don't know, he doesn't even have
a wand no he doesn't. Butthen again, I mean his job probably

(57:20):
would be if he could do magicand he did have a wand it would
probably make a lot of the moremundane tasks of his job a lot easier.
Yeah, but then again, thereare some people in the wizarding world
who, in spite of being ableto use magic, prefer elbow grease.
They prefer to do you know,physical work, like I would. Actually
probably if I lived in the wizardingworld, I would probably handle things that

(57:42):
way a lot, Like I wouldknow I could do magic, but I
prefer doing things that are actually physicaland that require actual movement, So I
would probably not be whipping my wandout for everything. I'd use if for
cleaning. There's absolutely no way Iwould do anything that requires elbow grip.
If I were a wizard, ifI okay, so here here's my faul
process. I was a wizard fromfrom them, from my birth, then

(58:06):
yes, I would never even considerit. But if I was like born
into a Muggle family and and likeI was doing chores normally for the first
eleven years of my life or whatever, I would make sure that my kids,
that they were all like born intothe wizarding world, would at least
know how to do chores like theMuggle way, and then be like,
all right, you guys like haveto like fifty percent of our chores the
muggleway and fift percent of the choreswith magic. We need to make sure

(58:29):
we don't, don't you know,we don't you know, build a heavy
reliance on it just in case.It's it's good practice, you know.
It's like how people like you know, ensuring that even if you grow up
like you know, wealthy, thatyou still like learn how to work a
job. That kind of thing,Like it's good like knowledge to know,
in my opinion. But filch bustingon this meeting between Harry and Chow,

(58:50):
and I think it might actually beOf all the Harry and Chow encounters,
there's always a tinge of awkwardness.Sometimes it's like a whole heaping helping of
awkwardness. I think this might bethe least awkward Harry and Chow moment that
we get, because the first onethat we get he gets turned down for
the ball, Then the next onecovered in stink sap, next one,

(59:13):
Ron being a hater about the tornadoesruins the whole conversation. Then there's this,
and then there's the one where shecries about Cedric, which understandable she's
been through a thing. And thenthere's Harry thinking that she's talking about the
DA meeting but she's trying to askhim out on a date, and then
he has to put that thing down, flip it, reverse it, and

(59:34):
save the date, which he does. And then there's the date, which
is the most awkward of the bunch. And that's really all the Harry and
Chow moments like one on one thatwe get. So this filch busting in
on them trying to send mail andher sticking up for Harry, I think
is somehow manages to be the leastawkward. Of all of their encounters,
of which, by the way I'vecounted, there are seven. Oh big

(01:00:00):
surprise there, Okay, and they'reall extreme, this one is still awkward.
Even if it's the least awkward.I was still like, yeah,
there are no not awkward encounters betweenthese two people. It's just that's a
sign right there that their relationship wasnever going to last because they can't have,
you know, the two of themtogether without it being awkward. There's

(01:00:22):
no chemistry. Okay, it's true, no chemistry. Remember remember these are
fourteen and fifteen year olds. Theydon't have any encounter in their entire life
that is not awkward ever. True. But Cedric and Cho seemed like they
were pretty happy. But then twoyears older than Cho, that's true.

(01:00:43):
And he was also very mature,much more so than a lot of the
other students, said hogwarts, whichis why he was the ideal champion.
Also, he was a huffle popand not a hot headed griffin door.
I was going to say that everythingyou said that cat, because I was
also going to say he was alsohufflepuff. Let's just go ahead and drop
that in there. I just wantto say Number one, Jeff I'm so

(01:01:05):
appreciative that you wrote all those outbecause I was laughing so hard as I
was reading through that list. Andalso I'm curious, and listeners please chime
in. I'm wondering if Cho,no, not, if Cho, would
Choe have said yes to Harry,if Cedric had not gotten their first slash,

(01:01:27):
if Cedric had asked her out afterHarry and she did say yes to
Harry, would she drop Harry forCedric? Taking into account that Harry and
Cho are awkward and Cedric is twoyears older, He's actually attractive according to
the way he's described in the book, not because he's Robert Pattinson and and

(01:01:49):
because he's a hufflepuff. I'm justI don't know, I want to I'm
just I'm curious. So, likein an altar, this is like the
Marvel what If? Like this,this is wisiting work old? Hey,
Hey, for the record, Marveldidn't invent the what is This podcast?
I've been doing that a long timeother podcasts, So do not give the
credit to Marvel for the what If. Hey, I'm just saying, Marvel

(01:02:12):
what If was a good show.I liked it. Oh, I don't
like it fun, I mean itstarted as comic books even before that,
So I mean, really, I'mjust a big fan of UM doing the
female version of Captain America, LikeI want that movie. I don't know.
I don't know that chose crush onHarry was even you could even consider

(01:02:37):
it a crush. Maybe it wasmore of a like mutual quidditch respect,
like maybe of course she thought hewas cute, but she wasn't like thinking
about trying to date him. Ithink she probably would have said yes,
Um if Cedric had then asked her. I think she probably would have thought
really hard how she could get outof going with Harry, because I do

(01:03:00):
think that Cedric can show we're bettermatched in general. I'm just not sure
that her like for Harry was everreally that strong, And I honestly kind
of truly always thought that her hercrush or desire to be with Harry throughout
Prisoner, I mean throughout Order thePhoenix is fueled simply by her desire to

(01:03:24):
know more about what happened to Cedric. I don't think she likes Harry for
Harry, I think, yeah,I do agree. I think he's a
bit of a rebound. Yeah,there's like multi levels that. I mean,
on that date, she asks ahundred questions about, oh, did
Cedric say anything about me before hedied? You know, like that's the
only reason she's there. It's likeit's like, quit want to talk about

(01:03:45):
your ex to like whoever you're ona day with. But I don't think
it's the only reason, because evenbefore Cedric asked her out, she was
her interest was piqued. I'm notsaying that she was like I want to
make Harry my man. However,it was very clear that she was.
At least he has given him theeyes. And like, women, let's
be honest, if you're not interested, you're not giving a guy to eyes,
you're literally avoiding eye contact. Solike there's like there's nothing like subliminal

(01:04:10):
there, Like if she was givinghim the eyes, she was interested.
Does anyone think she was only interestedbecause he was Harry Potter? No?
No, I think I think theultimate, the ultimate h you know thing
here is that there was no losingin her situation. Going et Cedric or
Harry both had its benefits because Athey're both champions, and B if it

(01:04:31):
was you know Harry, at leasthe's also the chosen one. But like
et Cedric, he's older and cute. Like either way, she was winning,
Like either way she was gonna beshe was gonna be getting people's jealous
attention regardless in my opinions, eitherway she's like, I'm mua get him
both. Either way, she's agirl bossing outside and it will work on
and it will work out with neither. You know what, it would probably
take a couple of years of likeworking on herself, years after this point

(01:04:55):
to actually understand why it is thatshe is going for Harry. I think
she genuinely believes that she likes Harryfor Harry in this moment. But fourteen
and fifteen year olds and sixteen yearolds and however old show actually is at
this point, you know what,they're really bad at processing and understanding what
their emotions are, especially in themoment, because they got teenager hormones to

(01:05:16):
come bat with. Because you knowwhat, Jenny Weasley has a thing for
Harry from the jump for a longtime, that's the only thing they ever
tell us about her. And shelikes him from the beginning because he is
Harry Potter and because he's famous.Then it becomes a little bit of attachment
because he saves her life. Andthen she slowly starts to get more comfortable

(01:05:41):
with him, the way that shetalks to him, the way that she
approaches him, slowly starts to becomemore comfortable. Then she dates a bunch
of people who aren't him, apparentlyon the advice of Hermione, which I
think was sound advice. Date otherpeople, live your life, move on,
don't stand still. That's good advice. But what's interesting is with Jinny.

(01:06:02):
You get from the beginning she onlylikes Harry because he's famous, But
by the end of it all,she is the only person who genuinely is
in love with Harry for reasons otherthan he's famous. Harry Potter, that's
the only time Harry gets that.Okay, this isn't this is another episode.

(01:06:24):
But I couldn't disagree more than Jennyonly likes Harry in the beginning because
he's famous. Couldn't disagree more,truly, couldn't disagree more. But that's
a whole that's another episode, becausewe here talk about show, not Jenny,
who doesn't even make an appearance inthe chow. For the record,
I think I think it started there, but then I think, you know,
obviously he's there at the house,she's seeing his personality more so,

(01:06:45):
I do think that it grows intomore. But even when I look at
it from the perspective of show,the other because Jeff, I like that
you were bringing up you know,like she's wait, she's fifteen or sixteen
at this time, she's a she'sfifteen year older. Yeah, she's a
year ahead of Harry, I thinkso, I think she's like sixteen.
So the other thing is you haveto also take into account the show is
also very popular. She's pretty,she's popular, she's always surrounded by giggling

(01:07:09):
girls. And let's be honest,there is there's a certain level of expectations
that you have as like the prettypopular girl, like you're supposed to be
with another guy who was also prettyin or popular. And I'm not saying
that that is what I don't think. Again, going back to what Jeff
was saying about it would probably takesome personal growth and for her to reflect
on it. But I think alsoin the moment, if you are pretty

(01:07:31):
and popular and a quidditch player,the expectation is that you're going to be
with somebody like Harry or somebody likeCedric so I don't necessarily think that she
was only liking Harry because he wasHarry Potter. I don't think that's the
only reason I think she was interestedin him, But I do think that
it does play a big role becausethat was her role at the time.

