Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – J. K. Rowling – Episode 100

The Buddies celebrate their 100th episode by fulfilling their promise and starting on a Harry Potter reading (and movie) marathon. The J. K. Rowling series has been a favorite of the Buddies (they’ve only referenced the books multiple times in all of their other 99 episodes) and they were eager to re-read. Strap in because the Buddies had a lot to discuss, this is a long one. The Buddies went in depth and even added a few new categories just for this series. So, pick up Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone today and join us for a summer Harry Potter marathon.

Intro (0:00-2:40)
Stock Up/Down (2:41-39:04)
Favorite Scene/Character/Magical Elements (39:05-55:13)
Love/Hate (55:14-1:06:24)
Listener Email (1:06:25-1:10:19)
Lingering Questions & Fun Facts (1:10:20-1:19:11)
Conclusion/Awarding the House Cup (1:19:12-1:23:33)

 NEXT EPISODE: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – MOVIE

NEXT BOOK: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

All right, welcome buddy book club.
I’m Dylan here with a McGonagall that looks more like a weasily.
Keith, what’s up buddy?
Dylan, when I look in the mirror of Erisad, I see us recording our 100th episode.
We’re here, Dave Man, we made it.
Harry Potter, episode 100.
Interesting, that’s what you’d see in the mirror.
I think that might come up in a listener mail.
So, uh, okay, all right.
Here at the buddy book club, we’re breaking down some best sellers and this week we’ll
be discussing long awaited.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by JK Rowling.
If you prefer the Philosopher’s Stone, I will accept it.
And if you’d like to recommend a book for us to read and reach out to us about your past
episodes, you can visit our website, buddybook.com or send us an owl on Twitter or Instagram,
buddy book on podcast.
You can list us on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast.
So please download, give us a five star review, even if you hate it.
If nothing else, give us a follow on social channels, please.
And thank you, Keith, you alluded to it, but first and foremost, I’d like to congratulate
us on our 100th episode of the buddy book club.
It’s probably over 150 hours of content of which 25% hit the cutting room floor.
So we wouldn’t be canceled, which I appreciate you doing that.
And you know, this whole enterprise came about because you were part of a book club, found
it, I’m not going to speak for you, but found it maybe too stuffy in the book’s too
boring, is that fair to say?
Yeah, it was all like true stories.
And anytime I would bring up some jokey stuff, they would all look at me, roll their eyes.
You’re not taking this serious.
I’m like, what are we doing here?
This will be fun.
So you came to me to see if I’d want to do a book club in podcast form.
And at the beginning, you didn’t even want to be in front of a hot mic.
You just wanted to sit in the back and produce it and have me and some random guy you met
in the back alley is my co-host.
That’s how you both know one wanted to do it.
So here I am.
Look at all the millions they gave up.
What idiots, they’re like the best of this thing.
Look at you now.
The podcast wouldn’t have lasted 10 episodes without you.
So, you know, I just want to thank you 75 points for you Keith 75.
Well, you’re the nine and three for its engine that could that drives this whole thing.
So I’ll give you I’m going to give you a hundred of hundred points for catching the
snitch and driving the thing.
But anyway, I appreciate it.
Yeah.
So if this is the first time you’re joining us, you picked a good time to do so because
in celebration of our hundredth episode, we’re taking a page out of Peeves’s book, grab in
the wizard world by its conch and doing all the episodes on Harry Potter.
We get seven Harry Potter books and then the feature films that came after them.
So strap into the Hogwarts Express.
Cause here we go.
Keith stock up stock down Harry Potter and the social stone.
What do you got?
Interesting lines that shall not be crossed stock up.
Oh, I’m not one to get very offended by many things.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
That’s a thing I like to live by.
However, there are certain circumstances that you kind of really need to put your foot down
draw a line in the sand where you can’t allow someone to continue to slander or insult
or hurt your good reputation.
Yeah, I think we all can agree with that, right?
And this is why I love Hagrid because he is someone that will do this.
Was it too far when the Dursleys physically and mentally tortured Harry for 11 years?
No, that’s not too far.
Was it too far when the Dursleys said too Harry in front of Hagrid and right to Harry’s
face that is better off that his parents died?
No, that wasn’t too far.
But what is too far done?
What is?
Don’t you ever call Dumbledore a fool.
Do not do that because he’ll throw you through a fucking wall if you do that.
Okay.
Cause that’s what he did.
Watch the Dursleys literally say your parents were worthless and they deserve to die and
he’s like, Hey, I’m going to give you a warning on that one.
But then they’re like, yeah, that Dumbledore guy, that old guy, that fool.
And they’re like, he’s like, what the fuck did you just say?
Knock him into the next Tuesday.
So stock up of drawing that line and defending someone’s honor.
Cause that’s important.
Yeah, I’ll respect it.
He attempted to turn Dudley into a pig.
Good.
Only only gave him a tail, which I enjoyed thoroughly.
I’d be interesting when he went to the doctor’s office.
Like I don’t want to think about books.
I like to think that they’re actually real and he went to the doctor’s office and he
had a pig’s tail.
It’s like, how the doctor’s like, what?
He probably had this his whole life.
How are we just addressing this now?
But my first stock up is nostalgia.
So I’m talking big picture here.
Keith, do you have a first memory of getting swept away by the world that JK Rowling created?
Well, first of all, am I going to do all unserious ones and you’re going to be like this?
No, no, no, no, no.
This was the only one.
Honestly, it was the first thing I wrote down because I read the book in paperback form,
which is the same one I picked up when I was 12 years old.
And the second I started reading, you know, I opened up to the boy who lived and I’m
getting it now.
Like some goosebumps going on, you know, and it just, it transported me back.
So I just wrote first, the first thing I wrote down was nostalgia.
So the rest of them will be more on pace, but I just needed to know.
I was probably the original hipster in like six through seventh grade when this book was
super popular.
I was like, I’m not reading that.
I’m too cool for that.
I remember sitting down and being like, whatever, I’ll read it.
And I got to the part where they got in that train from then on out.
I was, I was, I wasn’t turning back.
The first half of this book, which it is a lot longer than I remember getting into the
actual Hogwarts.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Agreed.
I thought you were going to say it’s a lot longer than you remember.
No, no, like the first half is a very Matilda-esque, very raw doll-esque.
The tail thing was raw.
