OOTP 15, Revisit: Dumbridge

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
This is episode four hundred and fifty two of Aloha
Mora from Mase of A teen twenty and twenty five.

(00:38):
Welcome to another episode of Aloha Mora, The Fantom's original
Harry Potter Book Club. I'm Jeff Hutton, I'm Alison Siggard.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
And I'm Shamani Willis and welcome to another all host episode.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yay, another all family affair. I don't know about you, guys,
but personally I look forward to these. I love when
we get to meet our guests. I love when we
throw a little bit of new flavor in the mix.
But every now and then it's nice to just, you know,
have these moments that are just.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Us is it's fun. What's not fun is what we
have to talk about today. That's unds terrible all the chapter.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
But it might be kind of fun.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
But there's gonna be some uh, there's gonna be some
soapboxes and some ranting this episode, because today we are
looking at Order of the Phoenix, chapter fifteen, the Hogwarts
high inquisitor.

Speaker 5 (01:35):
Prop myself.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Originally we talked about this chapter on episode ninety two
on July twelfth, twenty fourteen.

Speaker 5 (01:45):
Oh my gosh, why do we keep doing why do
people keep giving me the dates? Ourselves?

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Open here? And that was with host Caleb Michael and
guest Meghan. So go ahead and listen to that one
entitled mcgonagall's verbal SmackDown, which is great, great also.

Speaker 5 (02:11):
Honest, yes, ten out of ten for that moment.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
So yeah, So that's that's what we're going back to today.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Looking forward to it, good old Unbridge. But before we
get into that, we need to thank ours, Patreon sponsor,
without whom we would not be here. So today's episode
is sponsored by Sam Salvage on Patreon. Thank you, Sam,
sam Selwige.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
That's fun to say. I love when the names are
fun to say, Sam Salwidge.

Speaker 5 (02:46):
Nice alliteration there.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
I like it.

Speaker 5 (02:48):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
It's like a good rock starn it it is. You
don't think, oh oh you said you wouldn't know. Wow, Okay,
let's go want to be that kind of day guys.
Any who, if you didn't know, our Patreon offers a
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(03:11):
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(03:34):
do so, and thank you again, thank you, dam thank
you everyone.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yayneda zip coff for already this.

Speaker 5 (03:42):
One three times?

Speaker 6 (03:46):
Should do it?

Speaker 5 (03:47):
Chapter revisit ord the Phoenix.

Speaker 6 (03:57):
You mean, professor, yes, m Chapter fifteen, continue the hogwart
tie inquisitor.

Speaker 5 (04:11):
Right, Well, if that's really the best you can do, okay,
so check it.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Newsflash. The kids are upset because of an article in
the Daily Prophet again because the government has decided to
mess things up for Harry and his friends again, and
Lucius malfoy said a bunch of shitaki about Dumbledore again.
Umbradge now has a whole new list of duties that
comes with a very disturbing title. We'll get to it,

(04:41):
and she doesn't hesitate to start flexing on her fellow
staff members. Umbrage humiliates Trelawny in front of a class
of children, Hermione humiliates Umbrage in front of a class
of children, and Umbrage humiliates herself in front of mcgonagall's
class of children, and Grubby Plant gives a very bland
but slid demonstration of competency. Harry gets yelled at by

(05:04):
Angelina forgetting even more detention with Umbrage, and when he
gets back, his best friends try to persuade him to
start a militant peer tutoring program because the government would
rather have dead children than child soldiers.

Speaker 5 (05:18):
That's about it.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Fiery chapter summary, It's a fiery chapter.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
It's you know, but yeah, honestly, it's one of those
chapters where you realize it's not always about the action,
like the thing that's happening. Sometimes it's just about the
setup and what you know it means, like just I
have a whole thing in here when we get to it.
Of just the fact that they call it a high Inquisitor,

(05:44):
that they chose that name at all, I've been dying
to go off on this one.

Speaker 5 (05:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
I it's also interesting again this time difference we've had
between these chapters, because now I'm I'm facing I'm looking
at my tenth year of teaching here, and this chapter
has a lot to do with a teaching and school
structures and whoo.

Speaker 5 (06:17):
So let's dive in.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
Let's dive in starting with what this chapter starts with,
which is this article in the Daily Profit that Percy
told the Trio to expect this morning.

Speaker 5 (06:29):
And it is absolutely infuriating.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
This entire article is absolutely infuriating, But it's also it
also though I was reading it and I was like,
oh my gosh, this is sadly topical, especially in the
US right now, with just the.

Speaker 5 (06:49):
Current state of a lot of things.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
How much the government and people who have never actually
spent a day in a classroom besides their own schooling
think they know how to run things and how it
all works.

Speaker 5 (07:00):
Because news flash, my people, you don't.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
Okay, nine out of ten teachers, if not all teachers
would agree. Even our own training programs don't prepare us
for the crap that we go through on a day
to day basis in the trenches. So if you're out
there and you think you actually know how a classroom
runs and how to actually teach anything, you are probably
like at least ninety percent wrong. Okay, Like I'm just

(07:26):
gonna throw that out there, I'm gonna get to like
how insane it is, but like, listen, listen, please go
back to the early days of the pandemic in your mind,
when all the schools were closed and everyone was saying,
how do teachers do this every day?

Speaker 5 (07:41):
They should all earn a million dollars a year.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Because yeah, and it's only gotten worse since then, So yes, yeah,
it's it's gonna be a.

Speaker 5 (07:53):
Very brandy episode for me.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Sorry, I would never reclaim to know how the inside
of a classroom works, and I just I have so
much respect for teachers in general, because I mean, I homeschool,
but I only have two, so I can't imagine being
in a classroom full of them and having to worry

(08:16):
about government overreach breathing down my neck. Now, absolutely not see.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
There's a reason why. When my youngest brother got married
and I was asked to give a toast at the
wedding rehearsal, I brought up the fact that my brother
goes into work every day and does a thankless job.
And I took an opportunity in that speech to thank
him for doing that job because I feel like he
doesn't hear it enough cause he's a math teacher. He's

(08:45):
a high school math teacher.

Speaker 7 (08:47):
You know what, high schoolers don't want to do every
day math, So you know who doesn't really get a
whole lot of respect from students or other teachers, or
parents or the administration.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Math teachers in high schools just saying, yeah, But I
want to talk for a second about how troubling it
is that we have any sentence at all that begins
with In a surprise move last night, the Ministry of
Magic past new legislation, giving itself an unprecedented level of control.
These people aren't elected by anybody, They are accountable only

(09:23):
to themselves. They represent all branches of government, and these
people can just get jobs. You remember how upset Bartie
Crouch was at the idea of Ludo Bagman getting a
job in the government.

Speaker 5 (09:37):
It's because he was.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
He may have been a stuffy old guy who wasn't
nice to everybody, and yeah he may have been super
harsh on death theaters and a crappy dad, but he
understood one thing that people shouldn't have jobs are not
qualified for. This government is full of people who are
unqualified to do any of this stuff. And now you're

(10:00):
telling me they can just give themselves new power anytime
they want. They write the laws, they interpret the laws,
they enforce the laws, and everybody just sits back and
takes it.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
Okay, We're going to talk about how schooling systems work
in the US and the UK a little bit later,
because there is a difference, and I think my only
thing to push back on that because I think you're right,
it is kind of crazy how they do some of this.
But I think they have more of a parliamentary system
from the Wizarding World is what I always understood, where

(10:37):
it's more like in supporting a certain because they don't
really have parties, right, but in an overall support for
an administration. I guess that kind of because that happens
in more parliamentary systems where people vote for more of
the party, not necessarily individuals. Oh, people do that in
America too, well, yes, but it's different, right, Like.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Say, people do it in America all the time, Like, yes.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
But in the UK how it works is it's just
whichever party has the greater amount that just the people
running the government themselves pick the different people in those positions.
In the US, we more by name actually, you know,
like when we vote you actually vote for an individual.

(11:24):
In the UK, it's more you say, I support the
movement of this group, and then that group of governing
people select the individuals that are the Prime Minister for example,
or like like, they don't individually vote for that, right,
So it is a little bit different, but it is
kind of yeah, I mean, but the Ministry of Magic,

(11:49):
especially in how they work with Hogwarts, is a very strange,
interesting mix of a lot of things that we'll get
into as we try and kind of break down how
this system works, because yeah, because it's kind of crazy.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
Just real quick before we move off of it, because
I get my news from the BBC. I think the
way it actually works over there is that members of
Parliament are elected and whichever party has the majority within
their party they choose the prime minister. So people, the
ordinary citizens don't vote for the prime minister. The party does,
but the members of that party who represent them in

(12:24):
Parliament are still voted on by the people, and then
the prime minister can appoint whoever they want to their cabinet.

Speaker 5 (12:31):
Yes, it's kind of like a mix, yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
But still the people have voting power in real life
in Britain. In the Wizarding world. They don't. We have
no idea who it is who's actually in control of
choosing the Minister of magic. We know they offered the
job to Dumbledore and he didn't take it. We know
that after Fudge resigns, they give the job to roof
A Scrimjore and then he gets assassinated.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
But we also know that those moves come from the
of the people.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Right.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
It says multiple times that like people are outraged and
so they won't Fudge out right, and they like Scriamsure
better because he seems like he's tougher on things.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
But that's more of a survey of who's already in charge,
not how they picked them in the first place.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
I who knows, But I'm just saying we never we
never get that information. And I don't think though we
can throw out the fact or not the fact, we
can throw out the possibility that there.

Speaker 5 (13:25):
Is some sort of voting.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
We just don't hear about it because we're looking at
it through the sense of minors, right.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
I mean, either way, their moves were kind of shady
because it says, and a surprise move last night.

Speaker 5 (13:42):
We're gonna get there, We're gonna get there.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
Which basically says they're moving under the cover of darkness
and did a secret vote or something.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Oh. Absolutely, this happens in real life all the time.
It happened in Indiana very recently.

Speaker 5 (13:55):
Yeah, no, it's yeah, we're gonna get there. Don't worry.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
I will go on my rant about school government's bodies
how it works soon. But kind of keeping going through
this article still. I read this thing where it was
like parents are happy, and I was like, what bs
because obviously the only parents who are happy are the

(14:21):
ones who are super loudly complaining parents like Malfoy, who's like, listen, listen,
my friends, Lucy's Malfoy would be a book banner. Okay,
he just would be. He absolutely would be. He would
also be every every.

Speaker 5 (14:35):
Teacher's nightmare parent, like listen.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
I have known and had parents do this to me,
and I have known other teachers where parents will just
come like accost you randomly in your classroom, sometimes just
show up unannounced, or who will yell at you on
the phone, or who will.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
Listen, Lucy, He'll show up for an unannounced class evaluation
or something. I'm just observing.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
He's the one who we are all talking about in
the breakroom. I'm just gonna say that, and everyone knows
about this parent and this kid, and everyone was like,
who got him this year?

Speaker 5 (15:14):
Right? Like absolutely, absolutely, that's what's happening here. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
By the way, if you're a terrible, like problem parent, Also,
if you're lovely, I will say, if you're really lovely,
you're being talked about.

Speaker 5 (15:26):
In the breakroom. Everyone knows. Okay, everyone knows. Yeah, he's Oh,
he's awful.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
But I do have to say, in the midst of
this terrible article, there are a couple of little funny moments,
like like when Hermione reads out that Umberge has been
an immediate success and Harry goes, she's been a what.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Oh, it's hilarious.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
I'm outraged by the outrage, Like this is per Percy's
you know, bought into. He's bought into the hype from
the government. Harry, you know exactly what he's saying. You
got the you got the whole download on that from
from from his family over the summer. This and he's
the one who, by the way, told Ron that something

(16:11):
like this was gonna appear in the paper the next day.
It's like, is it really that surprising?

Speaker 3 (16:15):
No, But I think I think it's just just his
It's just funny to me, right that she's been an
immediate success in Harry's Like she's been on what now
do you want to say that to my face?

Speaker 2 (16:28):
And like according to who? Yeah, I couldn't help but
think it reminded me of when they have those surveys
and they're like, people have said that this restaurant is
overwhelmingly number one, when it's this some horrific restaurant that
nobody that I know likes, and I'm like, who did
you ask? Like who are these people? Who did you survey?

(16:51):
That's what the vibe I got from this.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
The raccoons that were rooting in the dumpster behind the restaurant.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, it's like when a movie only uses like reviews
from Twitter and stuff. You're like, you know, it's bad
when you can't use an actual credits critics quote because
they're panning it.

Speaker 5 (17:09):
Like it just it's yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
It Also, I'd like to point out they're only in
the second week of school at this point.

Speaker 5 (17:19):
It's only been.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
A solid week. You're not a success in a week
like most teachers I know, even if you've been teaching
for twenty years. Are still trying to remember how to
teach from week one.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
I know that was what have you actually done other
than like it's the the intro to the students and
learning about what the class is going to be about
and all of that getting to know each other stuff
in those few weeks. So what have you actually done
to be considered a success?

