Join hosts Aureo, Irvin, Sophia, and our guest Charles Boyd as they discuss law and order in the Wizarding World.
In this episode:
- Deep dive into wizarding law
- Who is your second – we try to understand duels
- We need more lawyers
- Trials seem to be just an act, but at least they’re done by lunch
- Differences between jail and prison explained
- The Wizarding World seems to mirror… Muggle Russia?
- Dumbledore will not be stopped by Fudge
- Wand snapping seems to be a logistical nightmare
- Always ask for consent before administrating a dementor’s kiss!
- Fudge, the evil mastermind
- Crookshanks will be the best prison warden
Resources:
Harry’s Mercy by Irvin
Pub’s Jukebox:
The Ministry of Magic by Ministry of Magic
I am still listening so perhaps there will be additional discussion on this point but wanted to bring this up.
I don’t think we talk about the flying car enough. I don’t think the books talk about the flying car enough. And I don’t think the consequences Harry and Ron (or Arthur, for that matter) received were sufficient.
If there was a time for the Ministry/Fudge/Amelia Bones to get involved, I think it would’ve been here. Especially after Harry’s “official warning” earlier that summer (yes, I know it was Dobby but the Ministry doesn’t know that at this point) and given it was Ron’s dad, Fudge should’ve called a hearing. Not in PoA. Not in OotP. Right here at the beginning of CoS.
At a MINIMUM, it should’ve been MENTIONED during Harry’s trial in OotP but it just…never gets brought up again? It’s like JK herself forgot that it happened. This would’ve been fully in Fudge’s domain too. It took place before the start of term (as Harry points out to McGonagall, who uncharacteristically agrees not to take house points away from them) and it was a blatant violation of the Statute of Secrecy, with Muggles reporting on it and everything.
This is the one time that Harry does something that even Dumbledore can’t excuse. Aunt Marge (who fully deserved it) was explained away by an emotional outburst and accidental magic.
On a side note, is this the only time we see Harry and Dumbledore have a conversation that has nothing to do with Voldemort?
Honestly, very good point. As we mentioned in our episode about the Battle of Hogwarts, the Ford Anglia is fairly unusual in the series in that there is no follow-up on it after CoS. Neither for the car itself, nor for Harry and Ron’s joyride.
Just a thought though: does Fudge and the Ministry know about Harry’s involvement? He gets busted for the magic at Privet Drive because he’s the only wizard there. However, the car was at King’s Cross and flew to Hogwarts; the car is owned by Arthur Weasley; there was a Howler that yelled at Ron about stealing the car… Is it possible that Harry’s role in this adventure was overlooked?
We know Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape are aware of it. So are the Weasleys and the Dursleys. But I can’t see any of them volunteering information to the Ministry of Magic about Harry participating in the car heist… particularly if Dumbledore, with his usual foresight, deems it prudent to keep Harry out of the Ministry’s crosshairs. The official word may have been that one of Arthur Weasley’s kids flew the car, maybe with mumble-mumble a friend, and leave it there.
The more I think about it, the more I like this theory – it fits well with a scheming Dumbledore, and helps explain the lack of consequences you pointed out.
I think their first conversation, about the Mirror of Erised, qualifies.
If Fudge was a competent Minister (lol), I think he (or designated Ministry officials) would’ve been on site at Hogwarts upon Harry and Ron’s arrival ready to confront the drivers of the car. Now, would he take the same approach he took with Harry in PoA and pardon this behavior? Who knows. But it certainly would’ve given Fudge leverage later on during Harry’s trial.
Irvin, you mention Dumbledore keeping Harry out of the crosshairs of the Ministry. Do you think Dumbledore foresaw Fudge/the Ministry launching their smear campaign against himself and Harry even as far back as CoS? More interesting to me is whether the author intended to have that happen as early as book two. How much setup did she do in the early books for a relatively minor character like Fudge?
Regarding the theory that Fudge is the evil mastermind behind Voldemort’s return. It’s an interesting theory, but I don’t buy it. I think this theory gives Fudge too much credit. I think it was important for the series to have an incompetent, though somewhat well-meaning during fair weather, character in the position of Minister of Magic. For this character to turn into an evil mastermind kind of undermines not only that but also the significance of Barty Crouch Jr. as well as Snape. Also, during The Other Minister chapter in HBP, Fudge mentions that Voldemort threatened a mass Muggle killing unless he stood aside so even prior to DH this was proven incorrect.
