Join hosts Irvin, Sam, Sierra, and guest Line Egelund as they discuss the importance of the journeys to Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series.
In this episode:
- Sam gets dark when birds come up
- Jungle Cruise, Hogwarts-style!
- Who’s responsible for the passage from the Hog’s Head to Hogwarts?
- The weather sets the mood!
- Luna saw the basilisk through her Spectrespecs!
- What should Lupin’s middle name be?
- Harry and the I’m-Different-Somehow Journey
- Dumbledore is a Ron/Hermione shipper!
- Draco looking everywhere for Harry on the train
Resources:
The Official Reader’s Guide to “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” by Brandon Ford
The Pub’s Jukebox:
Hogwarts Train by Let’s Lumos
Rings are satisfying; I love the idea of the 7th-years departing by boat!
On the 2-6 ring, where Harry is hauled in late by Snape; does that make Draco a parallel to the whomping willow? Seems dangerous, but actually easily subdued? Flails about a lot, but ultimately (metaphorically?) fixed in place? Known for weeping?
—
“Unsafe”? At least the sign hiding Hogwarts from muggles is truthful.
—
I always had the impression that, regardless of who came to visit (and I agree Hagrid wasn’t the best choice), Harry was getting the “magical” version of the form letter rather than the “muggleborn” version.
There’s no way McGonagall is writing 300-1000 letters by hand, especially with the multitude sent to harass the Dursleys.
It’s understandable that they’d assume Harry knows more than he does, but it’s not very reasonable to expect Petunia to impart that information. Regardless of how much she knows (which is more than she’s willing to admit), she’s still an “outsider”, and thus is going to have significant blindspots.
But then, Harry not being told stuff is kind of a theme of the series…
—
Messiness is defined relatively – it’s often a source of conflict between partners/flatmates who both want the place to be tidy, but one has different standards than the other.
But if housework could be done with the wave of a wand, my home would be pristine. 😀
Laughed out loud at the “unsafe” sign comment! That was a good observation.
I definitely think Dumbledore picked Hagrid without telling McGonagall and she immediately lost her mind when she heard!
As she should. Honestly.
And I second the LOL at “unsafe”
I actually love the comparison between Malfoy and the Whomping Willow! Harry gets beaten up a little by each before encountering Snape, they disguise themselves as innocent looking, try to become fearsome, but then yes, are ultimately evadable.
I would also agree with your assessment that there are two letters: one for magical, one for non-magical, and they would be assuming Harry at least knows something. Perhaps in Dumbledore’s letter he asked Petunia to tell him his background “when the time is right”, but she never got around to it or assumed it could go away? But Harry really should have received the “non-magic” version of the letter.
I actually always thought the letter was uniform, and for muggleborns they brought in a person to supplement the letter, because… how on earth do you convey “Yer a wizard!” by letter? Also, I always assumed that Dumbledore would have had a good enough estimation of the Dursleys to know that Harry would need much more than the wizard version of a welcome a letter… even if Petunia would have told him some essentials, no way she would have told him all he needs to know.
Dumbledore had 10 years to think up good hidden-letter gags, and wasn’t about to let McGonagall spoil his fun.
I, too, really love the Malfoy/Willow parallel, especially since 2/6 are so very ringy! Does this make Tonks the equivalent of the Ford Anglia, as Harry’s rescuer? 🙂
(Also, I’m trying so hard not to reference anyone entering Draco’s tunnels…)
That depends – was the Anglia stalking Lupin through the forest? Was the real reason he didn’t cause any more harm at the end of PoA because he was being snuggled by a car?
As an additional parallel, the fight does go out of Draco when you hit him in the right place.
Nah, not Lupin, the Ford Anglia was madly in love with something else that Sirius Black used to ride – his motorcycle! Anglia/motorcycle OTP.
I ship it.
Also explains why the Anglia was so grumpy – the motorcycle had a side-car.
I laughed WAY too hard at that – well done!
Oh I love the parallels drawn between the whomping willow and Malfoy. That makes perfect sense to me.
In this case… what secret passage is Draco hiding within him?
The secret passage Draco is hiding is the vanishing cabinet, obviously. You’re all being far too literal (and dirty-minded).
Yeah Sam, gosh, get your mind out of the gutter!