(01:07:53):
She was the popular girl. Solike, part of your role is to
have a popular boyfriend. And wedon't know if that many popular guys at
Hogwarts other than you know, thefew that were mentioned. Wow, I'm
surprised I wasn't Victor Crum another butanother time, another time. Shall we
move on to Sturgis. Yeah,we are at breakfast and the Daily Prophet

(01:08:17):
is getting some stuff right and alot of stuff wrong, because they do
talk about how Sturgis Podmore was arrested, which he was for trespass at the
ministry, which he did technically,this is this is the part that's funny.
He was caught trying to get througha locked door. But at that
point, is it Sturgis Podmore thathas the um I know Broderick Bode reacts

(01:08:42):
badly to an imperious curse. Dothey do the same thing to Sturgis pod
More, Like, does he getan imperious curse put on him. We
find out, I'm confused. Happensis that um Lucius is also around there
because he's trying to get into thedoor, but Sturgis is under an invisibility
clothe Glucius here's Sturgis puts him underthe imperious curse to try to break in

(01:09:03):
and get the prophecy on his behalfand gets caught trying to break in,
so it wasn't necessarily a bad imperiouscurse. But then once he's caught,
of course, he's told not tospeak up because either side doesn't want anybody
to know that they're trying to getinto that room for a specific purpose.

(01:09:23):
So and that's all revealed at theend of the book. For the record,
that's not speculations. Where where Whereare the security cameras? Where are
they? Why? Why those thingsdon't work? Surrounded by magical energy,
there's no cameras. I'm sure there'san alarm on that door, you know,
a magical alarm, and Eric Munch, you know, whatever goes off

(01:09:44):
and he goes down there, ormaybe he just saw it happening on his
rounds. I don't know. Theinvisibility cluote came off. I don't.
I don't know that we specifically,but the alarm only does so much good.
Yeah, because putting the curse onhim to get him through the door
to get the thing, which theydon't know what it is, because Valtimore's
not going to tell him, theyobviously would not want him to get caught.
So you would think that part ofusing the Imperious Curse to make him

(01:10:10):
go get the thing would also involvethem trying to disable as many of the
security measures as possible. Because LuciusMalfoy goes in and out of the Ministry
a lot, he probably has atleast some idea what it is they have
to get through. They have notbeen trying to get into that door for
very long. Again, remember it'sonly been a couple of months since Baltimore

(01:10:32):
like really learned about this and knowswhere it is and has been trying to
get it. So I think they'reprobably still in discovery mode and finding somebody
like Sturges there who Lucius can thenput under the Imperious Curse. Anything else
that they find out is just anadditional fact for their next attempt to try
to get in. Okay, nowthat makes a lot of sense. They're

(01:10:54):
not actually trying to get him toget the thing. They're testing the defenses
to figure out whether they are specificallytrying to get him to get the thing.
But the fact is they don't knowwhat they don't know, So even
if he gets caught in the wholething goes sideways, it doesn't matter because
they've now learned something else about howto better get in there next time.
All I could imagine is like Lucia'slike part of I feel like also part

(01:11:17):
of like using the curses, Likehe's like, you know, using someone
else, like he says, you'reas your test on me essentially, but
like Lucia's is technically just like rightthere, like like someone walks, I
mean stop, Like we don't knowthat he was We don't know that he
was visible. That information is yes, he could have taken the invisibility cloak

(01:11:38):
like my turn the tables have turned, or I mean he is a disciple
of the Dark Lord. So ifDumbledore can make himself invisible without a cloak,
because to say Lucia's can't after comparingDumbledore and Lucius why they're both powerful
wizards, But really I was talkingabout Voltimore teaching Lucia's how to do it.
That's that's true. That be thatwould be a really good thing to

(01:12:01):
teach your like one of your likeyou know, oh yes up disciples.
Actually, that's I'm thinking about.That's a that's a very smart thing to
do to do. Yeah, likelearning how to fly right, very very
very helpful. Yeah, I alwaysI always liked the the mention of Eric
Munch, our favorite security guard.Yeah, very magic. He's just one

(01:12:23):
of those funny little characters, that'sall. Yeah, I mean, he's
just there. He just does hisjob. He's just like he didn't know
all this other stuff is happening.He just shows up to work and then
when he does his job, hegoes home. Regular guy. It's nice
to know that there are regular guys. Yeah, it's always nice to know
that there are regular guys. Also, Jeff, I find you're like,

(01:12:45):
like, like, you know,surprise funny that like they would entrust children
to to like be like monitor andmanage themselves when like prefects exist as that
exact purpose as we see them useas that exact purpose throughout the books,
just like a security and during likeperil, times of peril. Well,
it's if that isn't interesting children witha lot of extra responsibility and potential death,

(01:13:08):
because like ah children, they'll beall our shield like well, it
just it's thinking specifically about not evenjust athletics, but like school activities in
general. I did a lot ofdifferent extracurricular stuff as school, and I
didn't play on any sports teams whenI was a student. But one thing
that I know is that whether it'ssports or drama club or student government or

(01:13:31):
whatever, students can't get together anddo anything in my academic experience, at
least not until the university level,maybe without some kind of administrative oversight.
They let these kids get together andpractice on the quidditch field. There are
no teachers around to make sure thatfights don't break out or that nobody's breaking

(01:13:53):
any school rules. They let studentssit up in the stands and heckle each
other. Nobody has anything to sayabout that, even when they are saying
things that are hateful and very notokay to each other. Students are passing
out substances to each other during quidditchpractices, and they could look, ye,
I'm serious. They give her it'ssupposed to be this haha moment where

(01:14:14):
Oh, they're meant to give hera cure for a nosebley, but they
give her a blood blister. Poty'all could have killed her. She kind
have bled out, you really justlike we'll get back to that in a
minute, but just the fact whatit really comes down to for me is
Madam Hooch has two jobs. Shereferees quidditch matches and she teaches flying to
first years. What else could shepossibly be doing right now if not overseeing

(01:14:40):
practices? But that would be alot to oversee. And we remember,
people practice whatever they want. Imean think, let's talk cough cough Oliver
Wood, who was wanting to practicelike every day, Like it would not
be feasible for madam who's to bein every practice? But I twelve thousand
percent agree that in like normal Starcussays, there should be some other adult

(01:15:01):
present or maybe even the house leaves, so maybe McGonagall. I mean,
I like get them not having constantservision if like kids are practicing on their
own, like you know Ron andHarry were doing, but like you're right
for an official like practice match thatlike people know about because like the Slytherins
show up, like there probably shouldbe some kind of like teacher there for

(01:15:23):
like an official practice like that.It's one thing you choose to a practice
on your own, on your owntime. But like if there's like a
bunch of students all congregating, I'dwant to want to make sure I was
watching over if there's that many kidsthere. I think for me, I
think I see it sort of fromboth sides, because just making an equivalent
to like a muggle a Muggle team, there's always a coach, and the

(01:15:46):
quidditch teams don't have coaches. Theyhave captains, but they don't have coaches,
and the captains sort of acts asa coach as well. And we
know that the head of house takesa lot of pride in the team,
But why isn't there a coach?Why isn't there somebody who's trying to make
the team better rather than just thempracticing and doing whatever. The captains sort

(01:16:10):
of things as best. I'm notlike here to crap on the captains or
whatever. I mean, maybe Iam a little bit, but why don't
the teams have coaches? And Iguess I've never thought about that before until
this moment, And why isn't itMadam Hooch, I don't think it can
be her because the teams can't shareor a captain. Do cheerleading squads have
coaches? Yes, Okay, cheerleadingsquads have coaches. Okay, every team,

(01:16:34):
every sport that I can muggle,sport that I can think of,
there's a coach. Competitive ones do. That's a very solid question I've never
thought about before either. Yeah,But then again, cheerleading is like its
own thing. Like there is competitivecheerleading, and then there are cheerleading squads
whose whole existence is all about gettingpeople excited about something that has been deemed
more important than them. Don't getme started on that. But with this

(01:16:58):
situation with the quidditch teas and withMadam Hooch, the issue, like just
for comparison, is with most schoolswhere you have a sports team and a
coach, they compete against other schools, right, But the Hogwarts quidditch teams
only compete against each other. Sothe captain takes on the role of coach

(01:17:18):
because they have to look after thespecific interests of their house team. But
asking a fifteen, sixteen, seventeenyear old to do that is a lot.
Because when Harry first joins the quidditchteam back in the first book,
Oliver Wood is fifteen years old.You shouldn't expect a fifteen year old to

(01:17:39):
coach. I mean, he obviouslydoesn't mind doing it, because he knows
a lot about quidditch. He's verypassionate about it. He likes being a
leader. He's a good leader.I think he's a lot. He's very
overzealous when it comes to quidditch,but I think for the most part his
heart is in the right place.But still expecting a fifteen year old to
take on that much responsibility in managinga team, is us a lot of

(01:18:00):
them just thinking about it? Andmaybe this is a difference, And so
I'll pose it to We know,as Jeff just alluded to, in Muggle
schools, many Muggle schools, I'mnot going to say all of them,
the sports department is placed on thispedestal as the most important part of the
school. Is why so many artsprograms are dying, etc. Etc.