Speaker 5 (17:50):
You've done nothing.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
Again people who don't know anything about teaching, which leads
into the next quote, which is that she's revolutionizing the
teaching of defense against the Dark Arts. I literally was
like slamming my hands down on the table, like Shane
doesn't know how to change.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
I mean, to be fair, she certainly is revolutionizing it,
but not in a good way.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
Yeah, because here's the thing. There are so many just
scientific based ways that show how kids learn right, and
it's kind of more of a sliding scale on that
than anything. And also, if you are a first year teacher,

(18:43):
you're not revolutionizing anything, even if you want to or think.

Speaker 5 (18:47):
You are right.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
You are still trying to figure out how this works
on a day to day basis.

Speaker 5 (18:53):
The first five.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
Years of teaching are like the hardest thing you will
ever do in your life, and the first one or
two are even worse. My first couple years, I got
to work at like six am and didn't leave until
about six pm.

Speaker 5 (19:08):
Every single day.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
The first year I taught, it was an all indoor school,
and my classroom happened to be in the very middle
of the building. I don't think I saw the sun
for like the entire winter. That's how long I was
at work every day because I had no outside windows.
So yeah, yeah, this is infuriating.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
She just makes them read the text. She doesn't even
give them quizzes or assign them. I mean, on the
one hand, it's revolutionary in one way because I have
seen some teachers apply this method. She doesn't give them homework.
If I have to pick one thing about her classroom
style that I don't absolutely hate, like if I'm looking
at it from a student perspective, I loved it when

(19:55):
I had the teachers who said they don't really believe
in homework, and apparently recording to my nephew, when he
started telling me this, I did not believe him because
I used to try to pull this on my parents
when I was a kid. I used to say, They'd say,
do you have any homework? And I'd say no, they
didn't really give us any and they'd say, okay, And
I don't know why they ever believe me, because it
was always a lie. But apparently this is a thing
that teachers do. Now they're not giving it.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
It's been a pendulum. Yeah, it's been a pendulum shift
for several reasons. One, there's been some scholarship that's shown
that too much doesn't do very much good at all,
especially if it's just kind of like busy work. Though
there has been a lot of scholarship that's shown that
repeated practice of certain things like math skills and reading

(20:37):
outside and those kinds of things is very, very beneficial.

Speaker 5 (20:41):
Please read to your.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
Kids, and have your kids read regularly. Sorry, that's my
PSA for a long time and throughout their entire lives. Okay,
but yeah, there has been a bit of a pendulum
shift there. We are, though, kind of going for scholarship
reasons and also just it's hard to get kids to
do it with everything else that has their attention. And

(21:06):
depending on where you are, at least in the US,
depending on where you are and what your demographic is like.
I mean, I've had kids who they had to go
to work to support their family, so they couldn't do
their homework, or they had to go home and watch
younger siblings all afternoon and evening so their parents could work,
you know, So homework wasn't a thing that was happening.
So there definitely has been some shifting in that, but

(21:33):
definitely though outside practice for most things is important.

Speaker 5 (21:37):
Yeah. Anyway, sorry that that was a teacher soapup.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
No, that was a good No. That was an excellent
point because one of the it's one of the things
like that, and just the whole process of just having
kids read from the book and memorize and then take
a test to regurgitate what they memorized. It just it
is such an ineffective method. No, it is, because it's
one of the reasons why, of all people, I never

(22:02):
saw this coming, but I've read this book many times.
Tim Gunn, who a lot of people remember from Project Runway,
he actually spent a lot of years in academia and
he wrote a book called The Natty Professor where he
talks about his experience, you know, applying his philosophies of
teaching in his own life. But he also collects a
lot of stories from other people about their favorite teachers.

(22:24):
And why. And one thing that's consistent is that good
teachers do not just give you information and say, here,
memorize it. Now take this test. To prove that you
have memorized it. You have to give them some reason
to believe that learning all this stuff is important. You
have to make sure they engage with it and see
how it actually applies to them. Otherwise, so what if

(22:46):
they can memorize it and pass the test in your
class and then move on to the next thing. It's
not preparing them for anything.

Speaker 5 (22:53):
It's not giving it and they don't remember it. No, they
don't remember it.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
Memorization like that just for pure for a test kids,
forgetting ninety it's like it's either eighty or ninety percent
of the content as soon as the test is over.
I don't remember the exact thing.

Speaker 5 (23:09):
But yeah, no, But but it's.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
Interesting because, like you were talking about homework from what
I from what I kind of gathered from these books, right,
this kind of like read this information and then write
me an essay kind of or answer some questions or whatnot.
That kind of work seems to be the homework that
teachers do at Hogwarts to prepare their students for the

(23:31):
more practical parts they do in class, right, which makes
sense because it's kind of like it's almost like a
science class right with magic that you can't really you
shouldn't really do that very often without the like without
some oversight from an adult especially, or someone who.

Speaker 5 (23:51):
Knows what they're doing.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
So it seems like a lot of how most of
the teachers at Hogwarts work is they have the kids
read a selection to get the theory, write something about
the theory, and then they come to class and do
the more practical part together, which obviously umbrage having just
cut out that entire practical part. What are they supposed
to do during that time? So she just has them

(24:14):
read right and not taken actually anything or practice anything,
which again is crazy.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
This whole year is obviously supposed to be a test
year for them, because this is the first year she's
doing this. They're trying something, and right now what they're
hung up on is trying to prevent the kids from
actively learning spells because they're worried that they're going to
form some kind of resistance group and overthrow the government.
So they're taking this year to find out if this

(24:46):
is going to keep that from happening. And once they
are sure that they are not going to have to
deal with students forming some kind of army to resist
the government, then they're gonna start worrying about actually preparing
them to be productive members of wizarding society. They're not

(25:06):
prioritizing at right now.

Speaker 5 (25:08):
No, they're not at all.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
And then we get the announcement that Delores Umbridge has
been named Hogwarts High inquisitor.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Okay, gross, let's talk about this title. This is what
I have been waiting for. Let's talk about the word inquisitor. So,
just to make sure that I'm minding my little academic
p's and q's here, I did look up the Merriam
Webster definition of these words. An inquisitor is one who inquires,

(25:42):
especially one who is unduly harsh, severe, or hostile in
making an inquiry, So that checks out.

Speaker 5 (25:49):
I also looked up.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
The word inquisition. If it's a lowercase I, we're dealing
with a severe questioning conducted with little regard for individual rights.
That checks out. And if we're dealing with capital I,
we're talking about a former Roman Catholic tribunal for the
discovery and punishment of heresy. Guess who was watching the

(26:10):
movie Conclave while preparing these notes me and guess what
I was thinking about. This person has been appointed Hogwarts
High Inquisitor. Now, listen, the wizarding community did not make
this word up. It has a very prejudicial and discriminatory context.

(26:36):
And yes, people in the wizarding world have a shocking
ignorance of the non magical community. And it's not really
a surprise that the kids at Hogwarts wouldn't have direct
knowledge of mass human tragedies from hundreds of years ago.
But someone somewhere must have known what this word would mean,

(27:00):
and they chose it on purpose. They have now given
this title of High Inquisitor to somebody who is supposed
to come in here and subjugate the kids and the teachers.
And why are they doing it. In the Spanish Inquisition,
it was to make non Christians afraid of They were

(27:23):
supposed to think of God, but really they were supposed
to be afraid of the Roman Catholic Church and their
supreme supposed power. Now, the Wizarding the Ministry of Magic
wants the teachers and the students and their parents, and
by extension, the wizarding community at large, to fear the government.
They are using a fear tactic and all they had

(27:45):
to do was use this one simple word in order
to do it.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
It's also very interesting because if you're specifically thinking about
the history of England, where this comes up.

Speaker 5 (27:56):
And is most focused on is on a bit of
a like Tutor history streak lately. I don't know why
it's been here, but it.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
Mostly comes up in this idea of you've got the
reforation the Reformation during Henry the Eighth, and then you've
got the counter Reformation with Mary right and that kind
of back and forth pulling between and so you very
much have you know, the these these people again in
the government who are in charge, who are trying to

(28:28):
pull out heresy, but a lot of times it's mostly
just people. They've got personal vendettas against right, people who
have personally wronged them, people who have supported their enemies,
and so we're that's basically kind of what's happening here,
right Like Umbridge is here to basically exact revenge and

(28:53):
power over the people that Fudge really specifically thinks are
against are against him mm hmm, which is basically Dumbledore
and Harry and anyone who believes them or is aligned
with them, which is ugh gross.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
And it's so sad, so sad because Dumbledore's not out
there making anti Fudge speeches. He's just out there telling
people what Fudge doesn't want him to know because they
have a difference of opinion about how best to protect
the public. And he's afraid because he knows that people
like Dumbledore better than him. So what does he start doing.

(29:36):
I have a note in here about this later, but
it just it bugs me how wishy washy the Wizarding
World is in responding to propaganda. The government and the
news start reporting that Dumbledore's an old fool and that
Harry is unstable, and not enough people are questioning that.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
Well, yeah, because I because yeah, it's it's uh, I
mean it's it's always the problem with any kind of
state sponsored media, right, which the Daily Profit really.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Is, you know, unofficially, but yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
I mean, I mean, yeah, it's kind of the equivalent
of the BBC, which it would just state sponsored media, honestly, Yeah,
you know, it's it's paid for with taxes and things,
and so yeah, it's it's very interesting because they do
very much lean on the profit for to spread this

(30:24):
kind of perception obviously, it seems that though not everyone
believes all of it, right, I mean you get you
get a pretty good contingent that comes up here from
even just kids who are like yeah nah right, and
I'm sure they're not all keeping that all completely hidden
from their parents or they're not influenced by their parents.

Speaker 5 (30:44):
Being like yeah this is crap.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
So yeah, no, it's it's very interesting how much in
this chapter we're seeing so much about government oversight and
reach and just where it.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
All ends up, and touching back on the liliziture title situation,
it just it also frustrates me the way the Ministry
handles this entire situation because instead of using some common
sense and thinking hey, yes, which is not common, and

(31:16):
thinking hey, maybe we should prepare the public, they want
to cover it up and sweep it under the rug
and use intimidation pactics instead. And it kind of reminded
me of something disturbing parallel this inquisitor situation when Dump,
when Gumbridge dum Dumbridge, when Umbridge forms the inquisitorial squad,

(31:44):
it is literally students coming through and raiding the school
and reporting back to the government, which is super gross
and very reminiscent of the SX, and it's the whole
government in your business kind of thing, like they got
the kid's mind.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
Yeah, it's it's fascinating because that happens again. Weird tutor
kick that I'm on, that also happened during that point
right after the Reformation. They were like, tell on any
of your neighbors and family members who are secretly papists,
you know, like and that actually happened though, like people
actually would offer up information and and yeah, it's it's lots.

Speaker 5 (32:29):
I don't know where else I was going with.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
That, but like it's just it's gross, and I understand
it may be a self preservation tactic where you want
to stay in the good graces I guess. And still
though it's just mind your business, mind your business. They don't.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
Speaking of people who want to mind their business. We
were talking a couple a couple episodes ago when we
were talking about owls. We were talking about how someone
becomes a proctor. And this is one of those funny
things that happens, you know, when you don't read these
chapters in order very often. But it hit me again that, oh,

(33:15):
March Banks and Ogden, who are proctors at the end
of the book for the Owls resign in this chapter.
We've learned this in this article from the Wizingamont, which
I think is very, very fascinating that people that high
up would be proctering these exams. And maybe just because
I'm used to a US system where it's like you

(33:38):
literally pull anybody you can who can pass a background
check and can be slightly competent and.

Speaker 5 (33:43):
Sometimes to like.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
Administer these kinds of exams, I find it interesting that
these people who are on like the highest basically overall
government body in this country are also proctoring exams. For granted,
I mean maybe it makes sense because there's literally one school.

Speaker 5 (34:04):
Yeah, this Wizarding World, but it also is just, yeah,
just fascinating to me.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
We really only these two are the only two that
we see, Tiberius Ogden and Riselda march Banks. They're the
only ones we actually see proctering the exams. Because I think, oh, wait,
and there's professor, isn't it Professor Tofti is his name,
the one who does like he They're all described as being,

(34:30):
you know, rather elderly, and I kind of it. It
reminded me of the fact that it feels like, for
the most part, it's kind of a stereotype because it's
not always true. But whenever you go to the polls
to vote, the volunteers running the polls when you vote
are always senior citizens. Yes, it kind of reminded me

(34:51):
of that because I just thought, Okay, so you're in
the Wizarding world. You've done a lot with your life.
You don't necessarily have to just go to a wizarding
retirement home if they have that.

Speaker 5 (35:04):
So what do you do.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
You join up with the Wizarding do you know, Department
of Education or whatever they call it, and you procter
exams because it gets you out of the house every
once in a while, and you don't really have to
do a whole lot because don't they have they're the
Wizarding Examinations Authority, So I would think that there are
other examinations that they're proctering besides just ow Wells and
any wt's. I would think that. Wouldn't they be the

(35:28):
people who are in charge of like apparition tests.

