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
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.
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!
Agreed! I similarly covet the DnD spell “Purify Food and Drink” (though that’s more of a mysophobia issue).
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!”.
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.
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?
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.
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.
It’s a less-mystical explanation, but I tend to think of Dumbledore’s (or any other potential headmaster’s) control of Hogwarts protections as the magical equivalent of knowing the alarm code.
Dumbledore didn’t tell Umbridge the code, so she couldn’t even get into the headmasters’ office, whereas he clearly trusted Snape and McGonagall, so they have access.
Dumbledore’s so used to working with Hogwarts after ~25 years so he can make changes while flying a broomstick (akin to people who can’t remember their code, but their fingers can).
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!”
A few thoughts:
I like the theory that duplicating food (or potions ingredients) is effectively like diluting soup: you’re adding volume without adding value.
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%.
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.
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!
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…
I agree with the “all of the above” reasoning about why house elves are still allowed to pop in and out, but I would also add the important detail that house elves can be relied on to do as they are told.
(Unlike students, who – if Fred and George are in any way representative – would be apparating around the castle willy-nilly given half a chance.)
That is an excellent point! But I think the worry was less about rogue house-elves, and more about rogue masters in charge of obedient house-elves.