transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Well, you can't shove a bezoar down your own throat if you're poisoned.

Speaker 2:
[00:03] Well, have somebody else on standby to do it for you.

Speaker 3:
[00:06] What if you drank it with the bezoar?

Speaker 2:
[00:08] They'd kill perfect.

Speaker 4:
[00:09] Shot Chaser.

Speaker 2:
[00:11] Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the world of Harry Potter. I'm Andrew.

Speaker 4:
[00:15] I'm Eric.

Speaker 3:
[00:16] I'm Micah.

Speaker 1:
[00:17] And I'm Laura.

Speaker 2:
[00:19] We are Harry Potter friends talking about the books and the movies and the upcoming TV show. So be sure to follow us in your podcast app and you'll never miss an episode. And this week, we hope you've had all your wine stores tested for poison because we're discussing Chapter 22 of Half-Blood Prince, After the Burial. Before we continue, though, if you love MuggleCast as much as Horace loves rare magical creature ingredients, we invite you to support us at patreon.com/mugglecast. You'll get access to lots of benefits, including bonus episodes of the show, ad-free episodes, live streams, monthly Zoom hangout, and a lot more. We can't do this without you. So thank you so much for your support. Laura, you want to let listeners know about something, right?

Speaker 1:
[01:02] Yeah. So I was recently on an episode of our friend Rachel's podcast, The Menu Script, which is a podcast all about excellent books and culinary creations. We talked about Order of the Phoenix as a full novel, as opposed to the chapter by chapter format that we're used to doing on this show. It was a ton of fun and we had some really, really deep, insightful connections to current events and even other historical events. You should definitely go and check it out. But we also talked about food because that's a big part of the show as well. So we shared a couple of recipes. It was really, really fun. So go check out the Menu Script anywhere you listen to podcasts. All right.

Speaker 2:
[01:45] Well, without further ado, let's get into chapter by chapter. And this week we're discussing Chapter 22 of Half-Blood Prince, After the Burial.

Speaker 4:
[01:53] We last discussed it on an episode called Horcrux Hangover. You can't wait to see what that's for. And this clip we're about to play from MuggleCast 413, which aired on April 15th of 2019, contains some good old fashioned, at the time contemporary, Fantastic Beasts sequel commentary. Play the clip.

Speaker 1:
[02:16] What you're looking at are memories. This is the most important memory I've collected.

Speaker 3:
[02:22] It is from MuggleCast, Episode 413.

Speaker 4:
[02:29] And speaking of Aragog, let's not forget, he directly tells, I think, Harry and Ron, he came to Hagrid in the pocket of a traveler.

Speaker 2:
[02:39] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[02:40] And Newt keeps lots of little thingies in his pockets.

Speaker 2:
[02:44] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[02:45] Little friends.

Speaker 2:
[02:45] People have picked up on that. I think that would be a super cool connection. I'm just not sure there's room for this, but I guess we'll see.

Speaker 1:
[02:51] If there was room for Yusuf Kama.

Speaker 2:
[02:56] Maybe Yusuf was the traveler.

Speaker 4:
[02:58] Oh my God.

Speaker 3:
[02:59] There was room for Bunty.

Speaker 1:
[03:01] Room for Bunty.

Speaker 2:
[03:01] Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 4:
[03:06] This memory is everything.

Speaker 2:
[03:08] I miss all those characters.

Speaker 4:
[03:10] Yeah. I hope they're doing well. As we get into this after the burial chapter, it is Aragog centered because we learn via an owl in a tear-soaked letter, very reminiscent of Book 3's tear-soaked letter about Biki, that Aragog has died and Hagrid is requesting the presence of the trio down to say some words and bury Aragog. Apart from the slight disconnect that Ron notes of Harry and Ron barely escaped, Aragog's stand with their lives a few years back. Hermione is alarmed that Hagrid is asking them to leave the school at night. So my top question regarding Hermione's alarm is, is it unfair given that Hagrid has so few other friends and just lost one of his other friends that he had? Is it fair for Hagrid to ask the trio to risk getting in trouble to come and spend time with him?

Speaker 3:
[04:20] Poor Hagrid just doesn't know any better. He never recognizes the inherent risk in any situation, really. So I'm not surprised by this at all.

Speaker 2:
[04:32] He also, he's not in a right state of mind right now. He lost his buddy and nothing matters right now, but saying goodbye and he wants a support group around him while he says goodbye. So I don't blame him for this.

Speaker 4:
[04:46] Well, I really like what you said, Micah, like he never understands the inherent risk because like, yeah, that is Hagrid. So like you connected to like his whole problem always is that. But also there's been some recent attacks though, right? Like Katie and Ron, for instance, like going out, I think because Harry's older, he's not as afraid as he is in like year two when there's all these attacks going around, or year three when there's all these dementors around to protect them against serious black or whatever. Like year six, there's still probably that same error of anyone could get attacked at any time. And surely nobody would be more attuned to that than the teachers who see the anxiety on the students' faces every passing day. And so Hagrid should be better attuned to the fact that there's a lot going on. And a lot of people like all of his students, all of the kids that do take his Care of Magical Creatures class, the trio accepted, are probably really nervous and still he asked them to come break the rules for him.