Speaker 5 (35:33):
Yeah, that would make sense.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
Apparition tests may be like some sort of like like
the or exam maybe to some degree, you know, like
those kinds of things that would make sense if there's
like a kind of like central body of people who
are qualified to do these and then they go do
all these types of things.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yeah, because basically I would think anything that it requires
some kind of certification, yeah, examination in order to become
a licensed store, to join a certain department, like they
would be the people just in charge of that, because yeah,
that would make One of the things that just it's
so hard to gauge is the exact size and scope

(36:14):
of the wizarding world because a lot of times when
we talk about the Ministry of Magic and how far
away people have to travel from to get to school,
it makes it sound like it's the size of the
entire United Kingdom. But whenever we talk about when we
actually look at how many people work in all these
governmental departments, and we look at what the population sizes

(36:35):
for Hogwarts, or how many people are in diagon Alley
at any given time, it just makes it feel like
you've taken a few thousand people and you've stretched them
across quite a large country. So it just, yeah, which
everything that you look at individually just makes it harder
and harder to really gauge exactly what the size of

(36:56):
the Wizarding World is absolutely.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
Because it I mean it is. The UK is not
a big country, right, There's really not that many people
there if we look at it compared to some other places,
and so to have an even smaller population within that, yeah,
it's never clear, you know.

Speaker 5 (37:18):
I mean, it just kind of is. I feel like
it's one of.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
Those things where it's like it just is, just accept
it and move on, which is sometimes is like okay, yeah,
speaking of governing bodies though, this is where we got
to kind of get into some of this, how does
this work with the size of things too? So in

(37:45):
the US, our school governance system is very interesting because
for the most part it is a much more local issue. Yes,
we have the Department of Education, which oversees some things,
but that's mostly in regards to like higher education and

(38:05):
special education or like Americans with Disabilities Act Needs and
states offer some curriculums, some guidelines, but most of the
day to day decisions are actually made at a very
local level. In the US education system, really, everything to
the most part comes down to whatever the school district is,

(38:29):
and if people are outside the US, districts are usually
several schools in a certain geographical area. Honestly, most mid
size to bigger cities and towns have like one school
board right one school district. Sometimes it's a mix of
like elementary, middle or junior high.

Speaker 5 (38:49):
And high schools.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
Sometimes it's split into like primary secondary schools, just kind
of depending on where you are and how things were
set up. We have national curriculum stand programs legislation that
came down like George Bush's No Child Left Behind or
Obama's Race to the Top, those kinds of programs that

(39:11):
try and set more national standards, But for the most part,
it's states that really say here are the educational standards
that are expected to be taught. Most now align with
the common Core, which came from No Child Left Behind
and kind of was revamped in Race to the Top.

(39:32):
Those were kind of largely adapted and adopted by most states.
We do have an accreditation system in the US, but
again it is kind of like regional. So for example,
in where I'm at in California, we're under what's called WASK,
which is the Accrediting Commission for Schools, Western.

Speaker 5 (39:53):
Association of Schools and Colleges, where.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
They basically have guidelines of this is what schools need
to be doing to be seen as like to like
for the a degree.

Speaker 5 (40:04):
From them to count.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
Right, that's what accreditation is and basically what schools have
to do. We have to do what every like three
or six years.

Speaker 5 (40:12):
It kind of depends. There's a whole cycle.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
Where you kind of present a portfolio of like this
is the information about our school, this is what we do,
this is this is where we're at, and our goals
and our strategies, and then this kind of this group
from WASK, these accreditators, and they're often made up of
like administrators from all over. So like sometimes our principal

(40:37):
or vice principles go on these like WASC visits to
other schools to look at this stuff. They come in
for a site visit, They look around, they check things out,
they check out the portfolio they've been given. They meet
with parents and students and teachers and administration. And then
either schools are given like a full accredited accreditation, they

(40:59):
can be put on some sort of like probationary or
testing status, or they can they can kind of fail
this accreditation. Right, So there's that there's kind of that oversight.
You've got school boards that are really kind of in
charge of saying yes we allow this curriculum, or yes
we allow these these kinds of textbooks, or this kind
of thing they vote on that states implement certain curriculum standards, like,

(41:24):
for example, California passed a few years ago this new
requirement that all graduating students need to have taken an
ethnic studies class in high school. So that's that's a
graduation requirement in California. There's also this high emphasis that
schools kind of follow what they call the A to

(41:46):
G requirements, which are set by the University of California system,
which basically says, this is what students need for us
to admit them to our system. So most high schools,
that's kind of like the basic graduation plan, right, is
that you've fulfilled the A through G requirements. It's really
piecemeal and kind of crazy when you talk about it,

(42:09):
and I mean things like school boards. Most of them
are not in education at all.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
Right.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
Most people who sit on school boards or who are
elected to school boards are not teachers. They haven't been
trained as teachers. They are just people, and a lot
of times people use that as just a springboard for
further political careers.

Speaker 5 (42:31):
So it gets messy.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
That's so wild, symp Why would you have former educators
or current educator like that's wild, Yeah, it's it's crazy.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
The US education system is very piecemeal in a lot
of ways, and so you get a lot of different
things coming in of who goes where from what I
understand from the UK, and this is where I wish
Rosie was here, because Rosie knows the UK system. What
I got from a UK government report was that school

(43:05):
governance varies for each country. In the UK and England,
Wales and Northern Ireland, they all operate similar systems of
school governance for state schools, whereas Scotland does not have
formal school governors and instead has parent councils. In England,
Wales and Northern Ireland, governors have similar roles and responsibilities,
but there are differences in governance structures and representation on boards.

(43:26):
In England, school governors provide strategic leadership and accountability in
schools through three core functions, ensuring clarity of vision, ethos
and strategic direction, holding senior leaders to account for the
educational performance of the school and its pupils, overseeing the
financial performance of the school, and making sure it's money
is well spent. There are around three hundred thousand school
governors in England, so how I understand it, the UK

(43:50):
is almost more school by school, right, And each school
by school has this panel of parents and like the
head teachers of the school and some other like directly
involved bodies in the school, like stakeholders in the school,
and that's who kind of oversees things in this way.

(44:13):
And then each of those kind of board of governors
is more directly reporting, if I'm understanding it correctly, to
more of like the full country government or parliament, right,
So it's almost more unified, and and the UK country's
Department of Educations are more directly involved in individual school

(44:34):
accountability and standards, so it's more centralized than we are
in the US, which is very interesting to me, which
then brings us to kind of the wizarding world. There's
one school, right, there's hod boards and so there very
much is this more direct control of the government over

(44:58):
this one school. I would be very interested to know
who the old school governors were, because the only one
we really know is Lucy's malfoy, right. I think we
kind of get the hint that there are other parents
on this board as well, But like, who else are

(45:18):
any of the teachers on.

Speaker 5 (45:20):
This school of school?

Speaker 3 (45:22):
Like government council. We don't really ever see that, we
don't really really know. But it's very interesting to see
these different systems, which I think then makes it even
more interesting that it is so clearly a government plan
with this entire revamp, to try and override how the
school is run, and to override the school board of governors,

(45:46):
to override Dumbledore as the headmaster, and like, this is
not how this is supposed to work.

Speaker 5 (45:52):
I have a theory, nuts, guys, I have.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
A fan theory about this, because I was thinking about
this too. Bravo to you for your breakdown of educational systems.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
That was very analysis.

Speaker 5 (46:06):
It's crazy, it's good stuff.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
And as it pertains to this chapter and what we're
talking about here, it kind of makes you realize that
when the school was supposedly under attack and Lucius Malfoy
had a vendetta to get rid of Dumbledore, he tried
going through the school governors and it ended up backfiring
on him in the end. And then in the third book,

(46:33):
the school governors are informed when Lucius Malfoy's son is
attacked by a hippogriff during a lesson at school, so
they have to weigh in on that, but we never
get any interference from them ever again. And my fan
theory is that part of this dismantling of their own

(46:56):
alleged and education system is it they shadow banned the
Board of Governors. They dismantled it, and they went to
these governors and said, well, what are you going to
do about it? We're kicking you out. Your services are
no longer required. You did not help us, you were

(47:17):
not serving us and our agenda before, and we no
longer need you, So we are now going to just
officially downsize your department, pack your desks, and get out.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
I can definitely see that. I can also see them
stacking it with people they know will be ineffective and
that won't do anything, because I don't know, it's kind
of like I mean, at least in the US, like
the Department of Education can't be dismantled with except from
an Act of Congress, So I wonder if it's kind
of like that, like they fully can't dismantle it, but

(47:54):
instead they just stack it with people that will be
completely ineffective and not do anything.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
You mean, like putting somebody in charge of the Department
of Education who's only ever worked in private education. You
mean like that or not at all, or that.

Speaker 5 (48:09):
Who thinks AI is a one.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
Sorry, I'm gonna okay, I'm gonna go there sauce.

Speaker 5 (48:16):
But yeah, steak sauce.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
Oh god, Yeah, it's it's crazy.

Speaker 5 (48:25):
But also even.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
A little change like that is going to reverberate for years.
So it doesn't surprise me that that if they do
that in this book, that we don't see them again
for the rest of it, because it takes years to
change those things back. So yeah, it's it's it's messy,
and it's messed up.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
It is And related to your question about who the
governors are, based on the theory that they're planting people
who are basically basically won't be a threat to them,
or people who will help them and who were definitely
on their side, it leads me to believe that the
previous board was made up strictly of it was one

(49:10):
of those parent council situations because Lucius was able to
intimidate them when the whole situation was going down in
Chamber of Secrets, and I would imagine if there were
some features on board that probably wouldn't have happened so easily.
I think a lot of the reason that well, and

(49:33):
I don't know, I'm back and forth, because did the
did the parent board push back and as a result
they were effectively brought down dismantled like Jeff said, Or
were they just sitting there being complicit the entire time
because they were concerned that it would have some kind
of impact on their job or their kid at school

(49:55):
like which which was it?

Speaker 1 (49:56):
I think it was just a bunch of dusty, old
white guys who only cared about the kickbacks like always,
and now they've realized they don't have to give them
any kickbacks. They can just shove them out and they
can just do whatever they want because they can pass
new legislation to give themselves new power in the middle
of the night. And if they get rid of the
Board of Governors, they are accountable to even fewer people.

Speaker 5 (50:16):
Yeah, that's how that went. It.

Speaker 3 (50:18):
It does seem, It does seem they are in Scotland.
You made me think of this, Shamani and it said,
it seems like Scotland. It's more yes, just made up
of parents, but I think you could really be right,
right that if it's parents. I mean, this happens on
like ptas and stuff here in the US all the time,
Like you know who the PTA mom's kid is, right,

(50:40):
Like you know who.

Speaker 5 (50:42):
Those people's kids are. I mean we know who. Oh
you have this kid? You know their parent works at
the district office, right, Like oh shoot.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
Right, and then you kind of catch yourself doing like
so definitely that could be a thing of like they're
more concerned about things being taken out on their own kids,
especially with these new educational degrees, like with this high
inquisitor that they're like, I'm not going to do anything right.

(51:10):
I'm not going to because it's going to happen, right,
I'm not going to jeopardize my kid's future even if
I think something is wrong. I mean we see that
all the time.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
Which is really unfortunate because I mean, as apparently is
I'm in the situation that I don't want my kid
in this school at all. If I'm if I'm fearing
that there's going to be some kind of retaliation for
me speaking up against something that's clearly wrong and corrupt,
I'm looking for another option, which I mean as we
know Hogwarts is the one school, So what is the

(51:42):
other option for the Wizarding World? Is it just to
homeschool your kid? Is that an option? Is that allowed?

Speaker 1 (51:47):
It's it?

Speaker 5 (51:48):
Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
That's the only option that they have. But if this
regime had continued with Hogwarts and this inquisition with this inquisitor,
because that's what they decided to call her, I'm sorry,
I'm still my about it, they probably would have ended
up eventually passing a decree that said you can't homeschool
your children.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
That school attendance was compulsory.

Speaker 5 (52:10):
Baltimore. Does that? Does that right? He says?

Speaker 3 (52:14):
He says, so, So this article is very grim, but
I still laugh because Ron is absolutely right that Umbrage
versus McGonagall is gonna be epic, And I love that
that's Ron's first thought, Like Harry in Hermi, you're sitting
there stressing about what this means, and Ron is just like,

(52:37):
Umbridge is not gonna know what's hit her.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
I just want to see the showdown, that's all, which is.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
Like Ron is like I'm popping popcorn already, like he's
having a good time. So they go about their day
and I just need to say, side note, Snape still
sucks too, Yeah, still does. And I say this as
a teacher who is kind of notorious for grading essays hard,

(53:03):
Like I know I have this reputation, but I do
that because I want them to get a true sense
of their writing abilities so that they can actually have
room to grow because writing is hard, and then I
help them with that. I don't take out my personal
vendettas against children on what great I give them on
their essay, like Snape is obviously doing so.

Speaker 5 (53:24):
So there's there's a little bit there with with the grading.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Well, because I mean Ron gets what a dry.

Speaker 5 (53:38):
Gets a D?

Speaker 1 (53:38):
Yeah, which is one of my favorite friend and George lines, yes,
nothing wrong with a good healthy p.

Speaker 3 (53:47):
Fred and George's whole explanation of the of the grades
is so funny too. We exceeded expectations just by showing
up for the exams, like.

Speaker 5 (53:58):
Yes, and then t what's tea troll?

Speaker 1 (54:02):
First of all, rude, but second when they're breaking that
down the it's it's such a small moment to call
a favorite. But there's something so refreshing about the fact that,
first of all, Hermione's not the one explaining how stuff works.
Somebody else is actually and they're not doing it to condescend.

