Episode 56 – Safety and Security at Hogwarts: The Master Carrot

Hogwarts: a bastion of magical learning or a safety hazard?
Irvin, Sophia, and special guests Karoline and Andrew Sims examine the safety and security concerns within the castle walls. From dangerous creatures to questionable portkeys, we analyze the measurements to keep the school a safe place.

In this episode:

  • Making sense of portkeys
  • Why can house-elves teleport in and out of Hogwarts?
  • Who knows what body parts can go through the Floo?
  • Hogwarts Castle knows what’s best!
  • Wizards are canonically bouncy
  • Sophia has a PSA about helmets
  • Madam Pomfrey is the MVP
  • Gringotts would make a much better school for kids

Resources: Did Umbridge Have a Point: Punishment and Safety by Irvin

Find Andrew’s other podcasts here:

Poll:

Pub’s Jukebox: Hogwarts Lullaby by the Veelas

Posted in Episodes, Irvin, Locations, Sophia, Topics.
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TheWeaponWeHaveIsLOVE
TheWeaponWeHaveIsLOVE
14 days ago

Some thoughts in no particular order 🙂

Regarding the Master Carrot theory – imagine how shriveled that carrot is going to be in a couple of weeks. You’d still want fresh food! Also we don’t know whether the food remains exactly the same when replicated. Does it lose any of its “carrotness” if you turn one carrot into a 1000? How does that magic work?

regarding the “no magic in the corridors” – I always thought it was just a magical equivalent of “no running in the corridors”. We all know how well that rule works. It might also be vague on purpose, to allow teachers and Filch to get students in trouble for whatever they want.

I don’t entirely agree with Sophia’s description of living in the wizarding world and comparing the wand to a worse version of a gun. There’s no button on a wand that allows you to perform any kind of spell. Majority of people would not be able to cast unforgivable curses. Remember, the twins had a lot of success with selling enchanted objects because a lot of regular wizard people could not reliably produce a decent disillusionment charm. There’s a lot more involved in spellcasting than just pulling the trigger, aside from the fact that offensive spells isn’t the primary purpose of having a wand.

Irvin
Irvin
Editor
Reply to  TheWeaponWeHaveIsLOVE
9 days ago

Surely there are spells to preserve food in the wizarding world! Which, TBH, would make my Top 5 most requested spells – the amount of food I toss out as someone living alone and eating out a lot is immensely frustrating.

Great points on the latter two!

AbsentMindedRaven
AbsentMindedRaven
Reply to  Irvin
7 days ago

Agreed! I similarly covet the DnD spell “Purify Food and Drink” (though that’s more of a mysophobia issue).

AbsentMindedRaven
AbsentMindedRaven
Reply to  TheWeaponWeHaveIsLOVE
7 days ago

It might also be vague on purpose, to allow teachers and Filch to get students in trouble for whatever they want.

One of my first jobs had a requirement about how much you were supposed to get done per hour. I quickly learned that you’d have to be constantly going flat-out to meet it, but that wasn’t the point: they only enforced it on staff who were otherwise problematic.

Similarly here, if they were more specific (or more lenient) about what magic could be cast in the corridors, students could argue about what spell they cast, and why, and how “Draco just walked in front of me unexpectedly, Professor!”.

NoNeedtoCallMeSirProfessor
NoNeedtoCallMeSirProfessor
14 days ago

Haven’t started the episode yet, but wanted to comment right away that I’m super excited for this topic! My immediate thought is that there’s not much to discuss so this should be a short episode given there isn’t any security at Hogwarts till book 5/6/7.

NoNeedtoCallMeSirProfessor
NoNeedtoCallMeSirProfessor
Reply to  NoNeedtoCallMeSirProfessor
13 days ago

While we’re on the subject of Hogwarts sealing itself against the “unworthy” Headmaster, I always wondered why it would find Umbridge (Ministry appointed) unworthy but not Snape, also Ministry (and Death Eater) appointed. Why would the office not seal itself to anyone but McGonagall? I’m very interested in HOW the Headmaster gets selected. I always assumed the Deputy Head would just ascend to the post. If the Ministry selects the Head, it makes no sense why Umbridge wouldn’t be able to get in there—unless, of course, Dumbledore did that himself. Even if the board of governors was involved, you’d think they’d go along with the Ministry…

If Snape could get in, is it reasonable to assume that Slughorn, Flitwick, Sprout, etc. could also in theory be named Head? If McGonagall didn’t want it for some reason?

NoNeedtoCallMeSirProfessor
NoNeedtoCallMeSirProfessor
Reply to  NoNeedtoCallMeSirProfessor
10 days ago

We actually know the Carrows are Snape’s Deputies. Aberforth tells us in Deathly Hallows when he’s helping HRH into the castle.

The comment about Wizarding society looking down on Muggle-borns and not really caring is, unfortunately, spot-on.