Like James and the giant peachy or something like that.
But once they actually get to Hogwarts and becomes the school, it’s, you’re, you’re
taken away.
You’re in a different, you’re in a different world.
It’s, it’s amazing.
We really don’t get to Hogwarts until like page a hundred.
I’m looking at the book, which is pretty crazy considering it’s a looking now 300 page book.
So you know, I appreciate the setup came out in 98 in the US, I think 97 in the UK.
My first memory around just Harry Potter in general was I just have this brief memory
in sixth grade of people talking about it.
So that would be 1999.
I remember being a thing, people talking about it.
I don’t think I had read it at that time.
And I don’t really have any specific memories around reading books one through three.
So I was definitely a little late to the party as well.
And potentially a little too cool for school around it.
I did see my step sister at the time reading it.
I do remember that.
She was obsessed.
I wouldn’t put it down.
And I was like, all right, I got to figure out what this is all about.
So got my own copy.
And it’s funny because my memories around reading Harry Potter is my mom started going
to Costco at the around this time, like got her Costco membership and would get me those
the craft Mac and cheese, the microwavable ones.
You remember like the little balls?
And as I’m easy Mac, come on.
Yeah, easy Mac.
That’s what I’m still eating those.
I mean, what?
As I’m reading this, because I used to just crush easy Mac out of the microwave and read
Harry Potter.
And as I was reading this book, I noticed like so many easy Mac stains on the pages,
which is hilarious.
I think the Goblet of Fire was definitely the first one I read.
My mom’s a flight attendant or was she retired now.
She’s a flight attendant and would bring me back the UK copies.
So when they came out, she would buy me the UK version.
So that’s pretty sweet.
So I have a very fond memories of just crushing Goblet of Fire over like two, maybe three
days and I’m being so sad that I read it so fast.
So you know, Harry Potter books are just one of those special things that transports
you back into a time, place, state of mind.
And for me and I assume many others, I can bring us great feelings of joy, you know,
joy around discovering something so wonderful for the first time and then being able to
share that experience with others.
So so I just love it.
I love it.
Nostalgia stock up.
Keith, what next do you got?
Wow, that was a good, that was a good stock up.
It was a little bit more serious than mine.
Next one is return addresses stock up.
I don’t think I’d have to be stocking up in return addresses, but these are pretty common
in the muggle world.
But I feel like they could have saved a lot of problems in this book here.
I mean, first, Harry gets a letter from Hogwarts, no return address on him.
He’s like, who’s sending me a letter?
Just throw a return address on there, maybe like a seal of approval.
Then you could be like, oh, the Hogwarts school of wizards.
Which craft, which craft and wizard are you?
That now we’re kind of like, okay, now I know there’s something going on here.
What is that?
You’re starting some questions.
It takes like two weeks to actually get a letter.
But most importantly, Dumbledore, who is supposed to be at the school, that’s his job, is to
protect the kids.
He’s hiding something in the school.
He knows someone’s trying to forget.
And someone sends a mysterious letter from the Ministry of Magic and is like, yeah, yeah,
come out to the Ministry of Magic, no return address.
Right?
So if he actually had some, and I feel like the owls would also tell them where it’s coming
from.
Seems like that would be an important thing, right?
I feel like we have a ton to break down and I don’t want to waste too much time around
the Dumbledore letter because it is somewhat like a JFK assassination thing as to it’s
Dumbledore.
Oh, I’ve got a lot.
He would know who is sending him this letter.
If it was Fudge, let’s say, I think it’s Fudge is the Ministry of Magic at this point.
I don’t remember.
We’re not supposed to know this.
I mean, it did a grand sorcerer.
Yeah, like he would be doing.
He’s a cheap four-year-old.
He would be the know who’s sending this name and he would recognize the letter.
You know, it’s like Quirrell’s handwriting come to ministry.
We have things to discuss.
He’s like, okay, I got to go.
Yeah.
And then especially like he’s Dumbledore, he knows the reason he’s at Hogwarts is to protect.
Well, I mean, he’s there for lots of reasons, but one of them is that it’s safe under him.
The sorcerer’s stone is safe under his nose.
So but I will kick back on the return address aspect because if there was a return address
on Harry’s Nimbus 2000, McGonagall could have gotten in a little something something
something, you know, because she’s trying to get that thing to him under the radar.
So wait, what McGonagall?
She sent him the Nimbus 2000.
Sorry, I thought I might mind my little dirty there because you were like, she’s trying
to get a little that that broomstick handle.
You know, and I’m like, what?
What’s your price?
You said it.
You said a little something something.
I don’t know what was their reference there.
Well, something that’s up then, meaning she’s, she’s placing some bets on the Gryffindor.
So let’s just say, you know, okay, I guess I might as well know that from that.
You didn’t read into well, just wait for my house cup.
You’ll get it.
My next talk up is brick and mortar shopping.
You know, out here in the muggle world, it’s all it’s all online shopping, mostly through
Amazon.
You buy something likely of poor quality.
Probably don’t like it too lazy to return it.
It becomes landfill.
The wizards though, they got this good thing going with Diagon Alley.
Look it.
He’s a local small businessman.
He takes pride in his work.
He’s an expert at his craft, not to mention a great salesman.
I don’t I don’t think there are many witches or wizards that leave that shop without completing
a sale.
He’s probably got 100% hit rate, right?
He’s got a monopoly in the market though, to be fair, right?
Everyone needs a wand.
Yeah, I guess but he’s got a monopoly in the market because he’s so good as job.
He’s pushed out the competition, but there’s only one other.
I mean, and this is later on.
They talk about another wand maker.
It’s more of a push on our society.
What has happened in our society?
You remember you remember going shoe shopping as a kid?
There was some friendly guy, usually a guy who likes feet who would sit down, strap on
the Brannick device to get you your exact size and then work with you for 15 minutes.
It was just you and him until you found the perfect shoe.
He tells you to walk around in it, maybe a quick stutter step and sure you got to do
a couple of yeah, run.
Yeah, get a couple quick sprints in there, make sure you’re sturdy out on the playground.
You know, what happened to that?
Nowadays, we’re just buying everything online.
So the whole diagonal experience, I kid, but at the same time, I am a little serious and
that the whole diagonal, a hands on experience.