(01:18:25):
Perhaps, and I know that thisis a stance that perhaps Hermione would take.
I don't know. Does it seemthat that's different in the magical community.
It doesn't necessarily to me seem thatit's different. Although your point that
in the Muggle world, other schoolsplay each other, in Hogwarts only plays
themselves. Maybe it's something about thelike trying to keep the peace within the

(01:18:48):
school. I'm just wondering if maybethe structure of the importance of quidditch at
Hogwarts, not in the whole Magicalcommunity, but at Hogwarts is just slightly
different than the structure of sports inthe Muggle world, and that's why they
don't have coaches, because they justdon't see it as the figurehead of the

(01:19:09):
school like in the Muggle world.I mean, I would say that as
possible, but we don't see enoughof like other extracurriculars to really make that
judgment because like we only see verybrief like flashes like the frog choir.
Okay, like we don't say,like, you know, theater or like
any kind of like really like anykind of extracurricular like that enough for us
to make a sound judge in oneof those are just like more funded in

(01:19:32):
my opinion, But I also thinkit might be because if they were to
have a coach, theoretically speaking,because all the teams are playing against each
other, they in order for itto be fair and for them, no
one of the things, like acoach is making like a biased judgment.
They'd have to have four coaches becauseyeah, like they'd have to have a
coach for each team, which meansfour extra people for them to hire when

(01:19:56):
sometimes they're already struggling. They getstaff to fill the positions they already have
open. Technically, yeah, wellthat's because that one is I don't personally,
I don't personally see a problem withthat, um, but you know,
I think too, And I wasjust thinking the founders when they made
the school, really we're trying todo it to make it an institution about

(01:20:17):
magic. So how long has quidditchbeen played at Hogwarts is another question?
Like did the founders did it comelater on? Is the school mostly focused
on magical education and the sport aspectis there for kids who are more athletic
and want to do something that's moreactive than Gobstones or chest Club or whatever
that Maybe maybe quidditch hasn't been apart of the fabric of Hogwarts for that

(01:20:41):
long, and that's why it's justnot as important. I mean, it's
clearly important because we see it throughHarry's point of view, but in the
overall scheme of things. No,I think even outside of Harry's perspective,
Quidditch is huge if you look atit from there. There was something in
a book where they were talking abouthow it was like the school is literally
like empty whenever there are like quidditchgames. So, because like everyone attends,

(01:21:05):
I think that in general it's itis really big, which wasn't even
like the main point of everything thecat said, but I just wanted to
make that plug. I don't knowprecise states. I would have to check
Quidditch through the ages, but Ido know that Hogwarts School is older than
it's even It's definitely older than Quidditch. It's even older than the first couple

(01:21:30):
of games that went by weird namesthat eventually turn into Quidditch. So at
some point Quidditch becomes popular enough inthe wizarding world that they incorporate it at
Hogwarts. But Hogwarts, I thinkhad been around for a few hundred years
before we get to that point.I was going to ask if that was
the case, because I was wonderingif that was so. The house system
is very very well, you know, put in place at Hogwarts before we

(01:21:56):
get to Okay, now let's havethem play quidditch with each other. But
when we talked about quititch, andI'm not sure if this is the episode
that we were on together, Jefflike, and I don't know if it
was you that said this, butsomeone had mentioned in a previous episode that
like quiditch is also like the onlylike student government option that this like people
have with it's only like self governed, like I did say that. I
think it was I thought it wasyou. Yeah, I closest thing to

(01:22:19):
student government they have because they don'thave a student council of any kind at
Hogwarts, did you have the prefectsystem? But prefect exist pretty much to
support the efforts of the staff.They don't actually get a say in what
goes on at Hogwarts. They're justwhole monitors. Let's be real, well,
should we keep it moving so wecan get to Percy and pad Foot?

(01:22:42):
Yeah, it would be cool.I just briefly kind of want to
point out that it seems so muchmore serious to me now than it did
the first couple of times I readthis, because I think it's just this
passing moment of whoops, we accidentallygave Katie a blood blister pod. We
should probably get it into the hospital. It's like, you guys gave her
a thing that you had in yourpocket and she almost bled to death.

(01:23:03):
You idiots. This is why youshould not be able to just sell whatever
you want at Hogwarts. I mean, do you remember what they did to
Dudley's tongue? I mean this isnot I do, and I don't approve
of that either I do, andno I don't. I'm sorry. I
like Fred and George. I knowDudley was still being a bully at that

(01:23:24):
point in the series, but Ido not approve of that. The tongue
tongue toffee thing. No, thatwas absolutely not okay to do. Mister
Weasley had every right to be furiouswith them for that. The thing that
gets me is after I don't rememberwhich twin it is is referenced, after
they realize what happened, they're justsort of yes, They're just sort of

(01:23:45):
like whoops, and they just keepplaying instead of being like, oh crap,
sorry, we gave you the wrongthing. Maybe we have another one
here, or maybe you should getto the hospital wing, or like they're
just like IPSI No, I thinkI thought that after they realized that.
I thought that. After they realizedthat, that's when they said she needed
zero to the hospital. Well,I think I think it was. Yeah,

(01:24:09):
they didn't realize. Nope, y'allwrong. Hang on, Oh hang
on, here we go. Nope, hang on, hang on. I
I'm good. I will find thisquote for you, alright, jack In
facts. I feel bad for Angelinathough, because I'm a big Angelina Johnson
fan, and when she gets tobe the captain of the quidditch team after

(01:24:29):
Oliver Wood and after a one yearhiatus of nobody getting to play any quidditch,
this is a huge moment for hergetting to be the captain, and
you can tell she really wants todo a great job. She cares about
this team. She wants Griffin Doorto be well represented, and she is
putting up with a lot from thevery beginning and it's clearly getting to her.
So for this to be how herfirst practice goes, I think I

(01:24:53):
would have quit. So the factthat she doesn't quit after all this on
her first practice shows that she hasgot a lot of grid. I mean,
it's important to note that it istheir first practice after having a year
off from quidit, so everyone's kindof like discombobulated and not like unified as
a team again, which the thingthat's definitely a fact you have Slytherin out
there like throwing out all of theseansults. It's just I mean, it

(01:25:15):
was really a hot mess express fromjust like out the game. It was
just already hot mess express. Okay, I found I found a quote here
we go, so it's on pagetwo ninety three of the US edition.
Angelina is like yelling at the team. She said, and Katie, can't
you do something about that nosebleed?It's just getting worse, said Katie,
thickly, attempting to stem the flowwith her sleeve. Harry glanced around at

(01:25:38):
Fred, who was looking anxious andchecking his pocket. He saw Fred pull
out something purple, examine it fora second, and then look around at
Katie, evidently horror struck. That'sit. He didn't attempt to do anything.
He didn't say anything. It's notuntil two and a half or another
half a page later that he evensays anything. Okay, And during that
half a page, they kept practicing. They can't practicing. That's bad.

(01:26:02):
Yeah, I didn't. I thought, I don't know why, but I
thought it was like directly after thatkind of suck. They're crappy people.
Okay, listen, I'm not listening. We all know that I love the
twins. I don't think they didit on purpose, but yeah, they
aren't quick to admit their mistake whenit happens. I I miss kind of
took the the implication of the napkinbecause I didn't they did. They also

(01:26:27):
hand the napkin to her to likewhat to like wipe her nose with?
Is that something that did happen?I don't think that really matters, because
if her sleeve of her robe can'tstop the flow of blood, what are
they gonna do with the napkin?No? No, no, no,
no, it's not why I soI thought I thought they handed her this
napkin with like the like the candywhatever you want to call it in it,
and when she was like wiping hernose, she ate it by accident?