Irvin
Irvin
Editor
Reply to  NoNeedtoCallMeSirProfessor
9 days ago

I think it’s slightly more intangible than that. Hogwarts decides for itself who is a worthy headmaster, not just on the legitimacy of their appointment but also on their merits for the position. Snape cared about learning, was loyal to the previous long-serving headmaster, and was (somewhat) invested in students’ wellbeing (physical if not emotional). Umbridge met none of that criteria, clearly seeing the school as something to subjugate rather than helping it to thrive.

I think it is reasonable to assume Flitwick, Sprout, and Slughorn would have been accepted as headmasters or headmistress.

Irvin
Irvin
Editor
Reply to  NoNeedtoCallMeSirProfessor
9 days ago

LMAO, makes sense, but I think we’d be at much more of a disadvantage if there were adequate security. “Welcome to the Three Broomsticks, we’re discussing safety at Hogwarts. It’s really good, I think they’ve got a handle on it. Thanks so much to Andrew and Karoline, we’ll see you next time!”

booksandmagic
booksandmagic
8 days ago

A few thoughts:

  • To Irvin: kids need to sleep at night and not wander the corridors of a medieval castle maybe hurting themselves!!! It’s like when parents make you turn off the lights instead of letting you continue to read books until the morning (not at all something that happened to me every night obviously). Kids need to sleep more hours than adults and don’t have the impulse control to go to sleep on their own, though of course one could hang out in the common room all night. Maybe checking that they actually go to sleep is part of the Prefects’ duties.
  • I’m not sure they care much if people leave the school, so maybe making a portkey to go outside is possible but most kids wouldn’t know how to make a portkey (it seems like very complex magic) so it’s not a problem.
  • The “master carrot” idea made me think about potion ingredients: do you think they can duplicate them ad infinitum or does duplicating them make them less and less effective? I imagine food would become less nutritious with every copy you make, otherwise why wouldn’t they have used it while camping in DH?
  • Maybe Dumbledore allowed Sirius to floo in after PoA, just so Harry could have a safe way to talk to him? Or maybe parents have a special exemption to access Hogwarts via the floo network (but just with their head) and Dumbledore registered Sirius as Harry’s parent for the wards? I imagine parents would want to have a way other than letters to communicate with their children, especially since they don’t see them for months at a time.
AbsentMindedRaven
AbsentMindedRaven
Reply to  booksandmagic
7 days ago

I like the theory that duplicating food (or potions ingredients) is effectively like diluting soup: you’re adding volume without adding value.

TheWeaponWeHaveIsLOVE
TheWeaponWeHaveIsLOVE
Reply to  booksandmagic
2 days ago

we know that there’s an Apothecary in Diagon Alley that sells potion ingredients. It doesn’t seem like much of a business if you only need to buy something once and the replicate it forever.
I wonder if replication also depends on your knowledge and the complexity of an item. So a student might be able to repicate a paperclip because of its basic shape and composition but not a jar of bubotuber pus which would (to the student) have not fully known composition and properties. A potions master would be able to make a better replica, but still never as good as the original, because even a master doesn’t know and understand 100%.

Irvin
Irvin
Editor
Reply to  TheWeaponWeHaveIsLOVE
8 hours ago

I agree with Ev that it’s probably harder to replicate complex things like potions ingredients. The other consideration is that some of these potions ingredients have magical properties, and I don’t think you could duplicate a magical item with a simple spell. So if you duplicated an herb, you’d have leaves in the same shape and color and so on, but they wouldn’t have the necessary properties.

Irvin
Irvin
Editor
Reply to  booksandmagic
8 hours ago

I’m not sure they care much if people leave the school, so maybe making a portkey to go outside is possible but most kids wouldn’t know how to make a portkey (it seems like very complex magic) so it’s not a problem.

Actually, based on how much of a to-do it is when the children leave school to go to Hogsmeade, I imagine that TPTB are very much invested in keeping children in school. They are responsible for the children when they are at Hogwarts, so they’d want to make sure all the kids are accounted for!

Irvin
Irvin
Editor
Reply to  booksandmagic
8 hours ago

To Irvin: kids need to sleep at night and not wander the corridors of a medieval castle maybe hurting themselves!!! It’s like when parents make you turn off the lights instead of letting you continue to read books until the morning (not at all something that happened to me every night obviously). Kids need to sleep more hours than adults and don’t have the impulse control to go to sleep on their own, though of course one could hang out in the common room all night. Maybe checking that they actually go to sleep is part of the Prefects’ duties.

Bah! Nothing a bit of coffee couldn’t fix!

Also, their curfew is 9pm! Kids may need a decent night’s sleep, but I’m pretty sure no one will keel over if they only get eight hours, 11 to 7.

Also also, the whole turn-off-the-lights things is for younger kids, isn’t it? I definitely had that too, but by the time I was Hogwarts age or a little older (probably 12-13), I was left to my own devices sleep-wise. I could see having a curfew for the first and second years, but telling sixteen-year-olds when to sleep is a fool’s errand.

Of course, I am typing this at 1am after having gotten three hours of sleep last night, so I’m not exactly an objective party on the subject…