I enjoyed thoroughly and it reminded me of almost like a mall when you’re a kid, but
a mall with like wizard stuff going on.
It was the first time in the book and you see it through Harry’s eyes.
So it’s really the first time in the book that you’re just immersed in the wisdom world.
And you feel like Harry where you want to just like look everywhere, like your eyes
are just flying from one thing to the other because I can even only imagine how crazy
and cool it would be.
And I remember at the time when the movie was coming out, that’s one of the things I
was most excited for.
It was like seeing Hogwarts and Diagon Alley because it was like, Diagon Alley is going
to be freaking great.
I think too, because now we’re adults, we’re definitely jaded because you can, you
are not really excited about anything anymore.
Everything you want is, you can’t buy at a store.
Whereas like, I remember when I was younger, I just thought being an adult would be so
awesome because I could go to the store and buy gum whenever I wanted because my parents
would let me have gum.
And I was like, man, that’s going to be so amazing when I can drive and get gum.
And now I just take that for granted.
So it’s definitely different through a kid’s eyes, which I wish we had that still.
It’s funny because when I was a kid, I would be like, oh, I just want to buy all the Nintendo
64 games.
But my mom, I think I had to read like two books or something and she would buy me an
Nintendo 64.
That’s a pretty good deal.
Yeah, but I, I maybe it was more.
I don’t remember, but it was, it was a lot of books and I read at the time.
So it was like, oh, that’s, that’s pretty fair.
But at the same time, I was like, I just want to be able to buy all of them myself.
And then now I’m an adult and I buy no video games, but I read lots of books.
So what the hell happened to me?
Well, I do the opposite is I want that feeling.
So I buy a lot of video games and I just don’t play them.
I just like buy, you know, it’s like, I can buy this now and I buy it and I play it for
like 10 minutes.
And I’m like, I just, I just wanted to be able to do that, fulfill that dream.
What else do you have for stock up?
Stock up titles.
I mean, we’ve done this a bunch, but I referenced it a little bit.
Professor Albus Percival, Wolfrick, Brian Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, Order
of the Merlin, First Class, Supreme Mugwump, Chief Warlock, Grand Sorcerer.
The first thing I love most about that is, is that either Brian in there is a middle
name.
I think right if he was just like, yeah, I’m Professor Dumbledore, but you can call me
Brian.
Like that’s what he actually went by.
Brian by short.
I also thought Mugwump was funny word, but it’s a real word.
I don’t know if you know what that means, but it’s, I think we’re both Mugwumps.
What is it?
Person who remains a Louvre or independent, especially from party politics.
I’m a Mugwump.
Yeah, that sounds, that sounds right for me.
Yeah, but then all the other titles are really just titles that are given to him for being
a good wizard.
I looked them up, I was like, oh, I thought there’d be some cool ones.
Like, you know, Warlock is just like, it’s a council of people and they voted him the
best.
Yeah, but he’s the chief.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That’s fair.
Yeah.
But either way, the title’s great.
I know she outlined this and we’ll probably get to this later, but she outlined like all
seven stories and all this stuff in detail.
But I’m wondering if she actually outlined all these names for him.
Like, oh yeah, there’s gonna be a council for this and this is important because of
this, this, this, but if not, great, funny names either way.
I think she probably just came up with them.
They’re fun and playful and that’s one of the things I love about the book in general
is it’s such a great story, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously.
It doesn’t impress upon itself.
It’s like, I’m gonna have this fun little thing.
I’m gonna name people long bottom and then I’m gonna move on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We’re not going to, we’re not like Malfoy is not going to sit there the whole time and
just make fun of the fact that Neville’s, the last name is long bottom.
He’s gonna, he’s gonna go for way more serious stuff.
So you know, I appreciate that.
You like, read something, it’s kind of fun and fanciful and then you move on and there’s
something else to go with some story in there.
So my next stock up is the unbreakable bond of shared experiences stock up.
So on the side, I’m listening to Masters of the Air, which is the book that inspired
the TV show of the same name and it follows bomber crews during World War II.
And after landing back in England, after a particular harrowing bombing run over Germany,
we got, we got this quote from the book.
And I quote, there was a sudden relief from fear and strain, but deeper than that was a
powerful affinity with every other man on the plane and the plane itself.
The swearing and the violence in the sky had only brought 10 men closer together in eight
hours than eight years might have in any other more normal world, such being the inevitable
bond between men who have suffered fear together and fought against it.
So as I was listening to that, very serious, but we’re too booked.
It just made me think of Harry Potter specifically, specifically the relationship between Harry
Ron and Hermione.
And after rereading this book, I can’t tell you the last time I read Sorcerer’s Stone.
It was a very long time ago, granted I have read this book maybe 10 times.
I honestly have no idea.
As I was listening to that, I was like, oh my God, this is that relationship.
And when rereading this book, I had forgotten how much of a tough hang Hermione was at the
beginning of the book.
The whole beginning, she’s like, when Ron’s trying to turn Scabber’s yellow over to the
case, she’s like, sure, that’s a spell.
It’s not a very good one, is it?
I’ve tried a few simple spells for practice and it’s all worked for me.
It’s like, okay, cool, chill, relax.
And then she talked about the book.
She’s like, oh, I’ve learned all of our courses by heart.
Of course, you know, of course, like, duh, everyone has.
Oh, I’m Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?
It’s like, what?
Chill out.
Like, give us a break.
We’re going to school.
We’re having a good time.
We’re eating some chocolate frogs here and some burning pots of everything we’re beans.
Like, why don’t you just relax?
And then on top of that, she’s telling like, oh, we’re almost at the station.
Like, you guys should get dressed.
It’s like, you’re not my mom.
I’m, I’m, I’m can do my own thing.
And she’s always quoting her source material.
So the ceiling of the Great Hall is bewitched to look like the sky outside.
I got that from Hogwarts history.
It’s like, chill Hermione.
I believe you.
I don’t expect you’re just making up these ideas about bewitching the ceiling.
You don’t need to quote your sources.
What I do need is a coffee table version of Hogwarts history, though.
I’m surprised they haven’t come out with that.
So she, you know, she comes off and she, she is a know it all and a bit bossy.
But then the troll thing happens.
And that’s where the shared experience comes in because these three 11 year olds fight
off a giant troll, a mountain troll that is in the castle.
And after that, it’s just their friends forever.
It’s just that one shared harrowing experience.