Speaker 3:
[05:46] That's Hagrid though. At the end of the day though, I don't think that Harry would have let a friend like Hagrid go through something like this by himself. Ron and Hermione clearly are not so apt. We know Ron is deathly afraid of spiders, so I give him a hall pass here. But I'm a little surprised by Hermione. You bring up great points though, Eric, in terms of the fact that students have been getting attacked, and it's not safe to be out on the grounds. That's why there's all these extra security measures in place. That's why there are auras on Hogwarts campus. So it's a bit reckless on Harry's part, but he's got luck on his side, let's just say. Liquid luck. I did want to bring up with Aragog specifically, there's a really strong connection here between Chamber of Secrets and Half-Blood Prince. I feel like this is really where the plot from both books connect with each other. Going back to Aragog being the one who was initially blamed, or was looked at to be the monster from the Chamber of Secrets. Everything that transpires in the forest with Ron and Harry. Then of course now here we have Aragog who has passed, and he is the means to the end for Harry retrieving this Horcrux memory. Without Aragog passing, I don't know how Harry, luck or not, would have been so successful in obtaining this memory from Slughorn.

Speaker 2:
[07:32] Are you saying it's a good thing Aragog died? You're sick.

Speaker 4:
[07:36] Well, first of all, yes, always. That spider sucked. Can we just all agree that dude sucked? No, I'm kidding.

Speaker 1:
[07:43] Spiders are cool. I mean, not this particular spider, but in general. I really love Micah, what you're talking about here with connecting the threads between books two and six on this moment because there is so much we can pull out here beyond even the larger narrative connection that you're talking about with Aragog really being the key in a lot of ways to push the momentum of the story forward. Because in Chamber of Secrets, Hagrid also puts Harry and Ron in danger when he's about to be carted off to Azkaban. And he loftily suggests, anyone who wanted to know what's going on should follow the spiders. And Harry and Ron were like, bet, we'll follow the spiders. They follow the spiders. They almost die.

Speaker 2:
[08:32] You're so Gen Z.

Speaker 4:
[08:34] They were so bet. They were really feeling it.

Speaker 1:
[08:36] They really were.

Speaker 4:
[08:37] It was great.

Speaker 1:
[08:38] But then again, in this book, tied to Aragog, Hagrid's like, yeah, come on down to my spider funeral. And, you know, the trio could get in trouble at school, but also way worse to the point of everything that's going on right now. And I also love how in both books, a Slytherin manipulates and takes advantage of Hagrid in order to get something from Aragog. In the case of Tom Riddle, of course, he scapegoats Hagrid and Aragog. And in this case, Slughorn uses it as a way to sneakily take some of Aragog's venom. So there's a lot going on here. There's like a lot that we could pull out that connects these stories.

Speaker 3:
[09:31] Love that.

Speaker 4:
[09:32] Yeah. So the trio, after getting Hagrid's letter, Harry has his own ideas about what he's going to do to help him with Malfoy. And they actually hit on this idea of boom, smack dab. Let's try your bottle of Felix Felicis. You've got to get lucky. By the way, Andrew, an alternate pensive segment for this week featured you playing Daft Punk. You've got to get lucky.

Speaker 2:
[10:01] As soon as you said that, that's what jumped into my head.

Speaker 4:
[10:04] I wondered. I sensed it being similar. But I'll tell you, because we monetized these over on YouTube, I didn't want the copyright infringement to knock us our abilities.

Speaker 2:
[10:13] We must monetize.

Speaker 4:
[10:14] I know. I know. But so Harry is asked by Hermione, what could be a more perfect time than now to use it? And Harry has this brief moment where he's like, well, I was kind of picturing something with Ginny, like, okay.

Speaker 3:
[10:30] You dirty dog.

Speaker 4:
[10:31] Well, he's lovesick. He's, you know, it's innocent anyway. But what I love about it is he does actually take the potion. And immediately, Ron and Hermione are quite rightly concerned that it broke Harry. He's like, he's not okay. He's just like, yeah, I'm going to go here and do this. And they're like, are we sure? What have we done? What if there was a brief, what have we done moment from Ron and Hermione?

Speaker 3:
[11:01] Yeah. What I love about this though, is it's very reminiscent of the previous chapter when they, well, really Harry has this epiphany about the Room of Requirement. It's the same thing. He has this epiphany about Felix Felicis, and it's kind of been there all along. But this moment, to me, was such a great moment in the Harry Potter movies and the Half-Blood Prince film, when Dan takes the Felix Felicis and he says, like Hagrid's is the place to be tonight. There's very few moments.

Speaker 2:
[11:38] Madame Maxime also says that quite often.

Speaker 3:
[11:41] Doesn't she? But I feel like there's very few moments you could point to in the Harry Potter films where you feel like it's just such a really good moment of acting and I just thought Dan knocked it out of the park.

Speaker 2:
[11:56] Yeah, he did.

Speaker 1:
[11:57] Why doesn't he take another gulp of the Felix Felicis and go have another crack at the Room of Requirement after this? I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[12:08] Well, certainly, Hermione is not going to give him that idea. But what is very interesting to me about the Felix Felicis is Harry is just drunk on luck and he's feeling confident. It made me wonder and then this is one of the benefits of rereading these books as you get older. I wonder if there are adult wizards who maybe become addicted to Felix Felicis. He feels lighter. He feels happier, it seems. You could almost compare it to alcohol. If you're a wizard, if you're feeling down or hopeless, I could see it being a helpful upper.