(54:23):
They're just genuinely answering her questions. They're just giving her
the information that she needs. It's coming from an unexpected
source because Fred and George aren't usually the ones explaining
how academia works, and the fact that they know all
of this because they care the least about like and

(54:45):
to their credit, what they want to do with their
lives doesn't necessarily hinge on how good their exam grades are. Actually,
to go back to what we were talking about earlier
about how it doesn't matter if you can memorize all
the stuff if you can't actually apply it. Fred and
George are figuring out which bits they need to know

(55:07):
for what they want to do and which bits they don't.
It's not that they don't ever make the grades, it's
that they don't engage. If they don't care about what
they're being taught, they don't retain what they don't think
they need to retain, and they apply it because they
end up running a very successful business. Yeah, but it

(55:29):
does make me wonder Hermione cares. On the other hand,
Hermione cares more about exams than any of these other students.
She is so hyper focused on making the grade, getting
good scores, impressing teachers and every other wizarding adult in
her life. So why has she not actually learned all

(55:52):
of this information already?

Speaker 3 (55:53):
Oh she does, she does, is the thing is, But
the way she says it is, she's.

Speaker 5 (55:58):
More just like on. I can read the actual thing
to you.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
So top grades O for outstanding, she was saying. And
then there's a no E. George corrected her, E for
exceeds expectation. And I've always thought threat fred and I
should get should have, should have got E and everything
because we exceeded expectations just by turning up for the exams.
They all laughed, except Hermione, who plowed on. So after E,
it's a for acceptable and that's the last past grade,
isn't it? And then you get poor P for poor

(56:24):
Ron raised both his hand arms and mock celebration, and
then D for dreadful, and then T George reminded him,
T asked Ryanie, looking appalled even lower than a D.

Speaker 5 (56:33):
What on earth does T stand for? Troll? Said George promptly.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
So I feel like it's more that Hermione is just
like fact checking checking herself.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
She forgot, she forgot it exceeds expectations, and she didn't
even know about troll.

Speaker 5 (56:47):
Well, I don't know if troll actually exists. That's the
thing I think.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
I think Harry gets one.

Speaker 5 (56:54):
Oh, that's right, he does, he gets a T.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
But that also that also makes sense for Hermione though,
that all she cares about is getting.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
The high grades, right, triest is she.

Speaker 3 (57:06):
Cares about what the highest is. She cares about what
the last passes. She doesn't care about anything anything below
that is not acceptable.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
And that it's not going to be happening for Hermione anyway,
so that's not important. And can I just say I
love the way she is like fishing to find out
what grades Harry and Ron got. She's casually kind of
throwing in thin Rod finally says, if you want to
know what we got.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
Just ask, and then by the time they get to
the exams, he's like Hermione, we've been through this. We're
not going over every exam right after we've taken it.

Speaker 3 (57:44):
Which I think actually is one of those one of
these times where I'm like, this is why Ron and
Hermione are perfect for each other, right, Because Hermione's out
here fishing for information, and Ron is like, look, I
know what you're doing. Just ask us straight out, Like,
don't play the games, just ask straight out, which is
something sometimes her writing needs to learn.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
Yes, yes, no needs a better on the bush. They
will tell you, yes, Harry.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
And I honestly don't blame Harry here. I really think
Snape is just taking it out.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
Yeah, because no, Mike. My question was, how did Ron
get a higher grade than Harry? Like, was Snape just
being vindictive and just giving Harry a low grade just
because he could, Because there's no way that Ron should
have gotten a HIGHERY, even though you know it's still
not a great grade.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
But no, no, no. When it comes to certain like when
it comes to potions, Ron and Harry might actually be
on fairly even footing. It might even be one of
those cases where one week Harry might get the potion
a little bit better than Ron. Harry has a total
ax to grind with Snape, and that anxiety I think

(58:54):
sometimes might drive him to distraction. We definitely see it happen,
because he forgets the hell of bor a few chapters
before this. But I would say in terms of potions,
they're probably about even lay matched. But yeah, no, Snape
is definitely being more nitpicky with Harry's essay than Ron's. Yeah,
but I'd say they're about equal when it comes to potions.

Speaker 5 (59:15):
I don't I don't think either of them are actually
this bad.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
I don't think you actually looked at it, and I
think it's just it's just nive. Speaking of vindictiveness, we're
about to get a lot of it because they go
to let's let's go through these lessons that they have
that are inspected, which is nuts. All of these are crazy.
So the first one they have is divination, and I

(59:39):
have to say, first of all, I really respect how
engrossed Ron gets into this lesson me too, Like Harry
is like whatever, whatever, whatever, but Ron is like, let's
figure out what this made up dream could actually mean.
Let's actually do the calculations, Like, Ron, what are you doing?

(01:00:00):
That's I think Ron secretly has a slight at least
maybe liking for divination that he'll never admit, because I
think Ron likes to know.

Speaker 5 (01:00:11):
What the future might hold.

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
Oh yeah, right, we see that in SORCER's Stone with
what he sees in the mirror of air set Ron
wants to find kind of the cheat code for what's
happening for his future and what he's gonna be.

Speaker 5 (01:00:25):
And so I think even though he's.

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
Like, Trelawney is a fraud and hermione walked out on
this subject and it's crazy, I think part of Ron
is also like.

Speaker 5 (01:00:34):
But what if it's real?

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
And he's like, but what if I could figure this out?
Which I find fascinating.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
See to me, the interesting part it's not just that
Rod takes an interest in this lesson. It's when you
look at what the steps of interpreting the dream actually is.
It doesn't feel like divination. It feels like a rhythm
and see, because according to Ron, what you're supposed to
do is take Harry's age, add it to the date

(01:01:06):
he had the dream, and then add it to the
number of letters in the subject, and that equals question mark.
Because we don't get the rest of the formula. We
just know we're supposed to take all of these different
numbers that apply to the situation, we're supposed to add
them up and then what we do what with them?
So about halfway through we don't get the rest. But

(01:01:29):
still the fact that we're so hung up on numbers
that can apply to the situation. That doesn't feel like
divination to me. That feels like arithmecy because it's about
the magical properties of what all of these numbers mean.
It's magical math.

Speaker 3 (01:01:42):
I wonder if there's something in it though, of like
whatever number it is helps you determine.

Speaker 5 (01:01:49):
I don't know. I don't know how many of this
works or how it's supposed to work, right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
I would need somebody he's more familiar with divination.

Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
Yeah, I wonder if there is something about like adding
these things up comes up with a number that you're
supposed to like divide what happened in the dream by
I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Know, Like the number of it kind of reminded me
more like numerology.

Speaker 6 (01:02:13):
And.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
Ah, yeah, that could be it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
But again, we don't know what you're supposed to do
with the information that you get.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
So true, because they don't have a numerology class at Hogwarts.
The closest that we have as a rhythmecy. So I
would think a lot of the stuff you would learn
from numerology would be folded in with arithmecy. Because arithmecy
seems like a very non wand magic type of class. Yeah,
like ancient runs.

Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
Listeners, if you have any idea about any of this.

Speaker 5 (01:02:39):
Please let us know.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
Yeah, if there's any divination expertise.

Speaker 5 (01:02:42):
Very interested in what they're doing here.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
Because dream interpretation is a real thing people. But that's more.
You know, a lot of the people that I know
that talk about, you know, interpreting dreams, they don't do
it with numbers. They don't do it with magic, and
they it's more about psychology than it is about any
of that other stuff, Which is not to say that
anybody else'd be fascinating illegitimate. It's just that it feels

(01:03:06):
a lot more you know, analytical like that. That's That's
part of what I'm getting at with all of this math,
is that it feels very analytical. It doesn't feel very magical.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
I wonder if if though those numbers add up to
some like symbolic number, right, and like there's some symbolism
with the numbers in that too, and so that's how
they I don't know. Again, maybe listeners know, and they
can tell us. The real focus, though, is what Harry
is learning in this, and we just we learned so
many fascinating things about Trelawney here that she's been teaching

(01:03:37):
for sixteen years, the name of her ancestor, you know which,
of course, Cassandra and Sybyl are both renowned prophetesses in Greek.

Speaker 5 (01:03:47):
And Roman mythology.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
I also, I love, I still cackle every time of this.
These things often skip uh three generations, very specifics, just
and I love that it's obvious that she's like adding
up how many directions it's been.

Speaker 5 (01:04:06):
In the moment. Yeah, no, it's it's it's.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
Very funny and also very terrible because I'm gonna tell you, guys,
observations and evaluations really suck, Like I mean, obviously all
jobs have them, but for teaching, they really suck, like
everybody dreads them. It's just not ever a really good
example of how a normal class goes right, because you

(01:04:32):
have to jump through so many hoops for them. You're
really putting on like this dog and pony show. It's
kind of obnoxious and it's really exhausting. I mean, even
like an informal one. If an admin just like walks
into my room, I'm suddenly like, what's gonna happen?

Speaker 5 (01:04:49):
What are the children gonna do?

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:04:51):
Like? What are they gonna do right now because they
don't realize, they don't know what's happening. They never see
a real arc of a lesson because some, especially like
in my subject in English, these objectives can take several days,
right or several lessons to fully realize. Like if we're
writing an essay each day, I've probably broken things down

(01:05:14):
into parts that's gonna get us to that final objective.

Speaker 5 (01:05:18):
And if you.

Speaker 3 (01:05:18):
Only come in for part of that, you're not seeing
the full picture.

Speaker 5 (01:05:23):
And they so they just really suck.

Speaker 3 (01:05:24):
And then on top of that, for Umbridge to be
so invasive and demanding while Trelawney is trying to teach,
like Trelawney is so in the right here right by
being annoyed by even kind of standing up at the
end where she's like, I don't understand you, I don't
see on command, you know, she's really in the right

(01:05:45):
because they suck.

Speaker 5 (01:05:48):
They do, like they really just suck.

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):
I'm going to offer up a hot take about this evaluation.
What we see with most of these evaluations is that
Numbers is specifically trying to suss out how close the
teachers are to Dumbledore. That's what a lot of this
is about. Dismantling Dumbledore's regime at the school by chipping
away at his allies. But in this case, my hot

(01:06:14):
take is Umbradge isn't trying to get rid of Trelawney
for being close to Dumbledore, because she's obviously not a
very useful ally like say McGonagall is. What she's trying
to do is get rid of something that she genuinely
believes the students do not need, because we see it
later on in we hear about it. At least in

(01:06:37):
the other evaluations. Umbradge frequently asking Trelawney to demonstrate her
competency at these different branches of divination and predicts students'
answers before she gives them, so she clearly does not
believe that Trelawney possesses second sight, and she doesn't really

(01:06:57):
have much respect for this subject. She does say to
Dumbledore that she wants to know what he's going to
do with her when she appoints a new teacher that
will need Trelawney's lodgings, but that doesn't necessarily mean she
was interested in having the subject continue. She's probably, if anything,

(01:07:17):
going to install somebody who implies who applies the same
method she does in defense against the Dark Arts, and
use that in what I would imagine would be some
kind of year end report to the Ministry suggesting that
they get rid of the subject of divination altogether. That's
what I think would happen what we see.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
In contrast, I'm not entirely sure, just because one of
the first questions Umbrage asks is so it was Professor
Dumbledore who appointed you, right, So I feel like she
is kind of doing the same thing where she's she's
trying to take out everyone who might have any kind
of loyalty to Dumbledore, right in any way she can.

(01:07:57):
So if Dumbledore's the one who's appointed Trelawney, then she
has to be on the chopping block for Mbridge, right,
because she might have some sort of loyalties she's trying
to root out.

Speaker 5 (01:08:09):
Yeah, so I I.

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
Do think she she absolutely knows Trelanne is a fraud, right,
and she's she's like, get rid of it, and she
probably doesn't believe in it in divination at all and
thinks it's you know, But but McGonagall also doesn't really
put much stock in divination, no, so so there's probably
that as well. But I do think there is also
the part of Dumbledore appointed Trelawney, and look, this is

(01:08:34):
going to be an easy one to overthrow.

Speaker 5 (01:08:36):
Because she's such a fraud.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
Yeah, and she's and so if we can start kicking
them out all the better, sure, and then she can
make the then she can make the case too that
Dumbledore is being incompetent by hiring these incomers.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
Right, Yeah, so obviously it's going to be noted that
Dumbledore was the one to hire her. That's that I
agree with that. But my pushback to to that, to
not wanting the abolishing the subject of divination not being
the ultimate goal with this particular evaluation is that with McGonagall,

(01:09:12):
she keeps trying to interrupt her to evaluate and she
keeps getting shut down. We don't see her getting to
ask McGonagall very many questions. We don't see her returning
to that class terribly often. Same with Snape. With Snape,
she gives him specific critiques about his syllabus and then
is very interested in why he has consistently not been

(01:09:33):
given a job that he has applied for. So she's
going after the connection that they have with Dumbledore a
little bit stronger than she is with Trelawney. But with Trelawney,
she's trying really really hard to make her look incompetent
and her subject look ridiculous when she evaluates. You know,

(01:09:58):
never mind, I'll save what I got about the other
teachers for later because those are coming up.