They suffered fear together and fought against it.
And that is what created this bond.
I mean, a bond like that is only going to grow throughout this series as they face more
trials and tribulations.
But I thought it was a really fun way of bringing this group together.
Because as I’m reading it, I’m like, how did they become friends?
Because Hermione seems like not someone they want to chill with.
And I don’t know, I just thought the troll instead was great.
And then obviously afterwards, Hermione kind of tones it down a little bit.
And then, you know, not like she’s Tony down for them.
She just kind of realized that this is a friendship and is willing to bend the rules a little
bit more than than she did before.
So I appreciated it.
I feel like a lot of these coming of age stories too.
There’s always some sort of physical trauma or anguish or something that occurs and that’s
how they become friends.
I feel like that’s a very common route.
But yeah, I liked it also.
I will defend Hermione a little bit though.
And this is what always bothered me is if I have to study for math, math isn’t magic.
It doesn’t do anything for me.
It’s great that I know how to do these things.
But ultimately, it doesn’t really do anything unless maybe I went into a math field.
If someone took me out of my regular life and said, oh, I’m going to teach you all these
stuff that you never thought was possible.
And now you have it at your hands.
I would be studying like you read about.
I would be this, I’d be Hermione.
I’d be quoting things.
I’d be, yeah, yeah, you didn’t read that.
Like, what are you doing?
They’re like, oh, yeah.
And if you fail your first year, your owls or O.W.Ls, you’re getting kicked out.
I’m like, OK, well, I’m studying for 20 hours a day then.
Like, I’m not getting kicked out.
I’m not going back to the real world of being a muggle and knowing all these things and
then no longer be able to utilize them or see them anymore.
So I’m 100% on her side.
I’m being like, whatever, let’s take a break.
And I’m like, bro, do you understand the consequences if we don’t pass here?
That’s not an option.
I’m studying harder than anyone.
So I was, I’m on her side there.
That’s a really good point.
That’s a good way of looking at it because, yeah, I agree.
If someone gave me, like I said, right now, like your wizard, here’s all these cool things
you can do with this piece of wood in your hand.
I’d be like, well, I already know how to do some cool things.
And they’re like, no, not that.
You can start doing magical tricks.
I was like, oh, cool.
And yeah, I would be the same way.
I’d be studying non-stop.
I’d just be learning.
Like it just be all those books.
I would read them back to front just because it’s so interesting.
So yeah.
OK, team Hermione stock up.
What up?
Stock down.
What do you get?
Stock down being an athlete.
This may be a larger questions about wizards in general, but are they actually good athletes?
I mean, you got to think of like, it’s a small, small pool.
The population are actually wizard and which is right.
Their whole life, they’re really just relying on magic.
They’re one.
They’re not lifting heavy objects ever.
They’re not running really distances.
Yeah, they use the brain muscle.
Main sport is essentially horseback riding, right?
They’re not really they’re riding on something.
They’re not necessarily like, yeah, they have to be like agile and, you know, maybe
they’re just dirtists.
Grip that broom too.
Right.
But you have to be doing that Kegels.
You don’t really need to be an athlete at all.
And so a big question of mine, like, came up immediately.
Why did Voldemort need or he who must not be named?
Sorry, need to cast a killing spell on Harry Potter.
He’s a little baby.
It’s like just bashes head in.
Yeah, but he’s such a huge baby back bitch.
He probably couldn’t even like lift it up.
He’s so soft.
He’s he’s like this weak, feeble arms.
He could barely lift the muscles.
Not to kill.
Yeah.
So he doesn’t he’s weak and he just doesn’t he doesn’t have that dog in him
where he’d kill a baby.
He doesn’t want to get the blood in his hands.
So he’s got no Spartan in him.
He can’t just cast the baby off a cliff.
Yeah.
So ultimately he’s really not that good of a bad guy.
He’s he’s pretty soft.
So stock down being an athlete.
It’s funny because I thought you were going more of like the Quidditch approach,
but you went with like Voldemort doesn’t have the athletic ability to murder a baby,
which is quite an interesting thing.
I mean, I thought that why did he need to do a spell?
He’s relying so much on spells.
He doesn’t realize that he could just be in a river or something.
You know, yeah, it’s like it’s another Scott evil situation.
Like, I don’t know.
He doesn’t make sense.
This belt will just grab this baby and we’ll toss it out the window.
Yeah.
My first stock down is the great houses PR teams,
particularly Hufflepuff and Slytherin.
So Hermione might not know a lot about the Wizard world, but she knows one thing.
She knows she wants to be in Gryffindor or at least Ravenclaw.
Her words.
And she’s learning this from just reading books.
So imagine what what’s going on in these books that they’re telling you, like,
hey, being Gryffindor or Ravenclaw.
And they say, oh, I don’t want to be in Slytherin because Voldemort was in Slytherin.
So just because Voldemort was in Slytherin, it’s now the pariah of the great houses.
What of all the other houses only produce saints?
Very unlikely.
I’m sure there are shitty wizards all over the place.
I mean, how Gildery Lockhart was a Ravenclaw.
And we’re going to learn about him in book two.
People are like, Oh, Ravenclaw would be pretty cool.
This guy’s a total asshole and.
Poilers.
Spoiler.
If this is your first time reading your Potter, I’m sorry.
You should probably read the next one too.
And then the next six or seven, however many there are.
And then reread them again.
And then read them again.
And just the idea that being in Slytherin just means you’re immediately evil is really unfortunate.
And then we even talked about the sorting hat song.
He says, or perhaps in Slytherin, you’re make your real friends.
Those cunning folk use any means to achieve their ends.
Pardon me, sorting hat.
The fuck is that slander?
Defamation of character.
The rest of them are like, Oh, in Gryffindor, you’ll be brave and true.
In Hufflepuff, you’ll be nice to your friends.
Hufflepuff, you’re just there.
You’re a step above squam.
Hufflepuff, I was out there.
Sorry.
It’s like in Ravenclaw, you’re a genius in Gryffindor.
You’re very brave and you’re good to your friends in Hufflepuff.
Like, yeah, you know, you’re cool.
You’re in a house.
Yeah.
You made it.
I was just a little upset with the way that we have branding for Hufflepuff.
Oh, this is not in the real world, though.
I think like Gryffindor is like the Harvard, right?