Speaker 4:
[12:42] Yeah. There's that line. I think it's in movieism specifically, but it's just like the, whosoever shall take this should see their wildest dreams and endeavors succeed for a period of time. It's just like, wow, this is just way not overselling it because it's just that good. It's wild what watching, reading this chapter is amazing because of all the little intricacies, all the little notions that come to Harry that he leans into and then sees all of his dreams succeed. So it's very impressive. But one thing that I think was somebody else that could have used the luck potion in this chapter but didn't and so thus had to do without it was Hagrid. Because Hagrid tells Harry when they're down at his hut, that he personally dragged Aragog out of the forest where his children were trying to eat him. And I don't just mean eat Aragog as is the way with this group of spiders. But they were going to eat Hagrid as well. And granted Hagrid is not a 12-year-old student the way Harry and Ron were. But if you think back to how many hundreds of spiders, how many hundreds of, I say spiders, lightly asterisks, giant spiders, acromantula there were in the forest. How did Hagrid get out there? How did Hagrid doesn't even have a wand. So the idea that he dragged Aragog all the way out from that place in the woods without magic basically and survived is actually really impressive.

Speaker 1:
[14:14] You know, he has feet the size of baby dolphins. I don't know what else to say.

Speaker 4:
[14:18] Those are acromantula crushing feet.

Speaker 1:
[14:21] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[14:21] Those stompers just all the way out.

Speaker 3:
[14:24] I think it speaks to Hagrid's connection to Aragog though, the fact that he would do something like that. Yeah. And not give up on it. Because I'm sure there are probably moments where he could have just turned around and left Aragog there. But maybe it was just one of those situations where the adrenaline was pumping. And that was all that mattered.

Speaker 4:
[14:48] I love that because we see him here and when he wrote the letter and here, he's just sad. He's just sad. But there was a lot of bravery and there was a lot of effort.

Speaker 3:
[14:56] Gryffindor.

Speaker 4:
[14:57] There was so much Gryffindor. I was going to say that. It's like, to your point about connecting the threads, the Gryffindor student was the scapegoat last time. And Hagrid's Gryffindor side doesn't always show. He's more of a puff usually, I think, with his love for creatures. And my next question, we asked if it was wrong for Hagrid to invite the trio down. Is it wrong for Harry to invite Horace Slughorn, who he happens to bump into? To the funeral, because Harry knows that Slughorn really just wants to profit off of Aragog's Venom. And at the same time, Harry's mission with Horace forces him to need to kind of butter Slughorn up. None of these concerns have anything to do with doing the right thing by Hagrid. So is Harry being a bad friend to Hagrid for inviting Slughorn along? To me, it seems kind of almost Dumbledorean, what Harry does where the pieces align.

Speaker 3:
[16:04] Yeah, it's a means to an end. I feel like I've been saying that a lot in this discussion, but the Felix Felicis presents the opportunity, and Harry seizes it. And let's face it, it's not going to hurt Aragog any to-

Speaker 4:
[16:21] It's not going to get better.

Speaker 2:
[16:24] So, I don't know if we can blame Harry for anything that he does once he takes the Felix Felicis. It's acting as a compass for him. It sets him up for success. That said, I do think he should be held responsible for his actions. But should we be criticizing Harry for bringing along Slughorn? I don't think so because I think you just have to thank the Felix for this. Blame the Felix if you want.

Speaker 1:
[16:50] Yeah, I wrote here in the doc for the greater good. Multiple times. Yes. Because honestly, I think that's what this is about. Because to be real, I don't think Harry would have invited Slughorn to Hagrid's for the Arachnid funeral if he hadn't taken the Felix Felicis. Because Harry is a good friend most of the time. I think he would have the thought of like, why would I put Hagrid in this position? I want to be there for my friend. Felix allows Harry to be his most Dumbledore that he's ever been. So it cuts through, I think, some of the judgment that he would otherwise have to prevent that from happening.

Speaker 4:
[17:36] Kind of like the hesitation, it's liquid luck, but it's like liquid confidence almost. It's like shining the path forward, and it's a magically derived path, so you know it's golden.

Speaker 3:
[17:47] It removes the inhibition and it just allows him to be free. In a way, he otherwise probably wouldn't be. I also think a bit of his Slytherin side comes out in this too. I know he's not technically in Slytherin, but it was a consideration.

Speaker 4:
[18:06] Well, we're going to take a break before getting to the other half of our discussion now to hear from some of our sponsors. All right, and we're back, and it's time to discuss Slughorn's psychology. This is a great Horace Slughorn chapter. And we do see in it, Harry finally gets to do what Dumbledore couldn't, and he succeeds by the end in getting the memory from him, the untarnished, unedited Snyder cut of Slughorn's memory.

Speaker 2:
[18:48] Black and white, four by three aspect ratio.

Speaker 4:
[18:50] Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So my question is, and we touched on this just a moment ago, but would this have been possible for Harry to do without taking the Felix Felicis?

Speaker 2:
[19:03] For Harry to have successfully taken all of these steps on his own would have been way too lucky, I think. So with that in mind, no, he would not have been able to do this. But it also makes me wonder how did Dumbledore hope he would pull it off if the Felix weren't going to be in play? Would it still be something to do with connecting with Slughorn over his mother?

Speaker 1:
[19:26] I think Felix is necessary here because Harry has kind of been wasting a lot of time. And he's out of time.

