Grab your flask and chug the Polyjuice Potion, before anyone notices your eye is twitching! Join as Sam, Sierra, Irvin, and our guest Saul Hankin discuss the ethics and legalities of one of the most notorious potions.
Please be warned the end of this episode gets NSFW, but you’ll have ample notice when it comes!
In this episode:
- The seven ingredients that no one can remember
- Is Barty Crouch Jr a good barber?
- Harry and Ron are lacking in Christmas spirit!
- Can you mix Polyjuice with corpses?
- Quadruple axels come up a lot
- Where DNA meets magic
- Mystique is the main topic of this episode
- Heartwarming uses of Polyjuice Potion…?
- The tragic tale of Kockturn Alley Sally
We are saying Goodbye to Sam Williams and Sierra Obermark
We are incredibly grateful for the time, energy, and fun they have brought to every episode! You’ll be greatly missed and we wish you all the best for your next adventures!
If you’d like to keep listening to Sam and Sierra, you can still catch them on their podcast Fandom Shmandom, where they dive deep into the fandoms you know and love (or maybe need to catch up on)!
- Fandom Shmandom Podcast
- @fandomshmandompod on Instagram
Resources:
- Polyjuice Potion Essay from Irvin in Harry Potter and the Summer! Of! Fun! Zine!
- Polyjuice Potion on Pottermore
- Trivia, AD
- New York Order of the Phoenix – New York City’s Harry Potter Meetup group
Pub’s Jukebox:
Wizard Swingers by Peeved
Putting on my science professor hat for a second. For your hypothetical lesbian witch couples who are trying to have a biological child by polyjuicing one of them into a man, you should remind them that conception can take place anywhere form 5 minutes to 5 days after intercourse. It is essential that the father witch take the potion hourly until conception happens. Otherwise, I think the second the potion wears off, the sperm are going to revert to eggs, rendering conception impossible.
Also, recall that the witch would carry two X chromosomes. Presumably, this means that all sperm produced by the polyjuiced father witch would also carry an X. Since the mother witch’s ova also carry X chromosomes, all babies conceived should be XX. Therefore, this method would allow the couple to have daughters, but not sons.
Very good points! I never got as far as thinking about the chromosomes, but from what I remember of Bio (I was terrible at it), that makes sense.
Not necessarily; if we assume that chromosomes are a more “physical” aspect that would be changed by Polyjuice potion, then the Polyjuicing witch’s chromosomes would presumably change from XX to XY. Therefore they would contribute either an X or a Y during conception, leading to either an XX or XY child (a girl or a boy).
In reality I don’t think this thought experiment works out – the logic just doesn’t hold up. Either the sperm would disappear (along with the zygote) as soon as the Polyjuice potion wore off, or the child would simply be fathered by the person that the witch Polyjuiced into. Sorry – two gals can’t have a biological child!
This reverts back to the question as to whether a DNA test from a polyjuiced individual would test as the person taking the potion or the person from who the potion was made. Personally, I think if you cheek-swabbed Hermione when she was juiced into Bellatrix, the DNA test would show Bellatrix until Hermione reverted to herself, then the DNA sample, even if off in a test tube someplace, would also change back into Hermione’s.
If the sperm carries the DNA of the male who donated the sample, the question is, does it revert to the witch’s post-conception? The problem is, the crucial gene that is on the Y chromosome is the testis determination factor (TDF) which causes the embryo’s gonads to become testes, which then secrete testosterone, which is what shapes the developing fetus into a biological male. If the polyjuiced witch produced a Y-bearing sperm and then conceived a boy, that boy would have a gene that his witch “father” did not carry, which would seem to be impossible (as if the rest of this crazy scenario wasn’t.)
I have no doubt some Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries has Confunded a muggle expert in IVF and is experimenting with his as we speak.
I’m inclined to generally agree with Irvin’s reasoning throughout this episode, but it fails to explain some cases. For instance, what if someone drank Polyjuice with the DNA of a transformed Animagus? Also, something that no one mentioned on the episode (if I remember correctly): what if a Muggle took Polyjuice?
There’s so many different scenarios with Polyjuice that involve Animagi, Human Transfiguration, etc. that I think it’s impossible to predict all outcomes. However, I like to think that at some point down the line some idiot experimented with a few of these cases – hey, we never knew the fate of Uric the Oddball, did we?
One thing I disagree with: I don’t think it makes any sense that a Polyjuicer would transform into the person as they were at the time the hair (or other body parts) was plucked. From all indication we can glean, the premise of Polyjuice is based on DNA, and a persons DNA doesn’t change over time. Besides, this creates plot holes: why didn’t Dumbledore pickle some of young Tom Riddles hair so that he could use it in an emergency? For instance, in the 1992 opening of the Chamber of Secrets? DD could simply take some Polyjuice, and he would instantly look like Tom and (following the rules laid out in the episode) be able to speak Parseltongue! All of his problems solved. (This might not be the best example, but you get the idea.) Anyway, this feels too much like a shortcut to immortality (even if it would be difficult to pull off).
Rather obvious counter-argument: Barty-Jr-as-Moody still has all the scars, the missing eye, and the missing leg, none of which are DNA-based.
Ha! Burrrn. . . . You’ll have to forgive me on that one, it was quite early when I wrote it. 😉 Yes, you’re completely right. The logic is still a little shotty to me, but one can’t argue with facts!
I wonder how your thoughts regarding Polyjuice and pregnancy would change given the fact that there is cellular transfer between mothers and fetuses, which leads to them hosting each other’s DNA for life. Also, what if instead of DNA the potion copied an impression of the person and the hair/skin was only needed for the magic to identify and connect to the person in order to copy them? This would explain why the polyjuiced person also has scars and is missing limbs.