Well, if Fudge were competent, it’d be a very different story!
Did Dumbledore foresee the smear campaign? I don’t think he did foresee the exact one that happened. But I think he also knows that the Ministry is rife with corruption, has been infiltrated by Death Eaters in the past, and has a Minister who is both very fond of his position and is very chummy with Lucius Malfoy. Therefore, it would be prudent to keep Harry Potter away from any Ministry spotlight, particularly as the time may well come when Harry has to break some rules to stay alive.
As for whether Jo always intended the Ministry to be an antagonist for Harry in later books – I’m almost certain she did. She very judiciously revealed information, bit by bit and book by book, that the Ministry is corrupt and frequently persecutes innocent people when it’s politically expedient to do so. In one of the first chapters in SS, we hear that Fudge is a “bungler if ever there was one.” Then in CoS, we see them cart off Hagrid to Azkaban for no good reason. In PoA, they want to execute Buckbeak and are after Sirius despite his innocence. In GoF the floodgates open – Crouch’s suspension of due process, the Parting of Ways, etc. There’s just too clearly a growing trend throughout these books for it to not be deliberate – and I’ll also say, there’s little reason to make such a meal out of Fudge throwing Hagrid in Azkaban if he wasn’t gonna be important later on.
To your last point, I agree. I think Jo very intentionally wanted to write an analogue to Neville Chamberlain, and it was essential that Fudge be incompetent but not truly evil.
I understand Fudge needed to be incompetent, and it is accurate portrayal of government employees (as a government employee myself, I can say that) but it does bother me when characters are incompetent for the sake of incompetence. Especially when Amelia Bones is RIGHT THERE.
Going back to the car…the students of Hogwarts know bits and pieces about it. I always found it interesting that word never got back to the parents. “Oh, you’ll never believe what Potter did, Father!” wrote Malfoy angrily to his father the day after term started. Obviously we don’t see word of it ever getting back to the parents (understandable) but you’d think Malfoy would’ve mentioned it at some point to Lucius, who in turn would’ve mentioned it to Fudge.
I forget about it myself, and wanted to bring this up since you mentioned it, but the Mirror of Erised also doesn’t get talked about enough. As a kid, I thought for sure we were going to see it in the Goblet of Fire–“whoever wants to find the cup, but not actually win, will be able to get it” although I’m not sure exactly how that would work in hindsight as an adult lol. Although I suppose Harry and Cedric still would’ve tied!
As an adult, I rarely revisit SS (I generally skip the first book and start with book two or even three sometimes on rereads…I know, I’m terrible) so anything from SS often gets overlooked. But there were so many things in SS that don’t get brought up again. The Mirror of Erised, FLUFFY (where the hell did that dog go?!), wizard chess, Madam Hooch/Quidditch lessons (do those just stop after the one lesson for first years? And how is Madam Hooch employed full-time at Hogwarts?), all kind of just…go away after the first book and are never seen or mentioned again. Which is unusual, because anything and anyone introduced in later books usually gets revisited. Except Ludo Bagman.
Now that you mention it – how did they get Fluffy into/out of that room anyway? He’s far bigger than either the door or the trapdoor.
I’d always assumed that there continued to be regular flying lessons (at least for the first-years), but that they weren’t mentioned again as nothing else significant happened during them (the same way we get one charms/potions/transfiguration/etc class in detail then the rest are largely off-stage).
Whereas I always believed that the flying lessons continued, but Harry was exempt from them since he had Quidditch practice instead – kinda like placing out of an intro class cuz you’re familiar with the subject.
Also a reasonable conclusion.
Hmmm… I wonder if there are any crack-fics out there that have Harry catching the remembral purely as a fluke and getting put on the team without really knowing how to use a broom?
I understand your irritation at the incompetence of government employees – I’m in a similar boat with the Strike series, where every accountant seems to actively be The Worst. But I think this is a place where Doylist considerations have to win out. Certain positions, largely of authority, HAVE to be filled with either incompetent or malignant actors to provide difficulty for the protagonist. Jo has said as much when explaining why Madam Pince is so awful – “I love librarians in general, but couldn’t have her be helpful to Harry.”