Speaker 5 (01:10:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:03):
I mean with McGonagall and Snape, I think part of
it is she really can't pin in competence on them, right,
They're not incompetent. I mean, yes, Snape is terrible and
he's personally vendettive and horrible, but like he's not incompetent,
and neither is McGonagall, and neither of them allow that
to happen, Whereas Trelawney I think has enough crack in

(01:10:24):
her armor that like Umbrage wiggles her way in and
is able to just like take it off. So I
will say though, that Trelawney is actually right. Umbrage is
in grave danger once again, those little tiny throwaway tidbits
of Trelawney is right, because by the end of this
year she's gonna be attacked in the forest.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
It cracks me up every single time I get when
I read that line, I'm like, oh, she's not wrong.
Here you better watch out.

Speaker 3 (01:10:53):
Yes, yes, So then they go to Defense against the
Dark Arts and they fill in Hermione, which I think
influences what hermione does, which honestly like go hermione like
collapse for hermione here where she says, yes, I've read
the whole book and this is what it says, and
I disagree with it, which I'm just like because as

(01:11:16):
we said, reading out of the textbook is not a
good way of teaching, especially in something that's so kinesthetic,
so tactile. As this encouraging student dialogue with a text
is good teaching. Though, like I mean, I did that
a lot. I do that with my kids a lot,
like we we read, for example, with my sophomores, we

(01:11:37):
read Lord of the Flies and we talk about Okay,
William Golding seems to have this idea of what human
nature is. Let's look at some psychological experiments that I've
looked at what human nature is, and let's compare and
contrast and which, like do these all fit together?

Speaker 5 (01:11:51):
Do they not?

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
Like?

Speaker 3 (01:11:52):
What what's going on in this whole subject? That sounded
like tooting my own horne. I promise it wasn't.

Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
You can, yes, you can twoot your own horn. We're
absolutely confident in your teaching abilities.

Speaker 3 (01:12:05):
That's but yeah, but just this sitting here and being like,
read it and just take it as gospel is not
not helping any of them. But Hermione being like, I
disagree with this point he's making. And this is why
I think he says this, that's actually good learning.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
And teaching, and Umbridge is so upset that how dare
Hermione have an opinion? First of all? How dare she
think for herself and not just do what she's told?
And that's and we kind of touched on it earlier.
That's That's one of the things that I very strongly
dislike about the school system is the fact that they
just teach the kids to read, regurgitate the information pac

(01:12:44):
a test and then that's it. But instead of actually
helping them learn.

Speaker 3 (01:12:47):
Came from no child left behind a lot of it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:50):
But they do they teach the children to read because
the children arrive at Hogwarts magically able to read well.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
I mean, like for purposes of this class, they they
want them to read the information and be able to
pass their outs without any practical application or understanding of
the subject matter.

Speaker 5 (01:13:09):
And which there's those kids.

Speaker 2 (01:13:10):
They need the hands on learning, they need the visual learning.
So this is not a good plan for passing an
exam for those students. So it just it proves that
they're not here for the students. They have their own agenda.

Speaker 5 (01:13:26):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's I mean it is.

Speaker 3 (01:13:29):
And it's fascinating because actually this book probably came out
the time that like No Child Left Behind was becoming
a thing, which one of the biggest criticisms of that
legislation was that it very much focused on test taking
and it got to this, like we teach to the

(01:13:49):
test basically, which has proven to be not good, right,
And we've been trying to kind of come back from
that for a long time. But again, a lot of
government officials are like, let's just look at the data.
What do the numbers say from the tests, and not
actually like what people are.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
Learning standardized tests. Seriously, it won't happen.

Speaker 3 (01:14:15):
Yeah, yeah, they have their uses to a certain degree.
But I will have to say there and this is
going back to when when Umberge says the ministry approved message,
I'm getting on my soapbox. Again, there such bes, right,
They're often made. They're made by people who have never
set foot in a classroom. They don't, or if they have,

(01:14:35):
it's been over a decade, right, because usually you have
to kind of climb up the ladder of administration and
then into the district and things. They ignore any lack
of resources schools might have, any classroom management needs, diversifying
different modes of learning for kids and different levels of kids.

(01:14:57):
I have kids who read on a third grade level
in my classroom, mixed with kids who are reading at
college level and beyond, and I'm supposed to teach them
all the same thing at the same time, with the
same limited days, along with the other thirty five that
are in between. Right, You've got special education like IP
or five or four requirements you've got to work around.

(01:15:18):
You have that one kid who's never gonna shut up
in the back.

Speaker 5 (01:15:21):
You have the fact that.

Speaker 3 (01:15:22):
Some kid who's crying right now because some drama happened
at lunch because they're fourteen.

Speaker 5 (01:15:27):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:15:27):
You have the fact that it's a full moon in
April and the sun is out, and so they're all
insane for reasons no one can explain. Because listen, I
swear it's a thing that when there's a full moon,
the children go crazy, right, Like that's just like a
commonly exception, and as soon as it gets warm in
the spring, all things are out the window. Like, honestly,
teachers are sitting here going like, how long is it

(01:15:48):
gonna stay relatively cool? Because as soon as it starts
warming up, all bets are off, right, So any of
these ministry approved methods are really kind of crap. And
anyone who teaches no that, and most teachers, I'm gonna
be honest, a lot of us who know better, we're.

Speaker 5 (01:16:03):
Like kind of ignoring half of.

Speaker 3 (01:16:05):
It, right, Like we're like, we'll do the bare minimum
because you've told us we had to, but we're gonna
go with the things.

Speaker 5 (01:16:10):
We know actually work.

Speaker 3 (01:16:11):
And you know, it's it's kind of like and there's
always swings, right, there's always swings in the pendulum. Like
we were talking about reading, and part of the literacy
problem we have with kids is for a lot, for
oh gosh, five to ten years or so, there was
this new method that kids were being taught to read
at of basically I don't remember what the method's called now,

(01:16:35):
but it's not as effective as like teaching kids phonics
and teaching kids how to read through phonics, and we
see that in kids reading's ability kids. Sorry, I can't
talk kids reading abilities now. And it's actually swung back
to people being like, oh, we need to be teaching
them phonics again instead when they're first learning to read,

(01:16:58):
because then as they start building, they're not getting, they're
not understanding things, and they can't like sayce and pronounce
words and understand them.

Speaker 5 (01:17:08):
So it's yeah, there's so.

Speaker 3 (01:17:10):
Much politics and education, you guys, and so much craziness
that like, basically what it comes down to is umber
just crappy, and her ministry remove proof method is crappy. Yeah,
and it's gonna have a major impact on all of
these kids for years to come.

Speaker 1 (01:17:27):
It does kind of make me laugh when she says
that Querrel would have been the only one in that
position to pass a ministry instruction, because I'm thinking, uh,
who cares. Also, he had Voldemort sticky gout of the
back of his head, and you know he's gonna come
along in like two years and revamp the educational system

(01:17:50):
in the way you think you're doing right now. Voldemort
and his little puppets.

Speaker 5 (01:17:55):
Honestly, though, that clap back for peak Peak. Yeah, he
was a great teacher. He just had one problem. You
had Baltimore sticking out in the back of his head.
I was just like, oh, Harry Potter, you go, Harry Potter,
Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:18:11):
I conic. I conic. But of course that gets him
more detention, which then leads into another This this chapter.
For all the craziness and the serious situations going on,
there is a peak humor in this chapter, including Angelina
doing her nuts right hearing that Harry has detention again,

(01:18:35):
just going off like was she right to yell at him?
Probably not, but you know what, she's right to be like,
my dude, we have a team and.

Speaker 5 (01:18:44):
What are you doing. I love her so much.

Speaker 1 (01:18:48):
This is just one reason why I didn't go into sports.
It was hardwired into my brain from very early on.
If I go into music, there is not a whole
lot of yelling that happens in or orchestra rehearsals.

Speaker 5 (01:19:01):
But I don't know I've gotten yelled at it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:03):
I didn't say there was none. I said there was
very little. I also there was less of it. But
if you go into athletics, it's weird if there is
no yelling. And you know what, I have never responded
positively to being shouted at, And in this case it
would be even worse because it's not an adult lecturing

(01:19:27):
children on how things are, because it's supposed to be
part of their job. Harry's being yelled at by a
girl who's like three years older than him that he
has been playing Quiddit's with since before.

Speaker 5 (01:19:39):
She was captain.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
This is something that just it's so hard to move
past some times when somebody who used to be on
the same level as you is now in charge and
they're acting in a way that they weren't acting five
minutes ago before they were suddenly in charge, and you're
supposed to just see them in a whole new context.
It happens at my place of all the time when
people who were regular associates in the warehouse get bumped

(01:20:05):
up to management and they have all of these things
that they're expected to carry out by the people above them,
so they're acting really strict about rules they didn't used
to follow. I'm a little bit surprised there isn't more
pushback from Harry on this, because.

Speaker 3 (01:20:20):
I mean, I think he knows that Angelina has a point, right,
He knows he's screwing up here. He knows he shouldn't
be yelling at Umbrage deep down, and he knows he's
disappointing a lot of people, right, I mean he disappoints
McGonagall too. McGonagall comes to see what's going on, and
she's like, what why are you yelling? And Harry's like,

(01:20:41):
I got another week's worth of detention and she's like,
are you kidding me? Like it is week two, kid,
and you already have several you have like three weeks
of detention under your belt at this point. Like She's
absolutely right, you know, And obviously Angelina doesn't doesn't express
that in the best way, but she I think she's
perfectly valid and being frustrated that one of the key

(01:21:03):
players on her seven player team has missed every practice
so far because he can't keep his mouth shut. Like
and I'm sure she feels the same way about.

Speaker 5 (01:21:15):
Umbradge right, I'm sure all these gryffin doors do.

Speaker 3 (01:21:17):
They're like, she sucks. Everything's terrible, we're not learning anything.
But she's also like, so keep your mouth shut, Like,
keep your mouth shut so that you don't get into
more trouble and cause more issues for everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):
This is definitely a pick your battles type of situation,
and Harry does not know how to pick his battles
at all. Bless his heart. He's got to get that
last word, which I mean guilty. I do it too,
and unfortunately and my kids do it.

Speaker 5 (01:21:45):
Well, here's a.

Speaker 3 (01:21:48):
Yes, he is, and unfortunately sometimes we can't keep our.

Speaker 2 (01:21:52):
Mouth shut and help it.

Speaker 5 (01:21:53):
It just I say, this is the person who's done
it many times.

Speaker 2 (01:21:57):
I just have to make one last point. Keep this out.
When I'm done, I swear, which leads to more trouble.
We just don't learn, We just don't. We were very
gryffin Dory today. I'm just realizing that we are. We are. Jeff,
You're Hufflepuff though.

Speaker 1 (01:22:15):
Right speak for yourselves.

Speaker 5 (01:22:17):
Yes, I say, we've got to.

Speaker 3 (01:22:19):
It's a very gryffin Puff episode. Fairness and.

Speaker 1 (01:22:24):
Saying something, so it's not it's like Griffin Puff.

Speaker 5 (01:22:31):
Well, I am split between the two, so I am.
I'm kind of the neutral neutral ground here.

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
Oh, we have to say something. I mean, I am
not I can relate to Harry like I'm going to
say something I know that I shouldn't. Like in my mind,
I'm saying, don't say anything. Don't say anything, don't say anything,
but what comes out of my mouth is, you know what,
I find really funny. And here we go like we're
off to the racist people, off to the races.

Speaker 3 (01:22:57):
I've straight up been like I'm not going to say
anything on this topic about something, and then finally it's
like that Parks and rec g if we're Ben Whitet
is like, actually it's gonna bother me if I don't
you how wrong.

Speaker 5 (01:23:08):
That's me?

Speaker 3 (01:23:08):
All the time, I'm like, I'm not gonna say anything,
leave it alone, it's fine, it's fine.

Speaker 5 (01:23:13):
Nope. You know what.

Speaker 1 (01:23:15):
There are just certain people in your life, like when
you're around them long enough, you already know when it's
about to pop off if you hear them say things
like you know what, or let me tell you something.
In my case is yeah about that, Like if you
hear me say that, it's about to go off, I'm like,
yeah about that?

Speaker 2 (01:23:37):
Yeah, I go, well, you know, oh boy, good times, Harry,
good times.

Speaker 1 (01:23:48):
But make it that far.

Speaker 3 (01:23:53):
Has A has A has a has a comment. Actually,
speaking of going off, I'm about to go off on
this comment. This is controversial.

Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
I mean it is somewhat controversial, which is why I
picked it. I will explain after I read it. This
is from I Got Transfigured into a Rhubarb, A great
user name. Love it. And she says although Umbrage is
a manipulative old hag who many people would love to

(01:24:22):
kick up the bomb until next week, I feel she's
very good for Harry. In this book we see Harry
who expects proferential treatment if what's subconsciously loose it all
because of Umbradge. What she teaches Harry is that you
can't have everything and that there's consequences to your actions
and behaviors. What she teaches Harry is that you have
to be prepared for not being given everything to fight

(01:24:43):
your own battles, and that you don't have to do
it alone, which up until this book Harry has always
thought he's been by himself overall. As much as we
hate her, she teaches Harry some valuable life lessons. Now
I have some thoughts on this comment. As a whole,
the Umbradge teaches Harry some valuable lessons. I can get

(01:25:05):
behind that. I don't get behind the idea that Harry
expects our treatment. I don't think he does. I do
agree that she teaches Harry to push himself outside of
his comfort zone. She is one hundred percent the catalyst
that helped Harry realize some of his teaching potential. And
he never would have done the whole teaching thing and

(01:25:28):
realized that he was actually good at it if it
hadn't been for her. So honestly, she gave him some
growth opportunity and she helps him gain some confidence in
himself and his abilities. But I mean, I do have
to push back again on the preferential treatment. I don't
think Harry is looking for that. I don't think that
she's necessary very good for Harry, but she does teach

(01:25:53):
him some lessons and he does learn some things because
of her.