I think Hufflepuff is like a state school.
I went to a state school so I can say that.
And then you got Ravenclaw, it’s like a Yale.
And then I think you’re looking at like Slytherin’s like a Jukko or like.
No, I think Slytherin’s like one of the super religious schools, you know, something like that.
OK, OK, apologies to all the religious folk out there.
I’m saying this completely as a.
Was the term a mugwump.
So I don’t.
Yeah, I’m a mugwump on this.
So don’t don’t take me seriously.
Yeah, last one, stock down from me, saying hand up.
Coming into this reread, I was big, big team, Hagrid, big team Dumbledore.
Oh, you’re going to explain what hand up means.
Yeah, yeah, hand up.
Sorry, this means like, hey, my fault, my bad.
Hand up coming to the book.
I remember with them favorably or maybe in the next later books, they’re a little better,
but the whole dragon fiasco.
Where?
Norbert.
One, Hagrid can’t handle his alcohol reveals all the secrets constantly to these 11 year olds and in the bar.
Something ends up with the dragon doesn’t take responsibility for it at all.
And then he takes these three 11 year olds.
He’s like, yeah, you guys handle this from me.
So they have to go reach out, find people that can take it.
Luckily, Ron’s brothers, well equipped to do this, get them.
And then in the middle of the night, they have to like secretly go off and get rid of the dragon.
They get caught.
They go to detention.
Who’s who’s doing the detention?
Hagrid himself, that’s very person.
And not one single mention of it.
Not one like, hey, by the way, you guys really did me a solid or hey, by the way,
I realize you guys are doing detention and I’m hosting it and it’s kind of ridiculous
considering I should be the one that’s fired.
Not even a hand up.
Nothing. He just like, yeah, you guys deserve this.
Let’s now go out.
He doesn’t is like a completely forgot that he’s the one that’s caused all this.
So, sock down and saying hand up.
I guess you can just go on living life and everyone else is to blame for everything.
Yeah, didn’t care for it.
Also, they just go off to like the haunted forest and he’s like, we’ll split up.
What?
Oh, he’s as far as it doesn’t be super dangerous.
No, the group, because you said they split up a group, the group is Malfoy, Neville, and Fang.
Like it’s he’s not even like useless.
That’s like, wait, what?
Yeah.
Um, you didn’t quite elaborate on why Dumbledore gets the you don’t you don’t respect Dumbledore.
He’s I mean, he has all these titles.
He’s also this genius wizard, but at the same time, nothing he does in the book other than
turning himself invisible and sneaking up on Harry is really that great.
He hires Hagrid who’s going buck wild here, literally, and he leaves in the most important time.
He doesn’t sniff out the fact that Voldemort is literally teaching classes.
He’s in the school the whole time.
I don’t know how he doesn’t sneak that out.
He just doesn’t he seems like not all with it.
Okay.
Interesting.
Well, since we’re out here dragging double those name through the mud, I’m going to continue on that
with a stock down of Dumbledore’s hiring practices.
Okay.
So is it yes?
Yes, we’ve said Dumbledore may be the best wizard in all the world, but he’s just not a good administrator.
How does Professor Ben’s still have a job?
He’s not a good teacher.
He just drools on doesn’t inspire his students to learn.
I get it.
He died on the job, but doing so doesn’t just give you tenure to continue
into the afterlife.
You have to continue to show that you’re being a good teacher.
At least that’s my thought.
I don’t know exactly if that’s how the guy that’s a ghost, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Professor Ben’s history of magic teacher.
I think that’s a pretty rare poll there.
Yeah.
Everyone knows him.
Well, I mostly said he’s not in and we’ll continue to this moment in the movies, but he’s not in any of the movies
and whatnot granted.
He is like one moment and I think they give it to frickin’ Flitwick.
But I mean, most importantly, how the hell does Quirrell get hired?
What are his qualifications to be the defense against the Dark Arts teacher?
I need to see this guy’s CV.
He’s scared of his own shadow.
We get no insight in the book into his classroom lessons, which is not only unfortunate because
defense against the Dark Arts sounds like the class that I want to be sitting in on and listening to, but
I think we also don’t see it because he’s incompetent.
We know that he has experience with trolls.
But what else do you got?
Just because you can defeat a troll doesn’t mean you should be a defense against the Dark Arts teacher, right?
I think that’s a primary qualification.
I also think that he kind of fit the…
He interviewed and he had the stutter and they’re like, well, we can’t turn this guy down now because he’s a stutter.
You know what I’m saying?
No, I don’t.
I don’t.
That’s not a qualification to be a good teacher.
I think you feel bad sometimes.
If I interview, they’re like, yeah, this guy’s pathetic, but we got to hire someone, so…
Yeah.
Seems like a good dude.
That’s the same thing.
Yeah, you’re just sweating on a nervousness and they’re like, oh, he’s got a sweat gland issue.
We should really hire him.
I feel terrible for him.
Yeah, so just just Dumbledore as an administrator, you know, his job is to keep these students safe and make sure they’re learning.
And I’m really not sure he does either of those things, which brings me to my…
Actually, I’m going to do to save this one for last because I have two more.
Stock down, my next stock down.
The sorting process.
It just seems pretty stress, like a pretty stressful process for an 11 year old to go through.
You’ve never been to Hogwarts before.
It doesn’t seem like you know much about Hogwarts.
And all of a sudden, you’re marched up in front of the whole school.
This, um, licensed, fested hat gets dropped on your head and whatever that hat decides will be your fate for the next seven years.
You know, your experiences over that time will be drastically different based on this very moment,
based on this decision that this hat makes.
And, you know, you might have a legacy situation or be keen for a certain house, maybe a best friend from home that you like, you know, you’d like to be in the same house with is in your class.
I disagree.
This is like college.
You don’t get to choose like where you started out in a dorm, you know, maybe you did, but you’re supposed to just kind of get random.
That’s, that’s kind of the fun of it.
And it’s better than college.
They’re like putting you in in this, this hat knows all and knows best where you would, you fit in.
I like it.
OK, I also think that it’s like initiation process, but a lot of times, initiation is scary or something.
You have to do something and you might embarrass yourself.
There’s no embarrassment.
There’s nothing that bad happened.
And then everyone celebrates you when you get initiated.
So essentially you get picked a house and they all celebrating a big feast.