(01:26:48):
So when what? When he lookedat the napkin, He's like,
what what what happened? I'm like, how would she eat the thing by
accident? Like I was like,I was really confused at first, I'm
like, how would she eat thatby accident? Like like like how was
it? Like he like, likehow would she not notice her chewing and
swallowing something? So I realized afterthe fact that it was like a mistake
of what they were doing. It'svery cute how you're trying to defend the

(01:27:11):
twins who were clearly I'm very cute. No. I also just literally misunderstood
the context of the of I thoughtthey pulled a napkin out to like give
her to like wipe her nose,and there was like a candy in it,
and she ate it by accidents.See like funny though is the earlier
in the chat. Earlier in thisepisode, when we were talking about peeves
Um, it was brought up thatsome of the stuff he does is pranky

(01:27:33):
and some of the stuff he doesis assault. Fred and George are the
same way because pranks practical jokes.Te he ha ha, you got your
nose bit by a tea cup,or you know, you put belch powder
in somebody's food or whatever, youlet off a dung bomb. Okay,

(01:27:53):
great, fine, the pranky jokeyhaha, funny moments. Fine, but
giving somebody a candy that makes themalmost choke on their own tongue or accidentally
giving somebody candy that might make thembleed to death. No, no,
there are things that they are makingand that they are giving to people,
and things they're doing to people thatare clearly not okay. And I think

(01:28:14):
that's Hermione's point about trying to puta stop to them testing stuff on first
years because Hermione, to give hersome credit, she sees stuff like this
coming a mile away. She knowsthat this stuff might just happen in case
in point she almost dies. ButHermione is also first of all, Hermione
is just in another league. She'sobviously very mature, she's a way advanced

(01:28:36):
for her years, etc. Imean, but also taken to account,
like Fred and George, there peopleare buying these things. People are literally
buying things that will make them throwup, that will make their noses leave
so they can get out of class. So at the end of the dayselves
right, But I'm not saying that. I guess My only point here is

(01:28:56):
I don't think they're Fred and Georgeare bad people. I think that they
are teenagers, and as a teenager, everybody does stupid things. And I
guess if you look at it fromthe perspective of it's two thousand and three.
No it's not. I'm sorry,it's two thousand and twenty three.
Everyone here is above the age ofas sure, how old are you?
I'm twenty. Everyone here is twentyand above. So it's very easy for

(01:29:21):
us to read these books now intobeing like horror Struck. But in theory,
with these being children's books, everylike, there would not be enough
time in the world for us togo through everything in this book that was
dangerous, but it turned out,but it was also kind of like a
joke. So I just don't thinkwe should be like specifically being like Fred

(01:29:41):
and George, you're bad. Theydid the same that everybody else was doing
throughout the entire series. I thinkthey take to granted the ability to fix
things with magic, though it's alsolike a good thing to note, like
if you like, kids play similarpranks on each other when they don't have
magic, and it's not easy aseasy to fix us situation as it is
in the Wizarding world, so Ithink that's good. An important important thing

(01:30:03):
to remember is like if kids aredoing these things each other in the Muggle
world, but there's no comparison forthem, they only have the magical world.
There's no for us. Yeah,for them, Like I'm saying,
they still are able to fix thingsa lot easier, Like they take it
for granted that people are able tobe like healed much easier than someone in
the Muggle world can't beay. Ihave two things to say about that.

(01:30:25):
One, I think the like kidswill be kids argument is bs. Sorry,
I don't think that that's never okayto like let that. I do
think Friend George are bullies. Idon't think they're bad people, but I
think that they're bullies because they thinkthey're humor is funny, and sometimes they
take it too far. To anotherreminder, Friend George have not been working

(01:30:45):
on these for very long. Itwas irresponsible, period for them to give
one of these untested suits to oneof their teammates when they had not been
perfected, tested all the things.If you'd forget, they don't test these
suits on students to literally months later, so like, why are they even

(01:31:08):
giving this to her in the firstplace, Because they suck. I don't
think anyone disagrees with the fact thatit was irresponsible. I'm just saying everything
is in line with everything else thathappens in the series, and we can
make this argument about a thousand differentthings. And I think they're intentional.
You're not wrong. Their intentions werepure, but like their their their thought
process was dumb as hell. Yeah, for sure, they're immature. Yeah,

(01:31:29):
I agree that they all agree thattheir their process was dumb as hell.
But I don't think their intentions werepure. I think their intentions were
they wanted to stop the bleeding.They ended up just giving her I don't
think they There's no way they weren'ttrying to like sabotage this. Yeah,
like why would they sabotage they wereThey weren't meant to give her the whatever
suite was going to stop the bleeding, and instead they gave her the opposite,

(01:31:49):
which is like like, of coursethey matched give her the exact opposite
of what they meant to give her, like you know, a blood thinner
instead of a you know, aclotter. But like I think they meant
to try to help her in they'rejust stupid because yeah, yeah, let's
let's let's pause this here and passit on to the listeners, because we
know that our listeners have a lotof thoughts about friend George, and what

(01:32:10):
do y'all think about what happened there? Definitely head over to the comments in
the main section. Ill let usknow. But let's get into the actual
meat of the chapter, the thingthat it is named after Percy and Percy's
letter that comes much later in theweekend, after all the quidditch drama and
the chow drama and all of that. So it's now Sunday night. Ron

(01:32:32):
and Harry are in the common roomduring their homework, and Hermione is there
chatting with Jinny knitting some hats,I believe, and Harry Ron. Harry
even comments himself, who wonders howmany elves she had unwillingly set free already?
H Yeah, And then this lettershows up. Herme's taps on the
window, tap, tap, tap, and we get Percy's letters. Because

(01:32:59):
I'm determined to find the number sevenin all things. Every list I make
inevitably turns into seven things. Iknow, I'm jumping ahead in the dock.
We can jump back, like tothe other stuff that's a little bit
earlier here, but this I perfectwell, it perfectly sums up Ron just
getting progressively more and more pissed readingthis letter. There are seven things,

(01:33:20):
Percy approving of him because he doesn'twant Percy's approval, Percy craps on their
parents, Percy craps on his friends, Percy craps on Dumbledore, Percy teasing
that he's got juicy secrets but he'snot giving them away, Percy praising the
ministry for doing a great job,and Percy saying that Umbridge is a really
delightful woman. So gross. Isee when you said I find seven things.

(01:33:45):
I thought you were about to say, oh, Hermie's top on the
glass seven times, like, howdid you know that was there? Actually,
I wish I could tell you thatI found that, because unfortunately no,
And honestly, this chapter, II don't enjoy reading this part of
this chapter because I'm a big PercyWeasley stand for the most part, For

(01:34:11):
the most before this san I lovePercy Weasley. He's a great I like
him a lot. You like hischaracter or you like him as a human
both. Chris Rankin is a terrificperson to know. I adore him,
and this I like the character ofPercy before this this book and then the

(01:34:32):
next one. Also, I can'tdefend Percy. I can't defend this letter
his choices, decide with the ministry, the awful things that he does with
his family. I'm not going todefend those things. But that's exactly why
this chapter, this part of thischapter especially is really difficult for me,
because I love Percy Weasley, butI just I am so mad at him.

(01:34:56):
I am so mad at him.This letter makes it really hard for
I. Also, I'm not gonnasay that I'm a Percy stand but I
think that Percy is a fascinating character. I love discussing Percy. I think
there's he's probably one of the Meteorcharacters. I would say he gets a

(01:35:16):
really fantastic arc. If you lookat the characters over the whole seven books,
a lot of them don't change alot. They don't do much.
I mean, no offense to peoplewho like Draco. He doesn't have much
of an arc. Nothing really happensto him. He doesn't change, he
doesn't grow whatever. Percy has anactual beautiful arc. And that's why I
love discussing Percy. But this lettermakes it really hard to defend him in

(01:35:44):
any way. For me. It'ssort of like, so people who hate
Percy, like Asher was shaking hishead the entire time Jeff was talking about
how much they love Percy, thisletter is like the equivalent of people who
for me, like I'm trying tofigure out how to say this analogy the
way I want to people who loveSnape. I mean, I'm sorry that
Serious, not Snape. Serious triedto get one of his best friends to

(01:36:09):
kill somebody he didn't like, sohe's like irredeemable, irredeemable. So the
comparison for me between this letter withPercy and Serious trying to get Loop and
to kill Snape are like the twothings that I always put next to each
other when people who hate those characterstalk about why they hate them as like

(01:36:32):
the one terrible, awful thing thatthey've done. And I'll throw myself under
the bus because that's the one thingthat I always say makes Serious irredeemable to
me. And I'm sure there arepeople who for Percy, this letter is
a thing that makes him irredeemable.That was a lot I hope that made
I hope that made sense what Iwas trying to get across there. I
will say, though, I thinkPercy having more of an arcas also helpful.