Speaker 3 (01:25:56):
There's also a difference between teaching someone they have con
sequences and straight up torturing them right, Like I think
McGonagall teaches Harry that there are consequences. McGonagall never really
gives Harry like if Harry does something wrong, McGonagall will
discipline for him, that him for that, right, Sorcerer Stone,
they're out after midnight, they're out alone after time, they're
getting they're getting attention right. Harry does something wrong, he

(01:26:21):
gets detention right, or he gets points taken away. He
gets points taken away here because he's yelling and because
he didn't do what McGonagall told him to do. Right,
But mcgonagall's gonna be fair about that. There's gonna be
a reason, whereas Umbrage is being punitive for no reason.
She literally tortures him multiple times, right with having him
carved names like carved names, carved words into his own skin,

(01:26:44):
right until it's bleeding and scarred over.

Speaker 5 (01:26:47):
Yeah, he does learn.

Speaker 3 (01:26:48):
Life lessons, I think from this situation. He gets some
application from there, But I I definitely disagree.

Speaker 1 (01:26:55):
Though nobody ever said you can't learn valuable life lessons
indirectly through interactions with unpleasant people who can't actively teach
you things, And I think that that's maybe where we
need to be careful with observations about what Harry did
and didn't learn from people Umbradge is. Umbrage was a

(01:27:17):
absolutely appalling teacher. When it comes to actively teaching things,
she can't do it. When it comes to life lessons
that you can learn through your interactions with Umbrage, those
are abundant because she is a fantastic example of what
not to do in almost every scenario, she is absolutely

(01:27:40):
appalling as a government official. As an participating member of
Wizarding Society, her fashion sense is not the worst, though.
I feel like she gets dunked on for wearing pink
a lot, and there's reasons for that. I actually find
it kind of delightful. I would wear the fluffy pink
card again.

Speaker 8 (01:28:00):
I'll do it.

Speaker 3 (01:28:01):
I mean, I'm not a pink person myself, but that's
that's a different story.

Speaker 1 (01:28:05):
So you're not going to keep on the pink pony
club then, sad.

Speaker 5 (01:28:09):
Sadly probably not. Let's see, but who is dancing is?
Because here we go she deserves this is Oh my gosh,
this scene is I call Nick right to.

Speaker 3 (01:28:29):
Have the absolute courage and strength of Minerva McGonagall during
this observation.

Speaker 2 (01:28:34):
Oh yes, the restraints, the rest hands.

Speaker 1 (01:28:38):
It's hard to pick. It's hard to pick a favorite
line from each chapter, but hands down favorite moment in
this chapter is when she doesn't even finish getting to
ask McGonagall if she got the time and date of
her inspection before McGonagall says, obviously I received it, or
I would have asked you what you would doing here? Translation,

(01:29:02):
I saw you in the back of the room. But
I don't care about you, and neither does anybody.

Speaker 5 (01:29:06):
Else, so shut up. See I am I am partial too.

Speaker 3 (01:29:10):
I do not generally permit people to talk when I
am talking.

Speaker 1 (01:29:13):
Yeah, And that is just like, that is a moment
when I am glad that I usually absorb these books
through audiobook these days. And I know people talk about
the Stephen Freed narration, but I gotta give this one
to Jim Dale, because Jim Dale nails it when he
says I don't permit people to talk when I am talking.

Speaker 2 (01:29:33):
Yes, the lay she broke down the words like you
could almost hear the claps after every word.

Speaker 3 (01:29:41):
Oh, it's it's gorgeous, It's gorgeous. She keeps it so
focused on the students though, like again, which is just
like right right away, she like throws off these clap
bags and then she's like, and now vanishing spells, let's
talk about that, which, by the way, let's talk about vanishing.

Speaker 5 (01:29:59):
Spells for a minute, because.

Speaker 3 (01:30:02):
So she says invertebrates are less difficult and mammals are
more so. And I was like, why, right, is there
some more complexity in their biologies?

Speaker 5 (01:30:11):
Is it different types of cells?

Speaker 3 (01:30:13):
Are bones just more difficult to vanish, right, Like why
why is there a difference here?

Speaker 5 (01:30:18):
I'm fascinated.

Speaker 1 (01:30:19):
It just makes sense to me. If they don't have
a backbone, then there's less organic material for you to
vanish and send somewhere else. So the less material you
have to vanish, the easier it is to do it,
because the less complex the organism.

Speaker 3 (01:30:33):
I mean, and I suppose slugs and snails and stuff, right,
they do. They are a little bit more like amorphous, right,
they already are kind of moving to different things. And
like things like slugs, you can can you do this
with slugs you can like cut off well, you can
do newts.

Speaker 5 (01:30:50):
You can like cut off part.

Speaker 3 (01:30:51):
Of them and it'll grow back or it'll grow into
multiple So maybe because vertebrates have more of a structure.

Speaker 1 (01:31:01):
Yeah, because if you vertebrae, there's consequences for that.

Speaker 3 (01:31:04):
Yeah, I don't know, because because but it's but it
also happens like ron, only ron has a tail left, right,
So is the.

Speaker 5 (01:31:14):
Tail still alive?

Speaker 2 (01:31:16):
Right?

Speaker 5 (01:31:17):
Is it like the tail just got cut off? Like
what's going on here? The rest of the mouse is gone?

Speaker 1 (01:31:21):
Try turning the tail into a desk?

Speaker 5 (01:31:24):
Oh, gosh, would you eat this mousetail.

Speaker 2 (01:31:29):
See what I was trying to understand is vanishing. Are
they trying to like literally vanish it completely or are
they just trying to make it invisible? Because if they're
just trying to make it invisible, then it would make
sense that just the mousetail was there and moving and
the rest of the mouse is just invisible.

Speaker 3 (01:31:48):
Yeah, there's different spells for invisibility, and we know vanished
is something different, right, Because like the answer to the
riddle is where to write, I'll just go into non being,
which is to say.

Speaker 2 (01:31:58):
Everything which makes it can like like did he do
something appearing? Maybe he did something wrong and it's not complete?

Speaker 3 (01:32:08):
Well, I I always saw it as more it's like
the vanishing is not complete.

Speaker 2 (01:32:11):
Yeah, right, But how is the tail still there moving
by itself?

Speaker 5 (01:32:16):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:32:17):
See, I don't think I don't think it's because it's
like we're basically asking, is the tail conscious apart from
you know, once it's been separated from the being. I
don't think it's that. I think it's just the nerves
in the tail reacting to what's stimulating it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:31):
Maybe residual twitching.

Speaker 5 (01:32:34):
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:32:36):
Yeah, is this a reference This is a really random
Is this a reference to.

Speaker 5 (01:32:44):
Who loses his tail? It is?

Speaker 3 (01:32:47):
I think that would be a really cute little connection
if it's like Ron has a tail and that's.

Speaker 2 (01:32:55):
Why, Oh funny, that.

Speaker 5 (01:32:58):
Would be cute. Okay. Also, though I got to ask,
what was Dean Thomas doing to this mouse?

Speaker 1 (01:33:04):
I think he was I would imagine knowing Dean Thomas
because he's not like the biggest disciplinary issue like among
the students, but he is the kind that would like
tease his friend. So I'm thinking they're handing out Who
is it that's handing out the mice, Lavender Brown? I'm
thinking Lavender is handing out the mice. Dean picks his

(01:33:26):
up and is acting like he's gonna put it down
Shane's robe, Seamus's robes or something.

Speaker 3 (01:33:31):
Okay, I mean I guess that would probably be enough
for me. God, I'll be like, you do that to
that mouse again, and.

Speaker 1 (01:33:36):
Ye's just like holding it by its tail, because I've
seen people do that and I hate it because it
just seems so mean, like when you're holding a mouse or.

Speaker 5 (01:33:42):
A rat, that's how you're supposed to pick him up.

Speaker 1 (01:33:44):
Well, when you're how you're supposed to pick him up,
But you're not supposed to just dangle them there.

Speaker 5 (01:33:49):
Well that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:33:50):
It's like how you're supposed to pick them up. But
like once you've got him, like you hold it in
your hand and.

Speaker 3 (01:33:54):
Had a mouse, I was a little fuzzy creature.

Speaker 1 (01:33:56):
I'm one of those people who's willing to advocate for
rats because I think people are mean to them.

Speaker 2 (01:34:01):
I think it depends, well, it depends on what the
rat is doing. Like is the rat minding its own
business or is it eating my house? Because of it's
eating my house, we now have a problem.

Speaker 5 (01:34:10):
Is it bringing the bubonic PRIs?

Speaker 2 (01:34:12):
Is it on my face when I wake up in
the morning.

Speaker 5 (01:34:14):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (01:34:15):
We are dumping on rats so much right now. They're
not even in the room. They're not even in the scene.
Shift back to let's show. Back to Umbrage getting humiliated
in front of a class of children.

Speaker 3 (01:34:31):
Umbridge gets a smack down, and you know she tries
to still like keep up her little appearances. But I
just love at the end of this moment, how Harry
just Harry and mcgonagall's relationship I think is just so lovely. Right,
He's so supportive as he walks out, he gives her
like a little smile, and she gives him a little
one back, And I just love those small moments between

(01:34:53):
them where you can see how much they actually do
care about each other, right, Like Harry respect and supports McGonagall.
She cares for him right back, right, and she knows that.
And I just have to say, there's been some lovely
fanfis I've read where like there's one in particular where
like Harry actually comes to Hogwarts instead of the Dursleys,

(01:35:16):
and basically McGonagall becomes his like surrogate mom, And I
just I love that for them.

Speaker 1 (01:35:23):
Oh yeah, see, I love it McGonagall. I'm realizing now
that we have Disney Plus and we put on a
lot of the shows that we grew up watching for
our son because we know that they're going to be
safe things that we can have on for him and
maybe he'll like them. Now that he's starting to get
a little older. We've been putting on a lot of
Boy Meets World lately, and I'm realizing how much McGonagall

(01:35:44):
actually reminds me a lot of mister Feenie for anybody
who grew up watching Boy Meets World, because you have
an educator who is very knowledgeable, very professional, speaks very properly,
is very and keeps these hard boundaries that separate I'm

(01:36:06):
the teacher, you are the pupil. I am an adult,
You are the child. And yet you have these moments
where they demonstrate that they are not devoid of compassion
and they understand student situations a lot better than some
people might think. And when the chips are down and
a student is really suffering and they need to be

(01:36:28):
caught and brought back from the brink of just going
over the edge and being completely lost. Mister Feenie was
always that kind of teacher for the kids on Boy
Meets World, and McGonagall is that kind of teacher for
these kids at Hogwarts well.

Speaker 3 (01:36:42):
And I think it's also important to see that it's
not always the like sugary, sweet teachers that are the best,
right like, Sometimes it is the teacher who's going to
hold you to account and who is going to be
kind of strict. But that doesn't mean they don't care, right,
and it doesn't mean they that is their way right
right saying I have these expectations for you, and I

(01:37:03):
know you can rise to them, so I'm gonna hold
you to them, right and even Yeah, I just I
think that's important.

Speaker 5 (01:37:10):
Shall we go to the next one?

Speaker 3 (01:37:11):
Yeah, our final observation, which is a care of magical Creatures,
which is currently being taken by Professor Grubley Plank, who,
by the way, Grubley Plank is just good people, right,
Like she just really is she really is.

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
It kind of makes me wonder. I feel like this
has been brought up before. Has anybody else ever asked
or wondered why when Professor I mean apart from plot devices,
because installing Hagrid as the teacher has led to a
lot of things that we can talk about, But apart
from advancing certain plots, has anybody ever wondered aloud why

(01:37:51):
Grubby Plank wasn't the go to choice to replace Professor
Kettleburn when he retired.

Speaker 2 (01:37:56):
Well, I just always maybe she didn't want it, I
mean I didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:38:01):
Yeah, maybe because we don't we don't know how old
she is. She's just she's got short crop. Yeah, I
kind of like And I knew teachers like this too.
I knew teachers who were perfectly happy being substitute teachers.
It just fit in with everything else They had going on,
but there were definitely. I also had substitute teachers when

(01:38:22):
I was a kid, who one year I came back
and suddenly they're no longer a substitute. They're the new
fifth grade teacher because they finished their accreditation and they
got hired when the job became available.

Speaker 5 (01:38:35):
Yeah, yeah, no, that happens.

Speaker 3 (01:38:37):
I I can see her being the type who though
like maybe she's like raising some not fancy hippogrippes.

Speaker 5 (01:38:43):
But you know, like something along those lines.