Speaker 4:
[19:34] You know, it's interesting that Harry is using the bottle that he got from Slughorn basically at the beginning of the term. So it's almost as if the cards were in Harry's pocket from day one. Like, as soon as he had the vial.

Speaker 2:
[19:47] She's reading the stars. She's seeing the tulips.

Speaker 4:
[19:51] The stars aligned.

Speaker 3:
[19:52] What works here, it doesn't work for Harry a couple chapters from now, right? Where he tries to use something of one of his professors on them. But yeah, I generally agree. I think it would have taken a lot more effort had Harry not taken this potion to elicit that memory from Slughorn. He probably would have been eventually able to do it, or Dumbledore would have just had to step in because clocks tickin.

Speaker 4:
[20:22] Yeah, they are on a deadline here, a real dead line. But let's get into further exactly how it is that Harry succeeds. I mean, I think the biggest shock, you need a shock. You need something to break the just sort of monotony of daily life. And what's going to be more shocking while Horace is down collecting some pods from Sprout than to throw off the Invisibility Cloak and go, hey, Professor Jazz Hands, I'm here. And I think that that disarms Slughorn, shakes him up a little bit, gives him half of a coronary. But it kind of breaks the cycle of this whole year. Harry has been trying to get Slughorn alone and Slughorn knows it. And so because this has the guise of not being about getting the memory from him, like Harry volunteers, he's going to help a friend, I think that that immediately puts Slughorn's normal defenses down and is a clever way to bypass, like almost make him forget what it is that the two of them still have in terms of unfinished business. So it's really interesting for that, the way that it bypasses his normal security. And speaking of security, apparently, Slughorn doesn't like Argus Filch.

Speaker 1:
[21:43] Who does?

Speaker 4:
[21:45] I don't know what the deal with those two is.

Speaker 3:
[21:48] I did want to pull on this a little bit because he says that Filch is more concerned about litter than proper security to which I ask, kitty litter?

Speaker 4:
[22:00] There goes Argus Filch. She's always hauling kitty litter into the school.

Speaker 3:
[22:04] Well, for Mrs. Norris.

Speaker 1:
[22:05] Yeah. I mean, certainly if Luna has been walking through the corridors, because didn't a couple chapters ago, we saw her with going through her bag and pulling out a handful of kitty litter. Wasn't that mentioned? Oh my God. But yeah, I think this is referring to kids throwing their rubbish around in the halls.

Speaker 2:
[22:26] So I'm wondering, did the Felix Felicis somehow keep Filch from locking the door? Because that seems really convenient too. That is, I'm not convinced, but that would be wild if it somehow alters other people too, even if they didn't take the Felix.

Speaker 1:
[22:43] Or it just inspired Harry's timing to pass through the door before Filch typically locks up.

Speaker 4:
[22:49] Yeah. Or when Slughorn left the castle to go to the greenhouses or go to meet Sprout, he just forgot to lock it.

Speaker 1:
[22:55] Ah, he left it open, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[22:56] Because he was distracted by the profit he was about to make. Or well, he says he's using it for his third year class, but he also happens to drop how expensive or pricey they are. So, and along this thread, like Horace has just successfully obtained one valuable magical creature ingredient, but Harry presents him quite beside Harry's intention with another, because it turns out that acromantula venom, dearly recently departed acromantulas who are still moist, can provide a degree of venom that you could not get anywhere, and it's worth like a hundred gallons a bottle. So Slughorn again, his defenses melt away, and he like excitedly is like, I'm going to change my tie to go help you bury this spider. And yeah, it's just a moment that is perfectly concocted by Felix. It's really exciting to read.

Speaker 3:
[23:57] He's very good at playing the part, right? He recognizes if he shows up in a certain way to this burial, that maybe Hagrid will be more than likely to allow him to extract this very rare and expensive ingredient from Aragog. I just really feel like in this chapter, several of Slughorn's less than admirable qualities show up, right? We were talking about Filch, and I mean, we could also extend that to say, Filch is a squib, and Slughorn is a Slytherin, so maybe that's a little bit of his bias coming through. We see how he behaves in trying to acquire all of these very expensive ingredients. We see what he thinks of house elves. We'll get to that in a little bit. Like, this is not the greatest chapter for Slughorn. I mean, this is a very revealing chapter about who he is.

Speaker 4:
[25:07] You know, I wonder, too, because it's mentioned how much sort of avoiding is being done by Slughorn until it melts away. But we also haven't recently, to my mind, heard about any Slug Club hangouts happening. The one in the books, not the ones that we do. We do them monthly over on Patreon. But the Slug Club hangouts, so I wonder if those have been postponed following Ron's poisoning just because Slughorn is very, very, very nervous about being approached by Harry. And so there have been fewer than ever opportunities for Harry to get Slughorn alone. We see him try and fail in the last couple chapters too. But this circumstance brought upon by Felix is the perfect series of events that cause Horace to commit fully to going and participating in this thing. So it's pretty interesting. But the great thing about Slughorn, and I know, Micah, I think you correctly mentioned that, like, yeah, his personality is not actually something we would aspire to necessarily. But he does do Aragog a solid, partly because of how successful Harry notices he's been. But Slughorn way overdoes the eulogy in, like, a way that is meaningful to Hagrid. And it's safe to say that without Slughorn, Slughorn actually ends up contributing to Aragog's sendoff, I think, in a way that makes it better than it would have been otherwise. And I'm very impressed by him for his ability to overdo the words.