(01:36:55):
That he is older, so hegot out of Hogwarts and like the
school thing. It was like alreadylike working as like a profession and like,
I think it helps to a character. Arthur, he was like older
than like Draco, who was stillin school and still like a like you
know, a juvenile for all intensivepurposes. Wait, who are you comparing
to Draco because you said like,oh, Draco really didn't have much of

(01:37:15):
an ARC, which I don't disagree, but I'm saying I think Percy's ARC
is more there and pronounced because he'solder, so he got out of school
and was like but still he's gota few years like of like actual working
experience compared to the compared to like, you know, the kids in school.
I'm not sure. Yeah, Isee what you're saying, but I'm
not sure that comparing the arcs hasanything to do with their age. No,

(01:37:39):
I I was just saying I thinkthat, you know, there was
a growth period that was able tohappen as a comparative being inside Hogwarts.
Still, but not that I'm I'mdefending either of them. Obviously, I
have no Draco or Percy stand butyou know, just in comparison to like,
the ability to grow is easier whenyou're not inside of a school environment,
at least in my opinion, Ithink it's a lot easier to grow

(01:37:59):
once you like out of like youknow, like high school especially. Has
stan become a new word for afan because I've never heard this before,
because I was like, I don'tknow what I'll thought, I might actually
be showing my age by calling Idon't even know if people are really still
doing that as much. That mightbe something that TikTok has already decided is
old. I don't know. Isay I say stand all the time,

(01:38:24):
I don't. I think it's stillvery much in use, at least I
hope so Otherwise I'm behind the timestoo. I don't consider myself a Percy
stand or a Percy fan. However, I have defended Percy a lot because
I think that when whenever I lookat Percy from the perspective of, Okay,
you grew up a certain way andyou want something different, like by

(01:38:45):
default you're going to be opposed,right, Like you're the one who wants
to do something a little bit different, or like you have like a lot
of ambition, and like people mightbe looking at you like, oh,
you know whatever. I get thatI think which is probably whatever everyone things.
Is like the way he went aboutit was wrong because even his parents
they were excited about him being,um, you know, working at the

(01:39:05):
ministry and all of that. Um, I just him him too. I
don't remember exactly what he said,but something along the lines of like he's
glad that he's like disassociated for them. I was like that to me,
it was like, there's there's noturning point. And I mean, and
there are so many situations where evenin real life I've witnessed in real life

(01:39:27):
and one other life where people arebeing you know, alienated from their families
and it's like, okay, it'sjust I just I need the space.
But I think that he took ittoo far. And what I like about
Jeff's list, which apparently I likeall the Jeff's lists. I've said this
throughout this entire episode, is whatI love about this list is like I'm
I'm thinking about that line where likewhere Harry was saying that you could see

(01:39:50):
Ron's face just like getting more andmore. I don't know the word he
used when you could see like bythe time he gets to the bottom of
the letter, he is just likehe's fuming and as a reader, as
you're reading that, it's kind ofa similar thing. I mean, for
me, I was more baffled,like it was almost comical to me as
I was listening to some of thestuff that he was saying, like this

(01:40:12):
can't even this can't even be real. I really like Kat's question, like,
what is it about Umbridge? Kat? Sorry if I took that from
you, what is it about Umbridgethat Percy is attached to? Because I
actually was wondering that exact same thing. I personally think that it's more some
along the lines. I don't eventhink it's Umbradge. I just think that
it's because Umbridge is a Ministry official, and because she's on the side of

(01:40:38):
Fudge, and because Percy feels likehe needs to I felt about our profanity,
Max, Percy feels like he needsto kiss up to Fudge as much
as possible. I think that that'sreally the main thing. Yeah, Percy
likes it when figures of authority approveof him. And that's the thing that

(01:41:00):
I've heard you mentioned about this fightbetween Percy and his family is he comes
home proud of himself because he gotthis great job at the Ministry and his
father immediately reacts to, what thehell are you thinking? They're trying to
use you, And he's not givingPercy any credit for this thing that he's
accomplished, because by his way oflooking at it, he hasn't really accomplished

(01:41:25):
anything. Fudges just kind of orchestratingthis to do something shady, but Percy
feels like he's earned it, especiallyafter everything that he went through with the
last authority figure at the ministry thathe attested himself too, because that whole
thing ended very badly. So it'shard for me to say, well,
Percy's acting the way anybody would,because when somebody does something great and they

(01:41:46):
don't get credit for it and peopleare just crapping all over them, they
get very defensive. They feel backedinto a corner and they lash out.
And this is what Percy does.He lashes out, and then he has
too much pride to admit he waswrong and tried to make up with his
family immediately after, because it doesn'thappen for like another book or two after
that. But I can't really defendPercy in this fight that he has with

(01:42:12):
his dad because I know we weren'tthere for it. But I also,
I will say, I don't knowexactly what mister Weasley said to him when
he told him the news, butmy sense from Ron's description of the fight
that followed was that his dad didn'teven try to act like he was in

(01:42:33):
any way proud of his son.He just immediately went from Oh I got
a promotion at work to what thehell is wrong with you, Percy?
This promotion is a sham. Thisis such a random note. But I
do feel like in this arc,Percy would be super transphobic. I just
need to say that right now.It's that's all the vibes I get from

(01:42:55):
the letters. I'm like, anyway, that's a random note they had this.
I think Percy is phobic of alot of things. Yeah, no,
I agree. I don't think itjust stops there. But I'm just
saying, it's like all the onlylike that's where my brain goes because obviously
I am trans so that I'm like, I'm like, oh, he would
hate me, like I don't thinkhe wants to be though I don't think

(01:43:18):
he is. There. There arepeople who, like I know, they
say hate is taught, and thereare some people that even for reasons that
they never fully understand themselves. Theyhave a phobia of things. I think
Percy's He's never really struck me asa person who was phobic of a lot
of things immediately the way Umbrage is. But she's the person he's bonding with

(01:43:41):
right now. He's emulating the examplethat the ministry is providing for him,
and as we see in Deathly Hallows, he can be deprogrammed. He can
realize that there is something going onthat is not okay and that his behavior
is not defensible. So I don'tthink he holds phobic values in his heart.

(01:44:02):
I think he's perpetuating them because it'sthe status quo right now, and
he's trying to justify his own choicesby just allowing these things to continue to
be a problem and not standing upand doing anything about it. But I
don't think Percy's entirely like in hisheart. I don't think he's a very

(01:44:24):
phobic character the way a lot ofother characters in the story clearly are.
So I last time we're talking aboutPercy, what every episode that was someone
I had mentioned that, like onthe episode about Percy with Chris like that
he had mentioned it. Thinks Percyis autistic, And the more I like
mull it over, I'm like,yeah, I can say that because this
is a great example because a aswe talk about in the beginning of the

(01:44:45):
episode, he is very gullible andBeyonca, I think you mentioned that,
like how like how he's so smart, but how's he not realized that,
like he's being manipulated and tricked.It's that it's the autistic like you know,
taking everything at face value, andhe's it is very like, you
know, headstrong about what he thinksis the like correct way, and he's
adapting, like you said, histhinking to who he's like around, which

(01:45:08):
is like very socially adapting to whateverlike group you're like, you're you're a
part of it is a very autisticthings like you're emulating the social like characteristics
of those around you because you're like, we don't always tell if that's how
we like learn social behavior. Sohe's just you know, emulating what he's
kind of surrounding himself with, almostAnd I think it's a very I agree,

(01:45:30):
that's another very autistic trait to dothat kind of thing. Um,
So I definitely can see that argument. The more I like to think about
it, But that's just me.And now we've arrived at the center of
the shrubbery maze. The Black showsup in the fire to answer Harry's cryptic

(01:45:50):
letter, which he says was verygood. Do we agree the letter was
very good? Because something about thatletter that Harry sent to Syria still kind
of feels like he puts some stuffin writing that wasn't exactly professionally coded.
Well, remember that we know everythingHarry's talking about, so there's no way

(01:46:13):
for us to ever judge unbiasedly ifthat letter was good or not. Yeah,
he signs it as Harry though,right, Okay, signs it as
Harry. But let's let's if ifwe so, let's say we read that
letter to someone who I can't sayhe has never who knows nothing about Harry

(01:46:34):
Potter. But there are people outthere who have seen a couple movies and
maybe know some things. If weread that letter to them, would they
get some of those references like ourgiant friend, I think that pretty obviously
points to Hagrid, Like I thinkthat one is probably the most egregious,
Like why did you agree that that'swhat I'm That's what I'm saying that was

(01:46:59):
like signing it as Harry was likehis probably his biggest mistake, because everyone's
gonna assume Harry Potter, Like evenif even if it was a different Harry,
people are gonna assume it's Harry Potterbecause that's the first Harry they think
of when they hear Harry. Sohe should have signed it like as an
initial or like Barry or something like. He needed to like change it up
a little bit because people are gonna, like if anyone that's like even remotely

(01:47:23):
associated with Harry, which is likewho he's hiding a letter from the ministry
and all of them, they're gonnabe able to like fill in the blanks
once they realize who who the letteris signed from, Like let's be honest,
Like that was like he should havesigned it by a whole an alias
name because serious would have known itwas him, like like like even like
signing his James or something like,you know, just choose a different name.