Speaker 3 (01:38:45):
Like I don't know, maybe she's like a like a
like a a gnarl breeder or something. Maybe she's Yeah,
and so because she she says in this chapter, she's
like doubled her offered a few weeks, and I said, sure,
I'll do a few weeks, you know. So and maybe
she just doesn't want to be tied down, you know,
to being at the school all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:39:06):
You know what I have, I'm a big old Madam
Hooch and Professor sprout Shipper, and I'm imagining like they
have their gaggle of you know, the girls that they
get together with for drinks and hogsmeat, and one of
them is Grubbly Plank and whenever she's talking about what
she's been up to. They always say, oh, will Helmina,
when are you gonna settle down? Girl?

Speaker 2 (01:39:30):
But she never does.

Speaker 5 (01:39:32):
Wild wild Yes, Okay, that's it. That's it, that's the title.

Speaker 3 (01:39:41):
I do have to say, though, again grubbly playing good
people calling him professor Hagrid, this.

Speaker 5 (01:39:48):
Is my hard eyes. That makes me so happy, like
put respect on his name.

Speaker 3 (01:39:52):
He's trying right, like I know, and Jeff is gonna
come after me for this, but like I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:39:58):
Not gonna come after you for that.

Speaker 5 (01:40:00):
He should have that.

Speaker 1 (01:40:03):
I'm not a Hagrid as a teacher lover, no, but
especially given what they're going through at the moment.

Speaker 5 (01:40:10):
I do.

Speaker 1 (01:40:11):
What I appreciate is that she is not assuming anything
about Hagrid based on who he is or all of
the bad publicity that he's received because he was in
the news for the hippogriff incident two years ago. Last year,
he was in the news because Rita Skeeter decided to
roast him for being half giant. But she doesn't care

(01:40:33):
about that. And this leads to I would have said
that at least parts of this evaluation feel like the
only actual evaluation that has any kind of legitimacy because
Grubbly Plank is just answering the questions that are being asked.

(01:40:53):
She's answering them well, and most of not all of
the questions are about her ability to teach this class,
and she gives good answers, and she all she says
about Hagrid is I don't know more than you do.
I'm here because I was asked to be here. And yes,
she does refer to him as Professor Hagrid, which, whether

(01:41:16):
you like his teaching ability or not, we spent a
whole year calling Lockhart professor Lockhart, and he didn't teach
those kids due to le squad. Hagrid has taught these
kids more than Professor Lockhart ever.

Speaker 5 (01:41:29):
Days except for release corners.

Speaker 1 (01:41:31):
Yes, but that doesn't need to be demonstrated in order
to be learned. You should just think that I look
at evaluations the way I look at interviews. They should
be focusing on the person being evaluated or interviewed. It
should be a conversation about you. I went through this
recently with one of the organizations that I work with.

(01:41:51):
I applied for a position and some questions were raised
about not anyone specific, but I was basically asked to
compare how I would do the job compared to how
other people have done it. And I didn't say any names.
I didn't bring up any specific things about other people
that I might find need improvement. I just focused on

(01:42:12):
how I would do these responsibilities the best that I could,
because I think that's what interviews and evaluations are supposed
to be. They're supposed to be about the person being
interviewed or evaluated. If other people's names are being brought
into the conversation too much, then I think you've gone
off topic. I think you've lost focus of what's supposed
to be going on. And that's where we lose it

(01:42:33):
on this one. It's the emphasis on you seem to
know what you're doing at any rate. And then it's
the way that she immediately launches into the history of
this class and starts asking questions that are obviously meant
to target somebody who isn't even here. Hagrid's not here
right now. If you want to get on Hagrid's it's

(01:42:55):
about not being at school on time and not being
able to account for his whereabouts for two months. I'm
gonna give you another hot take their right to be
concerned about that he's not there at the start of
the school year. He doesn't come back for two months,
and then he's not answering questions about why he's gone. Okay,
that's actually kind of fair. But don't ask questions about

(01:43:16):
how Hagrid runs his class when he's not there to
account for himself. That's not cool.

Speaker 5 (01:43:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:43:22):
Well, and it also is so interesting because it shows
us what these evaluations are really about, right. They are
about weeding out Dumbledore and the people who are aligned
with him. So that's even why, like Grumbley Plank is
really an outsider here, right, And so Umbrage goes in

(01:43:43):
hoping to get some sort of ammunition to use against Dumbledore.
But Grumbley Plank is like, no, I think it's doing well.
Dumbledore's really supportive, things are running smoothly, you know, everything
as an outsider seems fine.

Speaker 5 (01:43:55):
And that, I think is.

Speaker 3 (01:43:56):
When Umbrage starts being like, well, I guess I'm not
getting anything from you specifically, so I'm gonna have to
like start digging into other things here. So that's the
interesting thing here is is it blatantly shows in this
one how the true purpose of what they're.

Speaker 2 (01:44:14):
Doing, especially the fact that she immediately like her first
questions to her where is Hagrid and blah blah blah, Yeah,
which to me, I mean, yes, they're right to be
concerned about where Haggard is while he's not at the school,
But at this moment in time, it's none of your
business where Haggard is. Like, at this moment in time,
you were there to evaluate grubbling Plank and her abilities

(01:44:38):
and what she's going to teach. Stop bring about Hagrid.
And she shows her true agenda again by the fact
that she didn't even bother to stay for the entire class.
She stayed for the entirety of all the rest of
the classes, but this one. As soon as she realized
she wasn't gonna get any information, she was out.

Speaker 3 (01:44:55):
Yeah, And she also like, I mean, also, here's the thing.
Is Haggard's direct supervisor Dumbledore.

Speaker 2 (01:45:03):
No exactly right, the only person nobody.

Speaker 3 (01:45:06):
Else's business, right, Like that's I mean, even when I
call out sick or something, or or I have to
take a day off, I'm like.

Speaker 5 (01:45:14):
Nobody else needs to know, right, Even like when I
have to fill out a form, I'm like, you don't
need to know what I have an appointment.

Speaker 1 (01:45:20):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:45:21):
I just have an appointment. No, you don't need specifics.

Speaker 2 (01:45:25):
I will not be here, and yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:45:28):
I will not be here because I have an appointment.
The ends like.

Speaker 5 (01:45:33):
I don't need to tell you what it's for.

Speaker 2 (01:45:36):
Yeah, it's it's over overstepping.

Speaker 5 (01:45:39):
It's ridiculous. Umbridge sucks.

Speaker 1 (01:45:43):
And now let's round out our discussion with talking about
the the aforementioned how did I put it a militant peer?
What did I What did I? I just I came
up with.

Speaker 2 (01:45:56):
A good militant group. I believe it was.

Speaker 5 (01:45:58):
That is it?

Speaker 1 (01:45:59):
This is the part where Harry gets back from detention
and his best friends try to persuade him to start
a militant peer tutoring program because the government would rather
have dead children than child soldiers.

Speaker 5 (01:46:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:46:15):
I find it so fascinating that the phrase that Hermione
and Ron used here is a proper teacher, right, like
someone who can actually teach them what it's like. And
it's so interesting because that's obviously juxtaposed with all these
evaluations and these other teachers that we're seeing throughout the
rest of this chapter. Right, Umbrage and Trelawney and grubby

(01:46:37):
Plank and McGonagall and Snape, all of these put together,
and then we get, well, what kind of teacher can
Harry be? Right, Like, what does he have to offer?
I do have to say, I still cackle when Ron
is like, they're like, we have to do something about it,
and Ron is like poisonous teacher, Like that's his thoughts,
just like poisoner, like like, oh.

Speaker 1 (01:47:01):
My goshut see my friends that I text each other.
I don't mind telling you my friends that I text
each other. Weird stuff like that every now and then,
Like I have a friend who works the night shift
in a hotel and it's not a great hotel, so
they get a lot of the kind of people coming
to stay there with weird requests and complaining about the
most nitpicky things. They'll be like, can I vent about

(01:47:23):
my my my people staying at the hotel? Yeah, and
then describes the problems like kill them.

Speaker 5 (01:47:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:47:30):
It's like stab them yeah immediately, but obviously we don't
really want them to do that, and they're not gonna.
It's just it's one of those things you say. It's
the shock of the suggestion that's meant to inject just
a little bit of humor.

Speaker 3 (01:47:42):
Yeah, yeah, it's like every time that my best friend
complains about her boss, I'm like, so, I'm gonna go
fight a Catholic priest. I really have never actually wanted
to fight anyone as much as I wanted to fight him.
But anyway, that's a different story.

Speaker 2 (01:48:00):
It's a different podcast, folks.

Speaker 5 (01:48:04):
Yeah, but no, it's it's true.

Speaker 3 (01:48:06):
Yes, yeah, it's Harry's like, but he also is like,
complain right, tell someone, which honestly is again Harry really
should have told someone that he was literally being tortured.
But who, like, do you know McGonagall at the very
least right McGonagall would have gone scorched earth.

Speaker 2 (01:48:27):
He would have, she would have. However, I mean I
have to say Harry, Harry's response is correct here because
imagine and mcgonaga gone ham and just completely lost her mind.
Then she's a target. I mean, she's already a target,
but then she's even more of a target, and she's

(01:48:48):
completely removed, and they lose her and they don't have
hardly anyone left at Hogwarts.

Speaker 1 (01:48:52):
Yes, which ends up happening.

Speaker 2 (01:48:56):
Yeah, so I mean it was I.

Speaker 1 (01:49:00):
Get it that way. Maybe that's a legitimate thing to
be worried about.

Speaker 3 (01:49:03):
But I think McGonagall has enough support and respect, not
just at in Hogwarts but outside as well that if
she said, look, she is literally torturing a student and
I have proof, like, here's the proof of this actual
literal torture, people would have been like, all right, yeah,
you're right, we gotta do.

Speaker 2 (01:49:23):
It, right though, because they know how deeply what sword
intertwined she is with Dumbledore, and we know how people
feel about Dumbledore right now, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:49:37):
There's enough people who have respect for her outside of
that relationship to that just as an individual that they'd
be willing to listen to her.

Speaker 5 (01:49:46):
And she also would put up a stink until it happened.

Speaker 2 (01:49:49):
Right, she doesn't care, Oh you don't care.

Speaker 5 (01:49:52):
She cares about these kids.

Speaker 3 (01:49:54):
She cares about these kids, and that's why, right, I mean,
I know why Harry doesn't. Right, And we've talked about
it many times. Harry does not trust adults, but.

Speaker 2 (01:50:02):
Like and also right too, Yeah, he specifically doesn't want
to and absolutely what's going on like this is happening
to him.

Speaker 1 (01:50:12):
He even said that he doesn't want to give him
satisfaction of knowing that she got to him. H Mm hmm, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:50:20):
Yeah, he says, it is a personal war we're waging
and I am never gonna relent right like.

Speaker 5 (01:50:25):
Which is so griffic.

Speaker 1 (01:50:27):
I also think there's this unconscious martyr it kind of
it's a it's another way of looking at you know
what Hermione calls his saving people think I had. I
think he has this unconscious martyr complex where he feels
like the only way he's doing what he's supposed to do,
defeating his enemy, protecting the people that he cares about,

(01:50:48):
is if he literally suffers because he has. It reminds
me of the moment in the Half Blood Prince film
when Jenny says, why is it he's always covered in blood?
And I always think, well, it's because as if Harry's
not covered in blood, then he's not reassured that he
did exactly what he was supposed to do. In the moment,
he has to break bones, get cut, get tortured, like physically,

(01:51:11):
he has to feel the suffering. Otherwise he feels like
he's not taking on enough of the burden that's been
put on him.

Speaker 3 (01:51:19):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Speaking of burdens being put on him,
do you think Ron Hermione rehearsed this conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:51:27):
Oh no, no, came in definitely absolutely rehearsed this conversation. I
think that this and this was what happened to have
a prisoner of Azkabad too. What it was pretty obvious
they rehearsed the conversation where they were telling Harry don't
go after serious Black. This has beens a lot like
they got to talk Harry into or out of something,

(01:51:50):
and they need to be prepared because obviously Rod at
her Bioty although they're compatible in a lot of ways
and they agree they both love Harry. They you want
to talk about another comparison to Boy Meets World, It's
like whenever there's something going on with Corey and Sean
and Tipanga have very different methods for how they would
approach the issue with Corey, so they have to talk

(01:52:12):
about it ahead of time.

Speaker 3 (01:52:14):
Yeah, their their skills have improved from prisoner.

Speaker 5 (01:52:17):
I will say, try to make it more natural.

Speaker 2 (01:52:21):
And this is an especially precarious conversation because we've seen
throughout this book how Harry has a tendency to kind
of fly off the handle, So this has to be
handled just right. So yeah, I absolutely think this would
have been a discussion a lengthy discussion for how to

(01:52:42):
approach this and what not to say.

Speaker 3 (01:52:44):
I do think it's yeah, I do think it's kind
of sweet though, but they're like, we need a proper teacher,
and Harry's first thought is proper teacher bloopin' right, Like
He's like, yeah, and that actually is who Harry kind
of models himself on as a teacher, right is.

Speaker 5 (01:53:00):
I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:53:00):
Daniel Radcliffe even said that he went with the card
again in order the Phoenix for Harry because it looked
like Lupin, right, that looked like Lupin's costume, and he
he felt like Harry was trying to model himself on
Lupen And we obviously that's.

Speaker 5 (01:53:16):
That's based in the book too.