Speaker 1:
[26:47] Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, it's very self-serving and manipulative. But I think Hagrid still gets what he needs from it.

Speaker 2:
[26:58] Yeah, even though Slughorn didn't exactly mean what he was saying, I guess, it was very heartfelt and meaningful. And yes, Hagrid got something ultimately really nice out of Slughorn that he wouldn't have had otherwise. So I ultimately think it was good that Slughorn was there.

Speaker 4:
[27:20] I agree. Because, I mean, what would Harry and Hagrid be doing without him? Just kind of like, would they be drinking? I doubt it. It would be like a wallow party, like just like sad and Harry would be like, yeah, I can't relate. He tried to eat me, you know, kind of thing. It reminds me of like, unfortunately, I've attended some funerals now as an adult, and like they are as much for the person who's departed as for the living to make the living feel better and get like a sense of closure. And I think that that's what Slughorn does for Hagrid by overdoing it. And so I actually, I am actually endeared to Slughorn, even though we know his motives aren't entirely pure. It makes me think more softly of him because Slughorn even inadvertently did a nice thing for Hagrid and allowed Hagrid to mourn and process in a way that he otherwise, that Harry would have been insufficient at.

Speaker 3:
[28:12] Yeah. Something as simple as getting dressed, right? It's a sign of respect for the event that he is about to go and attend to. And he gets the Acromantula Venom very early on. He could have just split if he wanted to. I mean, right? He could have went back to the castle, and yet he does deliver this very heartfelt, I think Andrew, you said that, eulogy for Aragog, really kind of off the top of his head. Like he didn't have a lot of time to plan to speak. And I don't think he was honestly looking to do that. So, you know, he steps up in that moment and does a solid for Hagrid. And so, yeah, there is something positive, I guess, to take from this situation. However, when we go inside of Hagrid's hut and we are toasting our dear friend Aragog, we learn that the wine is safe because Slughorn has been sure to test it on the Hogwarts house elves. And let's talk about the ethics of this for a second, because if you think back in history, this was a practice that, and it still exists in some forms to this day, that was reserved for royalty and military leaders, right? Taste the food before it's offered to the king or the queen. So, I think it shows either how highly Slughorn thinks of himself or how little he thinks of house elves. Well, you know what, if Dobby passes out or, you know.

Speaker 2:
[29:59] No big deal.

Speaker 3:
[30:00] No big deal.

Speaker 4:
[30:02] He doesn't know them by name.

Speaker 3:
[30:03] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[30:05] It's certainly a non-standard, hopefully, thankfully, use of house elves of Hogwarts, but you got all these house elves right there, and maybe that's just what was done, you know, as far as Slughorn is concerned. It ain't great. No.

Speaker 3:
[30:16] We know at least one of them already has a drinking problem. So like, oh.

Speaker 4:
[30:20] Well, and one of them's already been thoroughly affected by a potion or something that they drank. So.

Speaker 1:
[30:27] Yeah. Yeah. And I could also see Slughorn following something like this up with, oh, but don't think ill of me, because if it was poisonous, I had a bezoar on hand that I would have used to treat the elf. So like, I can see that being his perverted, twisted logic to justify it, but it's like, okay, well, if that's the case, why not test it on a person? Test it on yourself. Why do you have to test it on an elf? Well, you can't shove a bezoar down your own throat if you're poisoned.

Speaker 2:
[30:55] Well, have somebody else on standby to do it for you?

Speaker 3:
[30:58] What if you drank it with the bezoar?

Speaker 4:
[31:01] They'd kill perfect. Shot chaser.

Speaker 2:
[31:04] Well, then you won't know if it's actually dangerous, I guess.

Speaker 4:
[31:06] Oh, yeah, that's true. Filter it. You got to filter it through. But Slughorn's poison-free wine, thanks to all the house elves that put their neck out for this, after quite a bit of it, that Harry is successful in magically refilling, by the way, which is very clever, once Slughorn is thoroughly blitzed, the topic, thanks to Hagrid, happens to come upon James and Lily's death. Harry here is pretty aptly, pretty delicately able to play on Slughorn's guilt for the death of Lily and James because if there is no Slughorn, there is no, in its present form, Voldemort. So anything Voldemort did in some way does come back to his teacher, does come back to Slughorn. And I think it's really particularly effective of Harry to talk about Voldemort, not in any kind of ethereal sense, but in his words and actions because this is somebody that Slughorn knew. This is somebody that Slughorn taught and Harry has seen this memory where Slughorn has been susceptible to Tom's flattery just like every other teacher was, just like Dumbledore told him he was. And so for Harry to say, did you know that Voldemort offered to spare your other beloved student, my mother? And Slughorn never heard that before. And his guilt over time just builds up and compounds to the point where he finally has to say, like, the guilt just overwhelms him.

Speaker 2:
[33:00] Well, and what I was really moved by was Harry basically says to Slughorn, be brave like my mother was. That's really powerful. And we've been building to this moment, right? Because we've heard Slughorn multiple times over the course of this book so far speak fondly of Lily.

Speaker 4:
[33:17] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[33:17] And so we are now in a position where we know Slughorn deeply cared about Lily, was impressed by Lily, is equally impressed by Harry. It was just all coming together in this moment. And how could Slughorn not, Felix or not, offer Harry the unedited memory after this conversation? It's such an easy thing for Slughorn to do, too. Offer the memory up compared to sacrificing your life.