And it’s certainly plausible that word would get around about Harry and the flying Ford Anglia, but I think it takes on something of the veneer of urban legend, because it is SO outlandish – especially if it involves Harry, who’s does legendary exploits regularly. So the parents may not pay as much attention to it from that point of view.
And you’ve a good point that SS has more things showing up that don’t return than the other books – I guess the only way to explain it is that it was the first book, and while Jo had planned a LOT for the future of the series, she hadn’t planned it all yet.
I’ve often wondered what the rest of the school thinks that Harry & co have gotten up to in their various misadventures. My assumption is that most of what Harry has done is treated as urban legend.
Maybe (at least when Draco’s not looking) other students share Chuck Norris-style memes about Harry that are ironically close to the truth. (“A basilisk once bit Potter. It died.”)
—
In some ways, PS feels more self-contained. Presumably there was also the mindset (from the publisher at least) that it may be a one-off, or like typical childrens’ adventure series be very loosely connected (so that more can always be written if they continue to prove popular).
Yeah, I think we get a very good insight into this at the first DA meeting in Order of the Phoenix. “He saved the Sorcerer’s Stone!” “He stabbed a basilisk with a sword!” “He fought off a hundred – no, a thousand! – dementors.” So yes, Harry’s deeds are regularly urban legends, I feel like the flying Ford Anglia would be the least of it.
You’re spot on with SS being self-contained. While it’s all the rage now to have characters grow up in a series, that is very much a legacy of Harry’s. With VERY few exceptions (Ramona Quimby comes to mind), kids books were meant to exist out of time – I could see publishers thinking Harry would be the next Hardy Boy, Nancy Drew, Babysitters Club, or Wizard of Oz.
I’d even say that CoS kinda follows the largely standalone nature of it – as proof, I picked up PoA after only seeing the first movie, and besides one passing reference to Harry saving Ginny’s life, there wasn’t a single thing I felt I missed.
That’s a fair assessment, though there is a measure of character development that occurs.
By book three, even Hermione has recognised that going to the adults for help doesn’t get you anywhere. It’s not like they ask McGonagall if she can recommend a good lawyer for Buckbeak.
(Ironically, it’s probably a case where they should have. Allowing Hagrid, who already has a chequered reputation, to present the case seems like a poor strategy.)
“Are you planning to follow a career in Magical Law, Miss Granger? asked Scrimgeour. “No, I’m not”, retorted Hermoine. “I’m hoping to do some good in the world”
That pretty much sums up the messed up state of Wizarding Law and Order perhaps! Very similar to Ron’s wand in CoS, barely functioning and held up with a lot of Spellotape!
Regarding the point of snapped wands, it is interesting that Hagrid has to conceal his snapped wand in an umbrella even after he is proven innocent, while Newt Scamander who also got expelled can use it freely? Is that another example of how biased wizards are? Don’t know much about Fantastic Beasts saga so please correct me if I am wrong.
A very apt metaphor!
To our knowledge, we’re unaware if Hagrid was ever actually pardoned for the crimes of opening the CoS. He’s proven innocent to Harry and Dumbledore, but as we’ve learned, Fudge is not always in lockstep with them – Hagrid may be innocent of the 1992-1993 CoS opening, but he may not have been exonerated for the 1940s opening.
As for Newt and FB… If we gloss over the obvious answer of “the FB movies are sloppy and inconsistent,” it may be that the rules for expelled students became much more strict from the 1920s to the 1940s.
I never considered the implications of wand snapping for expelled students/exiled individuals. Which raises an interesting question. Do wandmakers like Ollivander need to run background checks on potential purchasers of wands? The only time we physically see a purchase of a wand is in Stone with Harry, but Ollivander obviously knows who he is so no need to run a background check. I suppose we see Ollivander “remembering every wand he ever sold” so it’s a moot point, but if Grindelwald went to him after his expulsion from Durmstrang I wonder how that would’ve gone down.
I know Hagrid isn’t the most popular character on this podcast, but boy my man was done dirty. The headcanon of McGonagall giving him a second chance as a student is one of my favorites to this day.