Abraxans were the giant winged horses pulling the Beauxbatons carriage. The gift to the giants was Gubraithian Fire (which my brain keeps insisting is “Galbraithian” for some reason).
—
My headcanon is still that the Room of Requirement works not as a holodeck but as a portal to an appropriate unused room elsewhere in the castle (potentially not reachable by normal means, e.g. after stairs have been moved or passages blocked). After all, an underground passage from the Hog’s Head shouldn’t come out on the 7th floor! (I know, I know, “because magic”…)
This fits with the idea that it’s the “Hidden Things” room that has been destroyed, not the RoR in general (though I agree it probably needs time to heal).
—
It’s interesting the different perspective you can have reading the books for the first time as a (nominal) adult, rather than being roughly-Harry’s-age-in-the-book.
It meant that I flagged Ginny as a potential love-interest immediately (due to the whole farewelling-lover-on-a-train trope), and thought “werewolf” as soon as Lupin was introduced (given his name, it was either that or he was on the run from the descendants of Dennis Moore).
Conversely, it meant I didn’t properly appreciate dementors at first because they just seemed like cheap Ringwraith knock-offs.
Love the “J” standing for “Just-a-wolf-some-of-the-time”! My best guess was that it stood for “Loopadee”.
—
What I found kind of interesting about the 7 trips to Hogwarts was that – despite there being a definite pattern (car to station, train to Hogsmeade, carriages to Hogwarts, sorting & welcoming feast) – I think only 4th-year actually fits the pattern. Besides the different company Harry has (as discussed), there’s often different types of transport used (e.g. the boats in 1st year), and Harry misses the sorting half the time.
I made an attempt to relate the 7 journeys to the potions riddle (2, 6, & 7 = poison, as Harry suffers injury in the course of the journey?), or to the 1st-year obstacles (Slug Club = devil’s snare?), or even to the 7 universal emotions (3 = fear?), but my brain gave up. Currently SleepyMindedRaven.
My new mission is to see if the potions riddle fits in other sevens (I am sure it does, but I am going to do the work myself because reasons…) and the 1st year obstacles is another interesting one to dive into!
Perhaps a whole episode once I dive deeper… or just special tidbit information I drop haha
SleepyMindedRaven is still very logical and has thrilling ideas!!
I had a lot of fun applying the potions riddle to all the various sevens I could think of, so enjoy! Can’t wait to see the results.
Ever since Irvin introduced the idea, I’ve found it an interesting way to look at sevens. It’s apophenia for sure, but still lots of fun.
(if 7 things aren’t identical, they’re probably fairly easy to break into 1-1-2-3; which I’ve just realised is the start of the fibonacci sequence, and someone get me a corkboard and some red woollen thread…)
I’ll take a stab at it.
The three poisons are the three journeys where Harry gets hurt or is in danger along the way.
The two nettle wines are the largely uneventful train rides, where everything (give or take surprise thestrals and torrential rain) goes according to plan: GF and OP.
So SS is the forward potion, propelling Harry towards a new and dangerous place. DH is the backward potion, as by this point Harry views Hogwarts as a sanctuary, and there’s definitely a vibe of “going back to Hogwarts.”
I think that was the general sense I had of it (and why I was considering the parallel in the first place), but lacked the brain/spoons to articulate it. Thank you!
Well folks, since no one has yet to compare the weather during the journey to Hogwarts in the books to the weather during the journey in the movies and the weather of the WB logo… I did it…
I couldn’t help myself! And no one saved me from myself!
So here it goes:
Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone
Chamber of Secrets:
Prisoner of Azkaban:
Goblet of Fire:
Order of the Pheonix:
Half Blood Prince:
Deathly Hallows September 1st/Part 1
Deathly Hallows Getting to Hogwarts/Part 2
So there you have it! One, Two, and Three are pretty much right on, arguments can be made for Five but we only see ten seconds and the logo is off; Four, Six, and Seven are pretty off all around!
Thanks for coming to my Curiosity-Fueled Talk, I’ll be here forever finding new things to deep dive on!
Bravo! We salute you for your service.
I gotta say, I’m surprised that there was any bright sunlight to be found in the latter movies. After all, in case you haven’t heard, those movies are DARK because the books have gotten DARK. Dark dark dark dark dark.
I think that’s because Rowling wants to set the tone of, all is well now… but just you wait