It’s a pretty good, I think everyone looks back on that being pretty, pretty fun memory for them.
Yeah.
It just seems like a lot and I don’t care to put a child through that traumatic experience, but you do bring up a good point that I guess at the end, an entire table of students, cheers for you.
So yeah, there’s nothing embarrassing that could happen.
Really put the hat on the yellow name.
They heard your internal monologue.
I think that’d be a little bit pretty bad, but how do I explain that to you to the unfreezing process I have now in a monologue?
Oh, love it.
He should have played Hagrid.
That would have been a good role for him.
Mike Myers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I agree.
And I do have, I’m going to burn a lingering question here because I pertain to this, but how much influence can one have in the sorting process?
Because Harry says not Slytherin, not Slytherin, not Slytherin, and the sorting hats, like he’d be great in Slytherin, but his hair is like definitely not.
So they have to put some Mcgriffendor.
But based on the aforementioned PR process, I feel like lots of kids would be saying no Slytherin or no Hufflepuff.
You know, they’d be like, I don’t know.
No, no, no, no.
I don’t want to be in Slytherin or Hufflepuff, which is
wouldn’t work out because then those houses wouldn’t have any people.
Or let’s just say like Jeffrey Dahmer really wanted to be a Hufflepuff.
With the sorting hat allow that?
Like how much pull do you have or does the sorting hat just kind of take it?
Well, we’ll find out when we take our tests for next to the next episode.
But you can’t just say to the computer like, hey, computer, I don’t want to be in Ravenclaw.
Just ask you a bunch of stupid questions.
Then gets your email and then then they send you all these emails about merch you can buy.
Do you think I don’t want your personal opinion?
Like do you think you have a lot of pull into what house you’re into?
Or do you think if it’s like a 50 50 and you say no to one, he’ll put you in the other?
I think it’s weighted because some people they put the hat on, they immediately
immediately yells the name out because it’s like, no, there’s the only place they can fit.
I think it’s more of like your divergent, like the book where you can where it’s not clear.
Then you have some say at it.
So yeah, here’s a two that you probably fit in.
That’s where he’s like, you could probably be Slytherin, you’d probably be
at the Gryffindor.
What do you think?
The hat I think can convince you one way or the other.
So that’s what I would say.
I don’t know.
What do you think?
I think I agree.
If the hat’s iffy on it, then you can kind of make the call yourself.
For your two cents and yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I think he takes things into consideration.
I mean, this is a magical hat that did a pretty big job and it’s been doing it for
hundreds of years.
So yeah, that’s 364 days to come up with a rhyme.
So the rhyme was good, but at the same time, you got a year.
But like, yeah, also, where’s the Slytherin PR team be like, hey, don’t say this.
My last stock down is and it’s a long one.
So I apologize.
But the idea that Hogwarts is quote unquote the safest place, stock down, you know,
there’s the safe places, stock down, but go on.
Yeah.
Yeah, safe, safe places.
Sure.
Specifically, Hogwarts.
So supposedly our boy, Voldy is scared of Dumbledore.
Thus Hogwarts is safe.
And Gringitz might be a good enough for all the wealth of the Wizarding world and his FDIC
insured.
But if you really want something safe, keep it at Hogwarts.
It’s all called CODSwallop, you know, because Hogwarts is CODSwallop.
CODSwallop.
Yeah, I know what that means.
Or listeners might not.
What does that mean?
Bullshit.
Oh, OK.
Hagrid uses it in the book.
I liked it.
Hogwarts is clearly an unsafe environment for children.
The restricted, I’m going to start with the restricted section, which is a book,
an area of the library that is full of books about powerful dark magic.
What’s it protected with?
A rope with a sign.
It has the same level of security as a checkout line at Chipotle.
This is a magical school.
There is magic here.
You can do any sort of magical spell to actually restrict the restricted section.
Yet it just has a rope.
And the man, come on.
We all know Dumbledore lives to it at the end.
He’s like, yeah, I could have helped you out, but really I just wanted you to fight for your own.
If you’re not brave enough to cross this picket line that does, you know, there’s no
buried entry, then you don’t deserve to be back there.
If a little rope that’s going to prevent you from sneaking in and learning more,
then you know, you don’t deserve it.
That’s fact of the matter.
So all these things are like slight barriers.
If you’re too scared to go into the woods by yourself,
that’s why you’ve been a accountant for the Ministry of Magic.
You’re not going to be even too scared to jump on a broom and fly off when you’ve never flown before.
Catch a snitch, then I can’t help you.
Yeah, it’s all that.
It’s all that.
So it’s more about life lessons here is what you’re saying.
Like the, their rules that are meant to be broken and these are one of them.
So if you go into the restricted section, let’s say,
learn about a bunch of dark magic and then become the Hitler of the Wizarding World.
Dumbledore is like, hey, you know, you know, sometimes that happens.
Wait, first of all, do I go to the Hitler job?
Most likely like that.
That’s basically Voldemort.
You know, Tom Riddle.
Okay.
Yeah.
He’s going into the restricted section, dude, all this stuff.
Who knows?
And you talk about locked door, which is interesting because once again,
the door to fluffy is opened with a generic unlocking spell that any first year can be proficient in.
And then behind that door is a three-headed monster.
So, you know, here the line of defense is quote, unquote,
don’t go to the third floor.
And then a kind of sort of locked door.
Any kid could just die because of that.
You started talking about detention, but detention involves sending 11-year-olds into a forbidden forest
so named because it’s full of dangerous peace.
And who knows what?
It’s a track down a creature like their job for detention is to track down a creature
that’s been killing unicorns.
Unicorns, by the way, are powerful magical creatures that aren’t easy to catch.
And this creature is doing it.
And these 11-year-olds job is to track this down.
I think what really would have happened is this wasn’t a kid’s book.
It has some red rising elements to it where it’s like,
hey, listen, you’re going to go to school, but 10% of people aren’t going to fail.
And by failing, they’re going to die at school because it’s part of magic training.
It’s like going to the military.
Things happen in training.
Sorry.
That’s what happens.
Yeah.
Couldn’t agree with you more.
There would be a lot more children than death.
Like we haven’t even mentioned young witches and wizards with untested wands
and new hormones.
They’re just on the sofa.
Confluent.
Untested wands.
No, wait, what?
And Gorgio.