Speaker 4:
[33:45] That's exactly it. Yeah, Harry makes them, the math no longer works for Slughorn to like get away from this. He basically is like, I love what you said about it being so much easier for Slughorn to just give up the memory than it was for the people that got killed to get killed and survive. It's just unbelievable.

Speaker 2:
[34:05] Yet it's not because he's so ashamed by what he did. He's embarrassed. It's interesting, the dynamics of play.

Speaker 3:
[34:13] It reminded me very much of Dumbledore and Mrs. Cole in the memory. I mean, it's very similar circumstances in terms of Harry's not drinking, Dumbledore didn't drink, and he's using alcohol to elicit, well, I think to create a comfortable environment, number one, a safer environment where the guard starts to fall, and then he's able to elicit the information that he needs. Dumbledore is able to get the information he needs on Tom Riddle, and then in this case, Harry is able to get the information on the memory from Slughorn.

Speaker 4:
[34:56] I like this comparison. Yeah, they're both more loose-lipped as a result.

Speaker 3:
[35:00] I wonder if that was part of the reason. I'm not saying maybe Dumbledore was trying to plant a seed early on, and say, hey, maybe if you want to try and get some information, get Slughorn drunk.

Speaker 4:
[35:10] We see, yeah, maybe.

Speaker 3:
[35:12] Maybe not though. I just thought that this scene in the movie was beautifully portrayed with the addition of the story of Francis the Fish.

Speaker 4:
[35:22] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[35:23] It was one of those things that the movies added that just worked so well about how the lily transformed into Francis and how the day Lily died, the morning Slughorn came down, the bowl was empty. So just a hat tip to Jim Broadbent there, because that was really an, I teared up at that scene in the movies. It was just really well done.

Speaker 4:
[35:48] And you get the sense that that's how magic works in the Wizarding World, just like the person who cast it dies, and so the magic is no longer there. So, yeah. Well, anyway, Harry is successful in prizing the memory out of Slughorn, and Slughorn's one wish for him as he's drawing it out is please don't think too negatively of me for what you're about to see.

Speaker 3:
[36:15] That's what it all comes down to though, right?

Speaker 4:
[36:18] Self-image.

Speaker 3:
[36:19] Yeah, it's self-image. And he's not so different from Lockhart in Chamber of Secrets, because both of them are frauds. Slughorn just wears it better.

Speaker 4:
[36:30] That's an interesting take.

Speaker 2:
[36:32] Yeah. I feel for Slughorn, but at the same time, so much time has passed. Decades have passed since that conversation about the Horcruxes. I don't think Harry would blame him. I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[36:47] And realistically, again, Slughorn, I think his real crime here is just being too easily flattered so that when the right person comes or the wrong person comes along wanting information they're going to do damage with, he's able to give it away so readily. But he can't have known at the time that he told Tom about Horcruxes what he was going to do with that information.

Speaker 4:
[37:15] So that's not necessarily the crime. We're all susceptible to flattery from time to time, but the crime is not doing the right thing. The right thing, once it became clear that something was up with Tom Riddle's immortality, the doing the right thing would have been Slughorn finding Albus Dumbledore and volunteering, hey, don't know if this is relevant. But I happened to tell Tom about Horcruxes and like, here's the memory, like volunteering do the right thing, not being hunted down, Dumbledore has to send so many people after, like Harry after him all year to get this memory from him and then finally divulging it. That to me is what would make me think more negatively of Slughorn than if Slughorn had volunteered the information and not made it so difficult to put these puzzle pieces together. Totally. So it's definitely very interesting. Kind of like Mrs. Cole, there's this mention of maybe Slughorn won't remember this the next day, which is kind of a shame. I like to think he does. But when I was kind of looking ahead or thinking about this book, I'm wondering if how many moments we see between Slughorn and Harry following this moment. Harry succeeds in getting the memory from him. Harry no longer needs anything from Slughorn. So I'd be interested in kind of tracking what their relationship is like in the future. Because if Slughorn does remember what he did, or he must realize that Harry at one point just stops trailing him, stops trying to get him alone. So he must realize that he did ultimately do the right thing. But I don't think we see much Slughorn anymore after this.

Speaker 2:
[38:54] I guess he's too ashamed to show his face in the pages of these novels now.

Speaker 3:
[38:59] So he does remember.

Speaker 4:
[39:02] He has great moments in Deathly Hallows, I will say. He defends the school, he does the right thing then. But yeah, it would have been an interesting sort of follow-up for Harry and Slughorn to have another conversation about this after Harry's seen the memory. It would have been an interesting kind of thing. We'll see, we'll put a spy on Slughorn segment. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[39:27] Well, he's not needed as much now. This was his purpose, right?

Speaker 2:
[39:31] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[39:32] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[39:32] Half-Blood Prince.

Speaker 2:
[39:34] Dumbledore is like, yeah, you can leave the school now. I'm done with you.