That’s my point! You’d have to literally be in touch with every wandmaker everywhere to let them know certain customers are persona non grata for buying wands.
(That said, maybe the whole background-checks-to-buy-lethal-instruments thing is easier to imagine from a country where you can’t just buy a gun like you would a pair of sneakers.)
Just to throw in a completely different take on wand-snapping:
The books portray wands as semi-sentient (“the wand chooses the wizard”), and that distance is no obstacle (the Elder Wand becomes Harry’s despite being in Dumbledore’s tomb at the time).
What if it’s not enforced by wand-makers, but by the wands themselves? If your wand has been deliberately* snapped, maybe no other wand will ever trust you.
*Given that we see Ron, Neville, and Harry all suffer broken wands without future prejudice, we’d have to assume wands accept that accidents happen.
I vote for this to be a series of episodes. There were many great points throughout the entire episode but I do think there’s plenty more to discuss between Wizarding Law and Order, the Ministry of Magic, Fudge/Scrimgeour/Umbridge/Thicknesse, Hogwarts discipline/expulsion, Azkaban, the various Ministry departments, etc. Not to mention, the SVU crossover that I didn’t know I needed until just now. (Olivia Benson is a Puff I think.)
Really glad you think so! There’s definitely way more to discuss in this general sphere… but just you wait until our fall episodes 😉
Given that we (muggles) have “sports” like boxing and MMA, I don’t think we have any right to moralise about how violent and dangerous quidditch is.
—
On the difference between Draco and Neville’s punishments:
We’re not sure of Draco’s exact intent (what he wanted to happen), but the most likely outcome is to startle a few people, and put Harry off his game.
Neville’s had no malicious intent, but the outcome was to let a (believed to be) deranged mass-murderer with a big knife into Gryffindor tower.
On that basis, I can understand Neville being punished more harshly.
—
When a law specifically notes that it’s about the “reasonable” restriction of under-age sorcery, I can’t help but be reminded of the old saying about countries with “Democratic” in their official name tending to score fairly low on actual measures of democracy (East Germany, aka the German Democratic Republic, for example).
Just been doing a bit of googling of historical laws/policing in the UK (not my area of expertise, so please excuse any mistakes) to get an idea of what sort of baseline the wizarding world had when the Statute of Secrecy was enforced.
It does seem to support the idea of laws mainly being passed regarding specific situations as they arise. For example, there’s the interestingly named “Statute of Stabbing” from the early 1600’s that enforced a harsher sentence for stabbing someone if the victim “hath not any weapon drawn or that hath not then first stricken the party”. Which would make a death from a duel (“rapiers at dawn!”) a lesser offence.
The Crouch-Jr-dementor-snog-fest in some ways reminds me of the explanation given at the end of The Mikado. Barty Jr is already legally dead (they had a body and everything), so the dementor can snack with impunity without breaking any agreements with the Ministry to wait until they’re given the go-ahead.
I confess I understand Fudge’s perspective: what’s more likely, that somehow, Voldemort returned (why did it take him nearly 14 years?), or that some of his old followers have been up to mischief?
Dumbledore hasn’t exactly been openly claiming that Voldemort’s only mostly dead, so for Fudge the idea seems to have come from nowhere and be based on a very unreliable witness.
(This is one of Dumbledore’s op-sec decisions that makes sense to me: until they understands how Voldemort is still around, there’s not much anyone can do about it, and he’s much less trouble as a wraith, so he’d only upset people and damage his credibility.)
I never thought I’d see the day where there’d be another (somewhat) Fudge sympathizer online! (I say that with a huge grain of salt.) Let me explain.
Dumbledore keeping Fudge and the Ministry in the dark is understandable, yet also cost many people their lives. That was certainly what Jo was going for–the world isn’t split up into good people and Death Eaters, kind of thing.
Let’s think about what likely would have happened if Fudge had publicly announced Voldemort’s return at the end of GoF. I think there would’ve been massive panic. Riots potentially even. We see this a little bit at the end of OotP/start of HBP.
Fudge probably would’ve been sacked regardless, and replaced with Scrimgeour or maybe Amelia Bones. I suppose Amelia may have been a better Minister than either of the men, though that’s hard to say given we really don’t know much about her. She certainly would’ve been more sympathetic to Harry/Dumbledore/the Order.