And then the idea that Hogwarts is safer than Grinkett’s,
okay, I get that the vault in Grinkett’s was broken into.
But what does Dumbledore do to further protect his good buddy, Nicholas Flemel Stone?
He picks up a handful of deterrence that a couple of first years can get by.
Hagrid, obviously, knows can’t keep a secret.
Bless him.
But Fluffy is a weakness.
You know, if Fluffy has a weakness, then you know,
Hagrid is going to spill the beans.
Dumbledore knows that.
Sprouts devil snare.
They learned it in first year herbology.
And a game of wizards chest.
And you know, I appreciate Ron’s skill and courage.
But he’s no grand master or maybe grand wizard in this.
Oh, wait, no, never mind.
Definitely not a grand wizard.
To break into somewhere, they sat you down and made you take the SATs without studying.
You ready for that right now?
No, so it’s a pretty hard test, I think.
I’m always ready for the SATs.
Yeah, oh wow, okay.
But I just think if you’re a powerful wizard that’s trying to steal the Sorcerer’s Stone
and is already proven they can break into Grinkett’s,
then like you’re talking about a couple of first-year stuff.
Like most people aren’t this well-rounded,
so we’re going to make something that’s so,
it’s like you have to be so well-rounded.
And that’s why they have three people that go through.
And that’s why they’re able to complete it.
Otherwise, one of them couldn’t do it.
You know, Hermione even says that even some of the greatest wizards
aren’t proficient in logic,
which is interesting because this kind of logical game,
perhaps, or this logical puzzle is more of a muggle type thing.
It’s advantageous for them to be muggles
because they probably more likely be doing that than the wizarding type stuff.
All right, we got done with the Stock Ops Duck Down Keith.
Did you have like a favorite scene or favorite chapter perhaps?
I know this is broken up into several chapters that are pretty distinctive,
so if it wasn’t a particular scene, I’d be okay with that.
We just talked about it, but the ending, I thought,
I mean, that’s a big scene.
I know it’s kind of cheating to say that,
but that’s the perfect mix of everything.
You give me a treasure map where you have to go through and solve all these problems.
I’m in for it every single time.
There’s not a scenario, a movie, a book.
I mean, Indiana Jones, right?
This is what Indiana Jones is, the whole thing is like,
you got to do all these steps and different things in order to get by
and get to the actual end goal.
Anytime you have that, especially since it does,
there’s a whole book and you’re getting all these little tidbits throughout the book
that come back and say,
oh yeah, I can use this one spell that I learned in this class.
It’s really tying the whole book together.
I thought it was encapsulate the book perfectly.
It was such a good, well-rounded ending.
And for someone that wasn’t that into reading,
that ending was like, oh my god, this is amazing.
Like, this is why you need to read all this stuff at the beginning.
That’s maybe not as fun for you to understand the payoff at the end, right?
So it really did make me like reading this one ending.
So yeah, I think it’s perfection.
Yeah, it was a little quick.
Did you think it was a little quick?
Like, everything kind of happens so fast at the end, I feel like.
When the first time I read it, I remember thinking it wasn’t fast.
I remember thinking, like, you were like, strapped in, you’re like, oh my god.
Yeah.
You know, it’s much more tense the first time you read it.
45 pages from through the chapter to the end.
So yeah, that’s pretty long.
Yeah, I guess that’s six of the book or whatever.
For reference here, Joe Rowling said that the mirror of Eris said
was one of her favorites out of all the books.
So.
No, interesting.
In that, you know, we get the invisibility cloak.
Our first real interaction with Dumbledore since chapter one,
we see the wise Dumbledore, you know, he says,
it does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.
We see the wise Dumbledore and then we see the smartest Dumbledore.
You know, when Harry asks if he can ask Dumbledore one more question,
Dumbledore says, obviously you’ve just done so.
Dumbledore smiled.
You may ask me one more thing, however.
So yeah, you get all the different sides of Dumbledore.
But my personal, and obviously there’s a lot there within that chapter and
I think Joe Rowling lost her mother when she was young.
So I could see the mirror of Eris.
Are you calling her Joe?
Yeah, Joe.
That’s what she goes by.
Joe Rowling.
Okay.
I know we’re on the first name basis.
Well, they did JK for the books because they thought that
young boys wouldn’t like reading books by a woman.
So they did JK.
Oh, is that right?
Yeah.
Although,
good fun facts.
Just save that for that.
Yeah, I think her name’s like Joe Anne Rowling, but she goes by Joe.
So you could have just done JL Rowling and it would have been the same thing.
I don’t think young boys, honestly, I don’t know.
I think that’s just some ridiculous publisher thing, but who knows?
Yeah, as a young boy, all you need to care about is the cover.
Yeah, exactly.
It’s like there’s a kid on a broom.
There’s a unicorn.
Yeah, I would have been in for that.
Castles, I’m in.
My personal favorite chapter, though, is the Forbidden Forest.
You know, we get a real change of tone in the Forbidden Forest.
The book starts to get spooky and mysterious.
We get Voldemort, like, wait, what?
Voldemort is like real and a character.
There’s allusions to a prophecy with the centaurs and Harry gets a-
It’s a hobbit vibes for sure and that.
Yeah.
Yeah, Lord of the Rings vibes.
Yeah, Lord of the Rings.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or maybe the hobbit.
You sang the book.
Yeah, the other one.
Harry gets his invisibility cloak back and then,
boom, we’re right into the final act.
Like, right after that is through the trap door.
So, yeah, Forbidden Forest was for me.
Oh, I like that.
Yeah.
Our Po-Purry category is what I’m going to call these next ones.
Or maybe as I like to think of it,
the Bernie and Vots Every Flavor category.
We’re going to go through a couple of pickyores.
Keith, we’ll start off with one we’re familiar with to get you warmed up,
but pick your character.
Yeah, I got to be Neville Long bottom for me.
Oh, I forgot about Neville, especially him standing up to the three of them.
He gets picked on all the time.
He really defines what Gryffindor is,
stands up to his friends, Courage.
I teared up a little bit at the end when he got those final last 10 points or whatever it was to
take them.
And he finally was the hero of the story.
Neville’s the hero of this story.
I liked it a lot.
It takes true courage to stand up to your friends.
Anyone can stand up to their enemies.
I teared up.
I appreciated that.
So give me Neville.