(01:47:45):
Yeah, No, that's a goodpoint. It's a good point.
You know. One question that Ihave is I don't know whenever Ron and
Hermione got like really I don't.I'm not gonna say they got upset,
but I guess they kind of likelooked at him, like, you didn't
tell her? She wrote to serious, and I just had this this one
question of like, I understand that, like y'all are friends and everything,
but does Harry have to report toy'all every time he writes to his own

(01:48:08):
godfather. Like I was like,relax, yeah, but it did made
me think about do you? AndI don't know if this has happened with
everyone, but I know that likeback in the day, especially when you're
a teenager, there's this thing wherewhenever you're someone's friend, especially if you're
a best friend, it's like youcan't not tell me your secret because I'm
your best friend. And it's funnybecause like now that I'm older, I

(01:48:30):
look back at that and I laughbecause I'm very much like, I gotta
tell you, because at the endof the day, everybody gets to choose
what they hold on too and whatthey share. So I do think the
teenage thing plays a part, butI kind of whenever I read it this
time, I was just like,y'all need to relax. He can talk
to his godfather without y'all. Yeah, the indignance is a little hypocritical,

(01:48:56):
right, because look at what Harryjust went through. Yep. It's very
hypocritical of them to be like,excuse me, why aren't you telling us
everything? If I were Harry hadbeen like, um, exqueezed me,
what just happened this entire summer?You need to shut the f up,
because that would have been a perfectmoment to play that card. Because Harry,

(01:49:17):
Harry thinks that, and he doesn'teven say it out loud. He
thinks it privately to himself. Whenthey're at number twelve grimall place and they're
trying to shoot everybody out of theroom, and then just one by one
missus Sweetsy says, okay, fine, you can stay all right, you
can stay as well, Jinny bedBut Ron says, Harry will tell me
and Hermione everything you say, won'tyou, Harry. I still, I've

(01:49:40):
read that book so many times.I know that part is coming, but
every time I read it, Iwant it to be different, because I
want Harry to say, no,Ron, you go upstairs and tweetle your
thumbs and wonder what we're talking aboutwithout you, for a change, I
get out. I don't think it'sHermione is comment here or any and the
any of the circumstances are like outof like nosiness, though I do think

(01:50:00):
it's just out of general concern,like them wanting to make sure they're in
the loop just in case anything wereto happen, they know with what might
have been the cause of that thinghappening and which in this case it was
Harry sending a letter to serious andthat potentially being intercepted. I think it
just her wanting to be in theknow because knowing that like him sending a
letter could be like could that thatcould be the reason that he gets in

(01:50:21):
trouble and something happens to him likethat, Like that's I think that's really
kind of was more out of concern, but like it comes off as like
very like, oh, you needto tell him us everything kind of thing.
Yeah, very indignant. I dothink, Yeah, I do think
it was out of concern, outof concern, but I think the way
it could have been phrase could havebeen much better. But we know that
hermione isn't always the best, andit comes like not sounding condest city about

(01:50:43):
things. Well, you know who'sbad at subtle nuances? Teenagers? That's
also which they all are. Andyou know what else is weird that to
quote a great scholar by the nameof Eric skull Hog's is a security nightmare.
I'm sorry. I know that Harryhas like this one adult person in

(01:51:05):
his life who is like his familythat he respects, even though he kind
of probble or shouldn't because he's notproviding a great example of how to do
anything. But the fact that seriousblack can just show up in the fireplace
in the middle of the night andhave a chat with these teenagers and nobody's

(01:51:30):
doing anything about the fact that grownups can just pop up in the fireplace
in the middle of school in themiddle of the night. Did I mean?
But all they will be able todo is talk. You know what?
For some people, that's enough.For some people, that's all you
need in order to do something badto somebody. All you have to do

(01:51:53):
is be able to talk. Theydon't know. But also in public schools,
anybody can also just walk in likeit's not really any different, that's
all said. Sure, like theof the security issues, the fires the
least issue. I agree in publicschools people can just walk in. That's
not okay either. That's why bythe time I graduated from my high school.
They locked the doors from the outside, Like, you can leave the

(01:52:15):
school, you're not locked in,but people can't just walk up to the
school. You have to buzz infrom the front office. So also remember
that this isn't necessarily a school widething. I know that we see it
happening later in Umberge's fire, butthat is specifically because she even says that
she leaves hers unregulated. There's noway that we could know that this happens

(01:52:36):
everywhere. It could be convenience.It could be Dumbledore giving Harry an opportunity
here, like because Sirius has communicatedwith Harry in this manner prior, you
know, I would. I don'tthink we should jump to conclusions that this
is something that happens everywhere. Idon't disagree with Eric and I've had many

(01:52:58):
conversations over the years about Hogwarts security, because there is basically none. Yeah,
but yeah, I think I thinkthis is slightly a matter of convenience
of the plot and not necessarily somethingthat's happening in every fire, every common
room. I like that you broughtup Dumbledore. I think about that before.

(01:53:20):
But I do think that is solidbecause we do end up finding out
that Dumbledore and Sirius are talking theentire time, and of Dumbledore, I'm
going to tell serious a cave wherehe can meet Harry. I'm sure it's
nothing for him to be like,yeah, I'll open up the griffindoor fireplaces
like that would be that would beextremely easy. And I don't and I
personally don't think that security at Hogwartsis like not because if that was the

(01:53:43):
case, Baltimore would have gotten Harrylike multiple I mean, the other things
have gotten in with very little difficulty. There we go. I mean,
like obviously there was like people helpingthese things get in, like I want
Tony that, But I'm saying still, it's like I think, of all
of this security issues, a fireplaceis probably the least of our ves.
Like people can't just walk up likewe know that, we know that,

(01:54:06):
Like people cannot just go up toHogwarts and get in because we know that
it has all the like protective charmsand everything, and yet still people do
so No, no, no oneever walked up at thet In. No,
well no no one walked up andgot in. But like people like
like like when they left the trollIn, like it wasn't like very difficult
to do that. Like I knowsomeone was there there, yeah, but

(01:54:28):
it's still like there was no onelike being like hey, like I don't
even know how we got that trollthere. I mean he could have been
he could have liked shrink it,put it in his pocket and then like
got in there. It was likeand Gorgio. I don't know. It's
like like pim particles, you know. Now, do want to briefly like
address your point about if Voldemort couldjust like walk into Hogwarts and get Harry

(01:54:51):
Hall. At this point, Voldemorthas been back for like a few months,
and his thing is he doesn't justwant Harry dead. He wants to
be the one to do it.He tried that it didn't work, and
he doesn't understand why, which iswhy this whole prophecy thing plays a part

(01:55:11):
throughout this entire book, because hethinks this prophecy holds the secret to why
he can't just straight up walk inand murder Harry. If it was that
simple, he'd do it. Buthe knows it's not that simple, and
it's not because of security or lackthere have at Hogwarts. It's because he
thinks that there's some kind of prophecy. That explains why he can't do it.
That's why he's not doing it.That's a very valid point. Yeah,

(01:55:34):
No, that's fair. And Idon't I don't literally mean like he
would have just walked in. I'mjust making the point that Hogwarts does have
security. It does. Yeah,it does have some security, not just
anybody can just do anything. SoI guess what I should say is there's
enough examples of loopholes or gaps orcracks in their security that they don't do

(01:55:57):
a great job of patching them.And yeah, I think for some point
for some of them, I thinkto Cat's point, I think it was
that some of them are convenient tothe plot. Yeah, for sure.
Did you say something like that?I did. I thought, so,
how does serious get in? Howdid he get in the castle? Whenever
he like whatever Ron thought he wastrying to stab him, he had to
pass where it's nevill dropped. Yeah. See that's what I mean, Like

(01:56:18):
every time somebody got in it literallywas because there was an insider that was
planted. He used the tunnels fromthem from right, yeah, yea yeah,
yeah, yeah yeah yeah marauders tunnels. Yeah, that's a better example
of a of a failed security.Yeah, I agree, I agree those
And like, isn't honey dubes likethose? Yeah? Those are definitely like

(01:56:40):
flops for sure. Yeah. No, I know that. I know it's
fun to be able to sneak intoHogsmead when all you want to do is
get out of school and get somecandy and stuffs. And it's it's funny
because they straight up say, oh, Harry, by the way, did
it not occur to you that thisMarauders map that shows you the secret tunnels

(01:57:00):
and stuff is a map that couldguide Serious Black to you? Because um,
first of all, Serious Black helpwrite the map, and also he
doesn't use the map, but hedoes use the tunnels that Harry discovers on
the map, but he doesn't discoverthem on the map. He's told about
them. He doesn't know that Serioushelp on the map though. He doesn't
know then, but he finds out. But I'm saying that detail then was

(01:57:23):
like not like you know, akey factors. He didn't know that.
Well, no, he didn't knowit, but he found out afterwards.
So I'm just saying it's like afunny thing that you find out afterwards.
Okay, fair enough, So Siriusmentions during this chat while his head is
in the fire, he drops somefacts about Umbridge here, and you know
it's funny. I thought for certainthat his comment about the anti werewolf legislation

(01:57:49):
was in her bio on Potter Moore, and I couldn't find it. Thought
it was really interesting. It isnot. I read the entire thing because
I wanted to. I wanted torefresh her on her before we talked about
before we talked about her a littlebit today. It's not in there,
So I think that this is justa piece of information that we just learned