Speaker 3 (01:53:17):
And I just think it's so sweet that he's like,
if you're talking about Lubin, we can't get Lupin in
here right now, right, And they're like, no.

Speaker 1 (01:53:23):
Harry, would that have been if Lupin was the one
giving them that instruction, given how Umbridge feels about his
very existence as aware of that would have been away.
He indirectly contributes to that because he and Serious do
give Harry a nice set of defense books for Christmas

(01:53:47):
that he ends up using for the DA. Yeah, so
he does contribute and Lupin's lessons.

Speaker 3 (01:53:53):
Lupin's lessons are what Harry basis is on. Right when
they when they start talking about patronises, he's like, wish
we could find a bogger. That's how Lupin taught me, right,
And so you know, I do have to say, though,
I kind of love this moment when Harry is in
denial about this and how he's like, I haven't done
all these great things. I haven't, I haven't, because I
think that's a sign of who he really is at

(01:54:15):
his core, Right, Harry James Potter is humble. He's always
a bit desperate, but he is always a survivor and
he's always going to help others. And that is why
he's such a valuable teacher.

Speaker 5 (01:54:28):
Right. He knows what it's really like.

Speaker 3 (01:54:30):
To go into this and he can express that to people.

Speaker 5 (01:54:34):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:54:35):
He knows that he didn't get through these things just
on his own skill or merit or whatever.

Speaker 5 (01:54:40):
Necessarily.

Speaker 3 (01:54:41):
He knows he had help from places and from people,
and that's the only.

Speaker 5 (01:54:48):
Way he got through is with others.

Speaker 3 (01:54:50):
But I do have to say, is this actually a
good idea to be like, yeah, let's teach everyone how
it's like to be in battle. Like, yes, the war's
coming and they should be prepared. But is it a
bad idea to have encouraged this, because in some ways
he's encouraging his friends, his peers to fight directly and die.

Speaker 1 (01:55:09):
I think of it like more like a magical self
defense class, because people get I saw it a lot
when I was taking taekwondo lessons with my family when
I was a kid. People join things like that thinking
they are going to learn how to fight. It's not
supposed to be about learning to fight, or to be
in combat, or to actively go out and do these things.

(01:55:29):
It's about defense. It's supposed to be about protecting yourself.
And this Golden Trio doesn't have a normal, wizarding child's
perspective on what teenagers should be prepared for. Their whole
lives have been unusual for the last four years. They've
ended up in dangerous and life threatening situations every year,

(01:55:54):
and they know more than your average student does about
Voldemort and.

Speaker 5 (01:55:58):
What he's up to.

Speaker 1 (01:55:59):
So they have a very different opinion for good reason,
about what teenagers should be prepared to do, and if
they don't do something to make their peers take this
whole thing more seriously. Now, then by the time they're
out of school, assuming they all make it that far,
it'll be too late because they won't know any of

(01:56:19):
the things that they need to. So it's not only
a good idea, it's the only idea. It has to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:56:28):
I feel like this way, they at least stood a chance,
as opposed to going out being grossly unprepared and getting
a surprise when the war comes in a couple of
years and not having any idea what to do.

Speaker 1 (01:56:42):
And poor Harry, he just he's obviously struggles with self esteem.
And I mean I kinda, I kind of get it
because he can stand up perfectly fine when it comes
to bullies. He's well acquainted with that because he is
vicially at a certain point in his life. He just said,
you know what, these Dursleys aren't going to push me

(01:57:04):
around anymore. I'm not taking this. And from the moment
he gets to school, he has no problem standing up
to Malfoy or any of the other bullies that he
comes across in school. He can deal with that just fine.
But when it comes to giving him self credit for
what he's good at he struggles with it. He was

(01:57:24):
struggling with it in Goblet of Fire when fake Moody
was trying to get him to focus on his strength
and he said, I can fly, but so what or
he said I don't have any strengths. It's the first
thing he said, hmm. So in this case, he's not
so much talking down about himself as he is trying
to count. They're making all these points about what's great

(01:57:47):
about Harry because they're basically pulling his resume to try
to make it a point of why he should be
teaching other kids this stuff. And his point is, I
don't actually think any of these things are valid credentials
for this. But it's the moment when he and herd

(01:58:09):
he it's a thing. I don't know if it's anywhere
in the book, but I know it's in the movie
where he just gives the speech about how facing the
stuff in real life isn't like school because in school
you get another chance.

Speaker 5 (01:58:20):
That's what he says.

Speaker 1 (01:58:21):
Yeah, and Hermione says, you're right, Harry, we don't know
what that's like. That's why we need you. Yeah, he's
like an AGENTI Lockhart in this case Lockhart claims credit
for all these things he did, he goes in and
that's all he talks about is how great he is
when he didn't even do any of it. But Harry,
he did. He's done more between the ages of eleven

(01:58:43):
and fifteen than Lockhart did his entire life. And he
doesn't want to publicize any of it or use it
as a reason why he's better than other people.

Speaker 3 (01:58:51):
Yeah, but I mean that's so Harry, right, that's the
core of him. He's so humble. He doesn't want to
be a hero. He doesn't want to have all this attention,
doesn't want to do these things. He wants to have
a nice, quiet life where he can just be himself.
And so having someone stand up and say, look at
all the things you've done, he's like, but it wasn't
just me, right, Like, I can't take full credit.

Speaker 2 (01:59:13):
For that, I think, and I just you're you're so right,
And it's just the fact that he feels unworthy is
unfortunate because just because you had help, that doesn't mean
you didn't do the things. And he had to have
essentially the guts to even go out to try to

(01:59:36):
do the things in the first place, Like in Sorcerer's Stone.
It was his idea to go down the trap door
and chamber of secrets. He was gonna save Jenny. Like
that takes some guts to say, Hey, I'm gonna go
do this now. Yeah, it happened that he had help
in the end, but he had to get himself started,
and all of those experiences left him with the knowledge

(02:00:00):
he needed to give these other students that type of
perspective because I'm much like like def just touched on
when when Hermione says it that that's why they need him,
because they don't understand what it's like. He can give
the full picture. And I just I wish that he
would have a little bit more I don't know, confidence

(02:00:21):
in himself, I guess, but it's not really it's a
mix of humility and lack of confidence, I think. Yeah, yeah,
And I just wish that he would see you know,
the fact that you even put yourself out there to
do the things says a lot about you, because a
lot of people would have just been like, oh, Jenny
is trapped in the chamber, Oh well, and then walked away.

Speaker 5 (02:00:44):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:00:45):
And of course they keep kind of pressing him on it,
which makes him.

Speaker 5 (02:00:48):
Fly off him a little bit.

Speaker 1 (02:00:50):
They're putting pure.

Speaker 3 (02:00:52):
I find this, yeah, which I find this has been
very interesting. Is the thing that calms him down is
her mind me saying Voldemorre's name, which is the first
time that she said that. And I just find this
fascinating because why does this calm him down?

Speaker 1 (02:01:08):
Right?

Speaker 3 (02:01:09):
Is it just because he sees that Hermione is actually
serious about this, right, like they're not just joking around
or throwing out ideas. Is it because she she shows
that she does understand the seriousness of what she's asking
him to do and what he's faced. Or is it
or is it something else? What is it specifically about
Hermione saying Voldemorre's name for the first time that is

(02:01:30):
able to calm Harry down so much.

Speaker 2 (02:01:32):
I think that it's just a reinforcement of the fact
that she's behind him, that she's behind him enough to
say his name, that she takes him seriously enough to
say his name, and that she knows that he's telling
the truth and this is real, and that this is
this is gonna be a big problem soon. I think
it's just a reminder that her and Ron, even though

(02:01:56):
you know Ron still has problems saying the name, but
that those are the two people that are going to
be in his corner and that he's not alone. It's
it's just it's one of those things where they shied
away from saying the name all year long, and Hermione
is finally like, hey, this is real. It's kind of
like the line in the movie. I don't know if
it's in the books when McGonagall they're preparing the castle

(02:02:17):
for the battle. Mcgonagal says, his name is Baltimore. He's
going to try to kill you regardless, so you might
as well say his name. I think it's it. That's
it's kind of that moment.

Speaker 1 (02:02:26):
I think it might be worded a little differently, but
that's yeah, that's how it's done in the movie.

Speaker 2 (02:02:30):
Yeah, it's something along those lines. Yeah, you might as
well say his name. He's going to try to kill
you either way, or something like that.

Speaker 1 (02:02:37):
I think it's also it might not necessarily be just
because it's Hermione. It's just the lack of people in
Harry's life who use the name that any time he hears
somebody say it that he's never heard say it before.
After so many years of people calling him you know
who or he who must not be named. He's gonna

(02:02:58):
latch onto the significance of anybody saying the name for
the first time because he knows who says it and
who doesn't.

Speaker 3 (02:03:06):
Yeah, well, and it's true. And the people who do
say it right, Dumbledore serious loopen like those are people
that he knows, understands right what that means, right, and
why why it's kind of such a brave thing for
them to say it right, Like.

Speaker 1 (02:03:26):
That's that's all part of it, the end of and
I think it's.

Speaker 3 (02:03:30):
It's it's interesting too that then Harry says, well, the
bull's broken, but he can't return that mert lap essence
to it, even though that was such a relief, Like
he calms down enough that he's like, oh, I.

Speaker 2 (02:03:41):
Screwed up, as you hate that moment.

Speaker 5 (02:03:43):
Bring it back.

Speaker 1 (02:03:45):
Yeah, yeah, I mean we've all had those moments probably
where you threw something or you kicked something and you
weren't trying to break it. You knew you weren't gonna
break it, but you threw it and like something after
like as soon as it hits the wall and you
hear the sound, you're like Okay, I shouldn't have did that.
Good thing, I was alone. The end of this chapter

(02:04:06):
always just kind of catches me off a little bit.
It just I think there's probably because there's so many
chapters where they're going to bed. It's the end of
the day. Stuff happened, and now it's wrapping up, and
that's where the chapter ends. But this chapter, for some
reason ends with this just short little moment where it's
like Harry's having dreams about corridors again and he's waking
up and he's not sleeping, and then into the next chapter.

Speaker 3 (02:04:29):
I think it's kind of highlighting how all of this
is connected. Right, This chapter has been so Hogwart centric
and so like Harry's personal life centric that I think
it's it's almost a reminder that a when Harry's in
highly emotional states like this, he's more susceptible to manipulation,
and b that all of this that's happening with the

(02:04:51):
Ministry and Umberge and everything is kind of wider connected
to what's happening with Baltimore and what's going to happen
at the end of the book. So I feel like
it's almost like the tease of that it's almost like,
remember this is also happening.

Speaker 2 (02:05:05):
Exactly. Took the words right out of my mouth. Allison.
There's that brain cell at work again.

Speaker 5 (02:05:10):
A single brain cell.

Speaker 2 (02:05:12):
That's Allison and I share cut City. I have a
brain cell. For those of you who don't know, I'm.

Speaker 3 (02:05:18):
Sure a single brain cell with a few people, and
it's like, yeah, they're dispersed and it's like split into
multiple I have one brain cell and it's split across
multiple people.

Speaker 1 (02:05:30):
Brain cells are supposed to remain intact. To split one
into seven pieces.

Speaker 2 (02:05:35):
I know, I know that makes us even smarter.

Speaker 3 (02:05:42):
Sure, Jan, that's why my brain cells are so unstable
and I can't.

Speaker 5 (02:05:47):
There you go time.

Speaker 2 (02:05:49):
You're really just brilliant, that's what it is.

Speaker 1 (02:05:52):
Well, we're gonna let your one brain cell have a
rest because that brings us to the end of this
chapter from Order of the Phoenix, and hopefully the next
time we get together to discuss the performance of certain
ministry officials it is with a slightly lighter tone because

(02:06:12):
the next episode will be a chapter revisit of Goblet
of Fire chapter seven, bag Men and Crouch, and if
you want.

Speaker 3 (02:06:22):
To come see what other brain cells we have. Occasionally
make sure you follow us on pretty much any social
media outlet at a Lohmore MN or on Facebook at
Open the Dumbledore. Definitely make sure you're following our Instagram
because we have something really fun and exciting coming up
on our Instagram soon, So come follow.

Speaker 5 (02:06:42):
Us and make sure you subscribe. You save.

Speaker 3 (02:06:43):
You share this episode with your friends, with everyone you
have ever met, with everyone, you share a brain cell.

Speaker 2 (02:06:48):
With everyone you see on the street and everyone.

Speaker 3 (02:06:54):
And with that, this has been episode fifty two of
the Final one hundred.

Speaker 5 (02:07:00):
I'm Allison, I'm.

Speaker 2 (02:07:01):
Jeff, and I'm SHAWMANI and thank you for listening to
episode four hundred and fifty two of Aloha Mora and
you opened the Dumbleedoor thirteen years ago. Hmm.

Speaker 8 (02:07:27):
Aloha Mora is produced by Tracy Dunstan. This episode was
edited by Catherine Lewis. Alohamra was co created by Noah
Freed and Kat Miller, and is brought to you by
APWB d LLC.

Speaker 1 (02:07:51):
All Right, jacket, news flash. The kids are upset because
an article in the Daily Prophet. Nope, forgot a word.

Speaker 5 (02:07:59):
Sorry, I rehearse these. I don't

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