Speaker 4:
[39:39] Put yourself in danger. Thanks, spy. But yeah, so I think that ultimately, as a character study on Horace Slughorn, I like that he didn't turn Harry in for being out of school. That, to me, felt very Tom Riddle-y, the way that Slughorn is willing to watch a student bend the rules and not report them, because I think Slughorn is a very ends justify the means kind of guy. And so it's interesting seeing him be like flattered and manipulated by a student in Harry the same way he was, or similar ways that he used to be for Voldemort. So I do think this is an incredible Horace Slughorn chapter in summary. Yeah, I think that'll wrap us up. We also saw some that there's this money component to Slughorn. I don't know. We saw him living house to house, but there's this underlying theme of financial gain, which takes it back to the movie for me. I want to raise, you know. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[40:42] And that was very funny. But I think this was also about training Harry up for what's ahead, like I said in the last episode, you know.

Speaker 3:
[40:52] It does make me wonder what kind of side hustle Slughorn has if he's trying to acquire all these. I mean, it's not so different than him acquiring students, right? It's him acquiring these very rare ingredients, which presumably he would want to use in his classes. But it seems like he wants to sell on the black market.

Speaker 4:
[41:16] He just likes having him nearby. He just feels more comfortable with these students in his Rolodex or these potion ingredients.

Speaker 3:
[41:23] Maybe. But that acrimantula venom, what was it, 100 gallons?

Speaker 4:
[41:28] 100 gallons a bottle, I think.

Speaker 3:
[41:29] That's almost, I looked it up, it's like six or $700.

Speaker 4:
[41:33] Not to mention the unicorn hair he walks away with as a bonus because Hagrid uses it to string up his, I don't know, pots and pans. Crazy, absolute craziness. So Slughorn walks away from this a millionaire.

Speaker 1:
[41:47] Listen, the man's on a teacher salary, I get it.

Speaker 4:
[41:52] Fair enough.

Speaker 1:
[41:53] Trying to make ends meet.

Speaker 4:
[41:55] So moving over to odds and ends, we did have a single connecting the threads moment, and that is that in both this chapter and the last, Harry and Draco used something they got from Slughorn's first day of class. Isn't that exciting? So we learned that Draco got the, we talked about this on the last episode, but so it's fun to think that who got the love potion? Which student walked away with some of that and utilized that successfully throughout the year?

Speaker 1:
[42:25] I don't know.

Speaker 4:
[42:26] But moving over to our links line, slash MVP of the week, here is the question we asked, when did you successfully persuade someone to do something they didn't want to do? Obviously, we don't have Felix Felicis. How did you do it?

Speaker 2:
[42:45] I don't have a specific story, but I would just say, sort of like what we see in this book with Slughorn and Harry, it just takes time to build relationships with people to earn that power of persuasion. I would say over the years, my way of doing that type of thing would be to just build good relationships with people. You know, I scratch my back. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

Speaker 4:
[43:15] I scratch my own back in front of you.

Speaker 2:
[43:17] You watch. You're like, oh, well, nice back scratching. You scratch mine too. Anyway, reciprocity is important too. So I think, yeah, just looking out for people, earning that trust, I think goes a long way. Time.

Speaker 4:
[43:33] Definitely. I think I've learned too. I have a role where I direct people certain things to do and go and schedule their workday. So it definitely helps to have that added component of commissary too. Like, oh, I know that place sucks. Like, oh, I totally feel for you.

Speaker 3:
[43:54] Yeah, will you do that?

Speaker 4:
[43:56] Awesome. It feels like persuasion light because at the end of the day, we understand there's like a job to do. But it is that added oomph of you have to become comfortable making that ask, I think, and what grounds you or what makes you comfortable for that kind of thing is knowing that ultimately you've done that work on building that relationship a little bit so they know you're not just some asshole asking them to do something.

Speaker 3:
[44:21] I also think it just comes down to maybe allowing them to do what you're asking them under their own terms or kind of where they're comfortable doing it. My mind immediately goes to work, kind of as the examples have been so far. It's like if you task somebody with something, just giving them the freedom to do it within their own space, as opposed to saying, this is how you have to do it. You have to follow these exact instructions. I mean, it's a little bit like Harry kind of going off and doing what Half-Blood Prince is telling him to do versus doing what maybe Slughorn is instructing him to do, right?

Speaker 2:
[45:02] Micah, can I have you share this information with somebody that I work with and he's way to, in his own admitted words, anal about the process? And I'm like, please just let me do it my way.

Speaker 4:
[45:12] Yeah, there's this phrase of, you can tell me what to do or how to do it, but not both, right?

Speaker 3:
[45:19] I like that because you're bound to get a better result, I think. Right.

Speaker 2:
[45:25] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[45:25] And there are different ways to do things.

Speaker 4:
[45:27] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[45:27] And I'm less annoyed.

Speaker 4:
[45:29] We're going to get Andrew's annoying level, or annoyance level down. Yeah, I think that giving people that leeway or the illusion of some level of freedom, but people just work differently. People are going to take a task and you have to account for that factor of everybody's on the same page. You're going to do something, the way in which we're going to do it is different. You have to account for that and step back a little.

Speaker 1:
[45:51] I have a Harry Potter specific example. And this is just from growing up. We all knew people who were very anti getting into Harry Potter back in the day. I'm sure we all have someone we can think of. And for me, just looking at all of the British royalty, British acting royalty that appears in these movies, once more of those names started going out, I'd be like, Gary Oldman is in these movies. Brendan Gleeson was in these movies. And those people would take an interest at that point because they were like, oh, good actors are actually in these movies. Maybe I should pay attention.

Speaker 4:
[46:31] That's really interesting.