(01:58:12):
from serious obviously canon because it's inthe actual in the actual books here,
But it doesn't surprise me whatsoever.However, her bio. The only reason
I bring this up is I feellike there's some discrepancies because her bio doesn't
mention that she works with like anywherethat would be working with beasts or beings,

(01:58:33):
which I just she's in the MagicalLaw enforcement department. What are they
doing drafting anti werewolf legislation? Iguess they're they're trying to enforce it as
a law. Essentially, is thatthey're trying to enforce a law. Yes,
I think that would be considered lawenforcement, because if you'd like any
anti legislation is considered lawmaking. Yeah, but this is about who can and

(01:58:54):
can't teach, Like the piece oflegislation as serious says it is that and
made it incredibly hard for Lupin toget a job. Yeah, because they
put a law in place that likecan there be you know, just credits
you from the ability to like worka profession. I think that would still
fall under under like, you know, just kind of discriminatory legislation. I

(01:59:15):
think even if it's not her job, then that just ties into the whole
character of she don't she's not mindingher own business, like she's literally going
out of her way to you know, try to essentially, you know,
put down people who she people,creatures, beings who she believes are lesser
than. So that's kind of howI looked at it, Like whether it's
her job or not, like that'swhat she's She's gonna make it her job,

(01:59:39):
just like she made her so highinquisitor. That's that's what I was
gonna say too. But I alsothink that just as you would see with
any like you know, discriminatory legislation, that's made by lawmakers. I was
like, that's like how they're creative, So I would I just do it
as like any kind of like antianything law. It falls in that same
category at my opinion. Yeah,either way, it's overreached on her part.

(01:59:59):
And I appreciate. One thing Ilike about Serious is that he never
minces his words. I like thathe is really just very for the most
part, very open and honest aboutthe things that he sees, maybe sometimes
too much so, which is whereI sort of fall on Hermione's side,
Kat, I didn't know you likedanything about Serious. I can give of

(02:00:21):
the characters I disliked the benefit ofthe doubt. Sometimes I agree. I've
even done it with Snape, believeit or not. Oh yeah, I
agree with I agree with Kat's pointabout Serious not mincing his words and getting
straight to the point like that kindof blunt. I have absolutely nothing to
lose by lying to you. Honesty. I respect that, But a lot
of times it's the other stuff thatgets wrapped up in his delivery that just

(02:00:44):
kind of spoils it. Yeah,and this is one of those times where
you can tell that he is Imean, he tells us the thing about
first of all, before we getentirely off the point about the anti werewolf
legislation that Umbard drafted being part ofthe reason why Lupin hasn't really been able
to find work since he had toresign at Hogwarts. They do that and

(02:01:06):
they explain, oh, by theway, we know you haven't seen Lupin
for a long time, but he'sbeen out of work since he left Hogwarts
because Umbridge drafted some very phobic legislation. But they didn't take a deeper look
at Hagrid's lack of proper credentials forbeing a teacher because it's more convenient to
make a big show of his jobbeing in jeopardy in the plot of this

(02:01:30):
book. But Lupin was gone,nobody's really thought that much about him until
now. I mean, I thinkit's also because I view Hogwarts kind of
like a private school essentially, withlike Dumbledore is the governing body on decision
making when it comes to Hogwarts,and there's nothing specifically that they can make
a law about, in my opinion, unless they made it like no,
no, like any kind of genealogyof giants can't work like the same way

(02:01:55):
they're doing with like mther B.They can't specifically make a law it's directly
targeted just a Hagrid to like eradicatehis positioning. But they can make a
law about like catherapy, and thenwhen when they finally overthrow Dumbledore, then
they can make all other decision makingwhen it comes to like who is allowed
to work at Hogwarts and who isn't. But until they were able to like

(02:02:15):
resume power, like assume whatever theword is power over Hogwarts, like,
they couldn't technically make those decisions.And there's no way to like make a
law that would like make it impossiblefor Hagward to work unless, like I
said, like they outlawed his genealogy. At least that's how kind of how
I view it. They don't havethe authority to do so, well,
I mean, the Board of Governorswould definitely have the authority to do that,

(02:02:39):
and Lucia certainly tries tries that whenhe gets Haggard kicked out of the
school in Chamber. True, butthey still obviously have dumbledore possibility to overthrow
decisions here and there, so likeeven so, I think they they were
only able to make anything permanent afterDumbledore's Dumbledore was like, you know,
not head master during you know,Dolores's brief period of time has head Mistress.

(02:03:04):
The last thing that happens of thischapter this Serious makes his suggestion that
they could all get together and hogsmeat, and Harry immediately shoots it down because
he doesn't want Serious to get introuble. He's worried about the headline that
appeared in the Daily Prophet, andthe last thing Serious does is make him

(02:03:24):
feel bad for trying to look outfor him. And this is a really
really I mean, for a fifteenyear old who's already been through a lot
and will continue to go through alot. This just kind of proves that
they don't really understand sensitivity to vulnerablepeople who have been through traumatic experiences.
If they understood that, Serious wouldnot have said this thing to Harry.

(02:03:46):
Counterpoint, Look, Bianca, I'mgoing to do it again. I'm going
to defend Serious. Isn't he avulnerable person who's been through a traumatic experience,
So how can we judge him fornot being perfect? Yeah, that's
how I agree. I also thinkhe's just trying to like he's projecting James
onto Harry. He's trying. Yeah, he does that. I don't.

(02:04:08):
I can and call if with somemovieism or if it happens in the book
too, like when he's like inthe in the fight, Okay, Yeah,
I thought it was a great Ithink that's a great moment though,
because I think it's really important.It always like like pulls my heart strings
when he's like good one James andthey're in like the fight at the end
of them at the Department of Yeah, it always pulls up my heartstrings.
It's like he's trying to he's yearningto relive his Hogwarts moments and like and

(02:04:32):
like like like vicariously like like livewith his like dead friends again through Harry.
And so he's trying like he's hopingthat he'll get up to the same
like antics he did with his friendswhen he was a student. And when
Harry's like no, it kind oflike destroys that this little like like you
know, like pipe dream he hasof like you know, getting to experience
what it was like to be withJames again. Essentially, I will also

(02:04:54):
say, on the total other sideof that coin where I just defended serious,
I would um also say that,yes, saying that to Harry someone
he supposedly loves his gods on allof that is pretty crappy. Oh yeah.
Also, like guilt is a selfinflicted emotion, So anything any guilt

(02:05:14):
that Harry is failing because of Serious'swords and trauma that he's like projecting onto
this situation, Harry is internalizing becausehe is also a traumatized individual, So
that the whole relationship, as I'vealways said, is so remarkably unhealthy.

(02:05:35):
I'm just I'm always wildly surprised whenpeople think that Harry should have ended up
with Serious, like absolutely not,Harry, like absolutely not. And this
is just another example of that.Yes, Serious is traumatized, but also
he shouldn't be saying those things tosomebody as the adult in this situation.
And I understand a lot of peopleargue that, like Harriet, that Serious

(02:05:59):
went to a scaban really young,so's he's stunted at that age. Absolutely
is. Of course, he's stillan adult. He's still an adult and
shouldn't be dumping that stuff on Harryand trying to making him feel trying to
make him feel guilty, sort ofmanipulating him. Yeah, in a way.
So I'm really glad Hermione is actuallythere in this moment to sort of
bear witness to that, and she, I think really helps Harry realize,

(02:06:25):
don't internalize that, Pal, that'sthat's serious is ish, you know,
I mean not a few weeks agobefore the events of this chapter, Serious
was trying to tout the fact thathe's Harry's godfather and that he should have
a say in what's good for Harry. But here's the thing, and I'm
not I'm trying very very hard notto judge. I don't want it to

(02:06:49):
come across that way. I'm tryingto observe that there are times where damaged
people can be of comfort and ofyou to each other because they understand one
another's pain. And Harry and Siriushave that. But there are also moments
like this one where he's trying toHe's got things he's trying to work out.

(02:07:15):
Harry's got things he's trying to workout. Neither of them is doing
it because they're both bad at itand being a damaged person. Trying to
help a damaged person by making themfeel worse about something they already feel bad
about is not helpful to anybody.So they both need somebody who is not
this close to their respective situations tohelp them out. They can't help each

(02:07:38):
other with that part of it.I also just stam with the fact that
I don't think Serious is like Imean, I doesn't have like a lot
of paternal instinct. I don't thinkI don't think he's I don't think he'd
ever have kids or anything like thaton his own. I don't see him
being like a nurturing figure out,which we can tell obviously for many reasons.
But I think what makes like therelationship the most unhealthy is that like

(02:08:01):
he he wants to be Harry's friendas opposed to like his like like authoritative
figure on and most circumstances. Inmy opinion, I think he's like like
the like how like it's unhealthy forlike when parents are to be like their
kids friends supposed like they're like parentand like they like let them do what
they want. I can see justSerious being like very like irresponsible when it

(02:08:22):
comes to Harry, and like he'sjust kind of letting him. I like
Harry would live with him, helet him do whatever he wanted, like
not like nothing is off the tablefor like what he could get up to,
like he Harry wants to do somethingillegal, go for it, wants
to do drugs, let's do ittogether, that kind of thing like that
kind of like parent and I justthink that's like it wouldn't like he's not
like a nurturing, like you know, authoritative type. That's really what Serious

(02:08:45):
and Molly get into, right,is their their differences in the way they
parent or don't parent in this inthis case, and why those two are
constantly budding heads with each other isthat Molly is okay for all of her
faults. She's a lot more maturethan Sirius. She has a lot more

(02:09:07):
experience there. She has different motivationsfor why she believes Harry should or shouldn't
be doing something then Serious does.They're also i mean, they were both
Griffin Doors, right, so youknow they both have that fire, but
we don't see it really later inMolly until significantly later. So I think
you just have to look at when, especially when you're talking about Serious and

(02:09:28):
Molly and sort of motivations behind parentingand why they react the way they did
do or non parenting. In thecase of Serious, you also you really
have to look at the past andthe trauma and the things that inform the
decisions and how they would handle thatstuff. When it comes to Harry and
I, I love. This isgoing to sound mean, but I like

(02:09:50):
putting Molly in Sirius against each other. I like pitting them. I think
it's a really interesting and fun dichotomybecause they ultimately sort of want the same
thing, but they go about itso differently. They couldn't be more different.
And I love talking about the twoof them together. I really do.
I agree with like everyone in termsof you know, there's obviously like

(02:10:11):
both sides to the situation. Likelike Asher when you were saying that you
love that part of the movie whenhe called him James, and I was
like, I cringed because because I'mlike, stop putting that on Harry like
that like that's not like, that'snot who he is. But I definitely
understand why it would be like,oh my god, like you feel so
there's like that heartfelt moment of ohmy god, serious, you just you

(02:10:33):
just miss your friends. I do, however, think that if we are
comparing Serious versus the Dursley's, Harrywould have absolutely done a lot better with
Serious. I also think that seriousis reckless. Yes, Serious is more
on the he is more on thewild side. However, he would have
at least loved Harry, like Harrywould have at least, you know,

(02:10:56):
not been bullied in his own home. And I also feel like we're not
giving Harry enough credit. Harry hasalways had most of the time, let
me take out always most of thetime, Harry has been a pretty reasonable
human. So to be like,oh, Harry could be like, oh,
I'm just gonna go do drugs,I don't even see Harry doing that,
Like, and I know that youwere just kind of used as an

(02:11:16):
example, but I just mean thatI don't think it would be the worst
thing in the world of Harry endedup with Serious, if we're comparing it
to him ending up with the Dursleys, because at least he would have been
liked, loved, appreciated, Andwhile Serious may not have been a great
like parental figure, it might havetaken him several years to you know,
mature into that because of his lossbefore. Like, at the same time,

(02:11:37):
he would have been better than theDursleys. And I think that Harry
by default, just from like everythinghe's been through, he's been forced to
grow up sooner rather than later.So he wouldn't have needed like a perfect
parent out of Serious because he neverhad that anyways, and he still turned
out to be a good guy.I see is gonna sound crazy, but

(02:11:58):
I'm not sure how much I agreewith you on that, solely out of
the case of his reaction in thismoment to Harry not wanting to like to
like uh go into hogs Made withhim, and because I think there would
be several circumstances that constantly coming upwhere He's like he should do this or
that, and Harry's like, no, it's not safe. Because if he
was living with Serious, it's stilllike Seriously has to be undercover, like

(02:12:20):
he couldn't be going out and doingthings like it's still like there's all that
happening. I don't think he's gonnabe anywhere near as bad as Durst is,
but I think it's more detrimental toHarry and his relationship, and like
Harry is as a person, ifhe and Serious are constantly at odds,
like Serious always saying he is offlike kind of out of pocket, like
comments about him not being like Jamesand the way he wants them to.
I think it's more actually, somehowmore detrimental to Harry is like mental and

(02:12:43):
like you know, emotional stability thanlike what the dirses are doing, just
because he's used to what the dirsesare doing, Like he respects like serious
so much, and like serious islike opinion. I think like that comment
is like Harts ten thousand times morethan anything that Dirses has said in the
last like ten years of his lifebecause he's so like used to it.
Now he doesn't listen to anything,like he doesn't care about anything they say

(02:13:03):
or respect their opinion or like anythingthey really have to like think about.
But he respects serious is so seriousopinion of him is like much more like
upheld to a standard, and likehim saying that, it's like very detrimental.
And I think it would not havebeen the only time he would ever
mention that or say something like thatto him if he were living with him.
I think it could be like aconstant like like you know, like,
oh, you're not going to dothis, like James would have done

(02:13:24):
that, Like it would have beenlike very debilitating for Harry after a while.
I think that as a solid argument, listeners, I would love to
know your take. Would Sarah Siriwould Harry have been better off with Serious
or with the Dursley's. And I'mlooking at it from the perspective of if
book three would have turned out whereSerious would have been proven innocent, not

(02:13:46):
run. But like if things hadworked out in book three like Serious wanted
it too, do you think thatHarry would have been better or worse off
with Serious or with I think thatchanges a lot, but in the perspective
of it actually happens. Yeah,I don't think anybody's going to come back
and say that he should have stayedwith the Dursleys. And I'm not sure
that's the argument even, but I'dbe interested to see what they have to

(02:14:09):
say. So cool. Well,is that where we're leaving it today?
Yep, already, folks. Thatis the end of this episode. Thank
you for joining us, And ofcourse next episode will be the long awaited
movie episode. More details coming atyou soon, so look out for that
as we get closer to the episode. Sorry for the delay, but we're

(02:14:33):
excited for it to happen. It'sgonna be a lot of fun. It's
better than greatna, It's gonna be. It was definitely worth the delay.
We promise it was the best tacticaldecision, and we promise it'll be it'll
be well worth the wait, wellworth it. In the meantime, while
you're waiting for the as Azure calledit, the long Awaited movie episode,
feel free to head over to ourwebsite at loohomore podcast dot com. And

(02:14:54):
if you want to join us fora show, any other show after this
where we're talking about some chapters,go to the website, use to be
on the show page, follow theinstructions and send us your audition. You
can find us on social media Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Spotify at alohomore
a M and Facebook dot com,slash open the Dumbledore and as always,
our email is alohomore podcast at gmaildot com. Also TikTok at a lotohomore

(02:15:18):
m and we always forget to addthat to the doc officially okay, very
good to know. And of course, once again, thank you to our
sponsor today, Sarah Eisenbarth. Thankyou again for sponsoring this episode. We
greatly appreciate it. We love allof our sponsors. Oh our little song,
we hope you know wait single wordJeff sing word the words, Sarah.

(02:15:43):
It's not helpful, but like singthe tone, like give me the
give me the give me the vibe. It's like saa s. That is
literally the holl And Note song thatI played for you before that you told
me it wasn't no words not.Jeff is going to find the actual song

(02:16:03):
and we're gonna we're gonna figure out. Jeff, you need to find it
because I just needed to see ifif you're if you're aligning with the same
song, I'll I told you,I'll figure it out. Okay, everyone
just wait for their comment below thisepisode, because we'll figure this out.
Uh. And of course, foran ad free version of Alhama, or

(02:16:24):
to watch this wonderful video and seeall of our wonderful backgrounds, etc.
And so forth, you can headon an over to our Patreon and become
a sponsor for as little as twodollars a month. Oh that's like so
little almost whoa. And of courseyou also get access to other exclusive content
such as Dumbledore's Office episode, sponsoringexclusively flips, bonus episodes, and so

(02:16:48):
much more. It's a great timehigh can you recommend? And not just
because we're being biased at all.And of course, just as a reminder,
I'm Asher, I'm Bianco, I'mCat and I'm Jeff. Thank you
for listening to episode three hundred andseventy nine of A Lohomra. Open the
Dumbledore if you can stand to riskit. A Lohomra is produced by Tracy

(02:17:24):
Dunston and edited by Patrick Muslick.It was co created by Noah Freed and
Cat Miller and is brought to youby ap WB d LLLC. No.

(02:17:48):
See, I'm telling you man,it was that song. If you say,
I'm gonna say, did you wantto end in with the song?
Maybe if we find the song,we can put it all like the background.
Are we going to get copyrighted forit? Though? No? Please,
It's like it's like three seconds ofa song. Okay, that's why
I figured it. Also, we'regonna credit them. We're gonna be like,

(02:18:11):
oh, here it is, Ifound it. Oh's fast. It's
called actually you know, it's funny. It is it. It is spelled
exactly the same. It's sar A. It's by the band Starship. That's

(02:18:33):
the only one I didn't play.Yeah, yeah, hairness can out in
nineteen eighty five, hang on seeok for mystery songs. I five that

(02:19:05):
link. I told you it's aclassic eighties song anyway, we can stop
recording now.

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