Speaker 2:
[46:32] Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 4:
[46:33] Kind of fomo-ing people into, yeah, oh, I want to see these good actors do acting.

Speaker 2:
[46:39] Well, we asked patrons the same question and we got some specific stories. Matthew said, being blessed with many relatives suffering anxiety disorders, it rarely comes down to logic or persuasion. Patience, persistence, and a big puddle of Xanax goes to law.

Speaker 4:
[46:55] Here, I have a Xanax. Don't you feel calm? Now, go do this. I like it. Carly says, I teach elementary school music and one of the most common troubles in my classroom is fifth grade boys being super uncomfortable with singing. Because we are expected to do a concert per year, every grade level and fifth grade has the added expectation of a quote graduation performance. It's critical that they actually participate. I have found that several things increase their willingness to sing. Picking songs that don't suck, which often means my students get agency when choosing repertoire. Acknowledging the awkwardness and making it clear that lots of people feel awkward about singing, even their music teacher, and positive feedback. You've got to let them know when they sound good. I love this.

Speaker 2:
[47:45] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[47:45] Rachel said, When I was a teacher, I always had to persuade students to do their work or sometimes just take out a pencil. I loved bringing in real world applications of the content to give them ways to see how the information may help them. I'm also not ashamed to say bribery with candy, the most successful strategy, though was my classroom economy where students earned money for things like being on time, participating in class and turning in assignments. They could use their funds to buy snacks, time on one of my math games on the computer or lunch with a friend in my classroom.

Speaker 2:
[48:20] Oh.

Speaker 3:
[48:21] Love that.

Speaker 1:
[48:22] Yeah. Carly says, So I work at a childcare facility. Part of my job every day is to convince kids to do things they don't want to do, like sharing or following the rules for their own safety. For most students, logic and teaching, empathy and sympathy is enough, but sometimes you got to get creative. My favorite example is when I had to start, is what I had to start doing to my son to convince him to actually leave mommy's fun workplace every night. He's very into Pokemon right now and has a beautiful imagination. So to get him to leave without throwing a massive tantrum, he's three, I tell him that dark and ghost type Pokemon only come out at night, and it's our only chance to try and catch some on our drive home. We catch Pokemon the whole way and he never fights leaving work anymore. I love that.

Speaker 2:
[49:14] I also love that Pokemon remains so hot.

Speaker 1:
[49:17] I know.

Speaker 2:
[49:17] It makes me happy for people of all ages. Finally, Zachary says, when we were kids, we used to have campout back sleepovers at each other's houses. I did that too, actually. Naturally, as three pre-teen boys, we had a knack for mischief. One time, we wanted snacks from the gas station about a half mile away, but didn't want to go. My friend and I rigged a monopoly electronic banking game so that we, too, ended up winning with the most money on our cards. Loser had to assume the risk of getting caught by our parents. Our third friend was none the wiser and took defeat like a champ and did the deed without question. All three of us would have normally went, we were too lazy and didn't want to leave. Wow.

Speaker 3:
[49:57] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[49:58] That's a very specific thing is those hand-held monopoly, like the battery operated single use games that only, it was like a game console hand-held, but it only played one game, it was programmed in.

Speaker 3:
[50:10] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[50:11] Those are cool. Thanks everybody who participated. If you have any feedback about today's discussion, you can email or send a voice memo to muggocast.gmail.com. You can also reach out via the Spotify comments or the YouTube comments or DM us on social. Next week, we'll discuss Chapter 23 of Half-Blood Prince, Horcruxes. Visit mugglecast.com for links to our social media, our Patreon, our transcripts, our favorite episodes and a lot more. Now it's time for Quiz Edge.

Speaker 4:
[50:45] This week's question, which regarded the host of the television game show, Password, will be resolved on our next episode of MuggleCast. This has to do with when it was recorded, but as mentioned previously, there are now going to be two Quiz Edge questions posted on the MuggleCast website, including that one and the one for next week. So we'll do a roundup of two weeks of Quiz Edge answers next time. And here is the second Quiz Edge question.

Speaker 2:
[51:21] Wait, maybe we don't need the music again.

Speaker 4:
[51:22] Oh, I love it. I'm way into it right now. This is so exciting, everyone. Okay. In Chapter 22, we mourn the passage of a very large spider. But on which Earth continent would you find this world's biggest spider? Taraposa Blondi, a.k.a. the Goliath Bird-Eater. Ooh. So submit your answer.

Speaker 3:
[51:50] There's seven choices.

Speaker 4:
[51:52] Yeah, seven choices. Could be seven. Lucky seven.

Speaker 3:
[51:55] Probably only six, but sorry.

Speaker 4:
[51:57] No, probably not in Antarctica. Yeah. But anyway, submit your answer to this and last week's Quiz Edge question on the MuggleCast website, mugglecast.com. And if you're on that website, looking up transcripts or the Must Listens page or some other cool stuff we're posting on there soon, click on Quiz Edge from the main nav bar.

Speaker 2:
[52:19] Thanks, everybody, for listening. I'm Andrew.

Speaker 4:
[52:21] I'm Eric.

Speaker 3:
[52:22] I'm Micah.

Speaker 1:
[52:23] And I'm Laura.

Speaker 2:
[52:24] See you next week.

Speaker 3:
[52:25] Bye, everyone.

Speaker 1:
[52:25] Bye, y'all.