What about you?
I was actually funny because I was going to ask you if it got dusty for you at any point during
this book.
And that was it for you?
Yeah, that was it.
I also, her by any knock, though, just taking his wand and walking by him would have been,
I think, suffice.
Instead, she’s like, I’m going to paralyze this guy for six hours and keep him locked up here.
It’s like she casts the paralyzed spell on him where it was, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
She casts a little bit much.
It took her to get some talents on him.
Yeah.
What are we doing?
Well, before I put my character, I got a little teary-eyed.
It was really whenever Dumbledore was around.
I think right at the end when he gave the points, it was actually Ron when he gave the points to Ron.
I don’t know why, but I got a little dusty, let’s just say.
I didn’t cry or anything.
But something about just Ron always living in the shadows of his brothers and singled out
in a positive way by Dumbledore.
And Ron really is the backseat.
And we learned so much more about this later on.
And so I really respected that.
And then also, when Dumbledore and Harry have their sit down in Madame Palmfries’ place,
whatever, the hospital wing and Dumbledore’s, there’s something that he said to him.
And it might have been around when Harry asked why Voldemort tried to kill him.
And Dumbledore basically says the first question because he says he’s not going to lie to him.
He’s going to the first question is one I can’t answer.
And we just know so much more about it at this point as people that have read these books so many
times that just like the weight of everything that Dumbledore is holding on to and how much he
loves and cares for Harry just hit me at that one point.
So I got a little teary right there as well.
I appreciate that.
I mean, I just love Hagrid, honestly.
We get a great description of him.
I got to read it because we get a great description of him on page 14 for those following along.
He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide.
He looked simply too big to be allowed and so wild.
Long tangles of bushy black hair and a beard hit most of his face.
He had hands the size of trash can lids and his feet and the leather boots were like baby dolphins.
In his vast muscular arms, he was holding a bundle of blankets.
I don’t know why I just I love that description.
The idea that she’s sitting there deciding to like what are his feet like?
And she’s like, baby dolphins, of course.
Yeah, there’s just so much.
Obviously, Hagrid has his faults, but he’s just a big sap and he loves those kids so much.
Even though he did the whole dragon thing and probably has an issue with alcohol,
he should get some help with.
But I just love the guy.
We’ll move on to let’s pick your magical element in this one.
So this is just for these particular books.
We’ll go through these for the other Harry Potter books.
Things might get added or not.
So pick your magic element and wands don’t count.
I have a list here of things that I read if you need help.
Otherwise, I’ll give the floor to you.
Well, I went with what I think really solidified the world building for Harry Potter for me is
Quick Ditch aka Quidditch.
I call Quick Ditch forever.
I don’t really care.
That’s how I read it when I was growing up.
But to come up with a brand new sport, incorporating it into the universe,
it being a small part, just the creativity and the imaginativeness to think of that.
And then just put it in.
And then as a kid growing up too, you’re playing sports, doing things like that.
And you’re like, that could be me.
That I would be playing this sport.
Do you think the sport that she came up with,
Quidditch?
And I assume the answer is yes.
But do you think it’s fully fleshed out?
Do you think it was an interesting idea that she came up with?
In terms of the rules, there being the amount of people and the two bludgers and the
quaffa was getting tossed back and forth.
The three goalposts.
Is that stuff that, is there anything there you would change perhaps?
Well, I think it’s definitely hard to imagine until you see it visually in the movies obviously.
So that definitely, it was definitely harder when you’re younger to picture that for sure.
But at the same time, it isn’t a pretty convoluted game that she came up with that is logical.
It’s hard to come up with sports.
The reason there’s only three or four sports that are primarily played in the US
is because sports aren’t easy.
Pickleball came about once the last sport you can think of that.
And pickleball is just, it’s a variation of something that’s already been made 100 times.
Yeah.
But what’s the last sport that’s really come in and that’s new, not new.
Not many, right?
So it’s pretty hard to come up with the idea of a sport.
Or even a card game or a board game.
And this sport is quote unquote legit in the sense that there
college clubs, college club teams that play Quidditch.
I don’t know how it works with the Snitch though.
I don’t know how that works.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love me.
I love me some Quidditch.
Uh, I think maybe 150 points might be too much based on the length of the games that we’ve seen so far.
It seems like there’s just no way that you don’t win unless you catch the the Snitch.
So I also think there’d be a lot more deaths if there’s those, uh, what are they?
Bludgers or whatever they’re.
Yeah.
You’re standing at you and you’re like 150 feet in the air.
Like, when did you do it?
I thought there’d be like some trapeze thing on the bottom that gets you.
But they’re like, no, no.
No, that much.
Yeah, exactly.
Wait, what?
And can’t they do some sort of like magic charm or skills?
Yeah.
I think we’ll, we’ll, we’ll stop you from falling.
But, uh, I don’t know.
We’ll find out later.
Yeah.
So as for some magical elements, I had Dumbledore’s put out here,
which is going to come back later on.
Serious Black’s motorcycle.
Who?
Neville’s Remember All.
The Mirror of Eris said, uh, the Sorcerer’s Stone, Wizard of Chess,
and Party Poppers, not the kind of your used to Keith.
Different kind of.
For me, it was the Mirror of Eris said, and they have an inscription there,
which if you read it backwards as if in a mirror, it says, I show not your face,
but your heart’s desire.
Interesting.
You know, like a kid could figure that one out on it on his own.
And I just thought it was an, it was a very interesting idea.
This mirror that shows you what you truly want inside in,
and Dumbledore says that he sees himself holding a pair of thick wool and socks.
The hair he doesn’t think that’s what he says.
Do you have any ideas of what Dumbledore might have seen in the Mirror of Eris said?
I would say probably a companion or lover.
That’s what I would go with.
I felt like Dumbledore doesn’t have other contemporary appear.
Yeah.
You think he sees Grindewald and maybe his, and Elder one dangling free.
For sure.
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
Got it.
No, I think that’s probably.
Yeah.
I think that either that or, you know, we learn more about his family and his sister,
you know, that that passed.
So maybe something he’s estranged from his brother at this point.
So you’re bringing in a lot of stuff that I don’t remember.
So you’re, you’re going outside the box here, kid.
Come on.
I only, I’m only my, my context is just the first book.
I don’t know anything else about it.
Okay.
That’s fair.
Anyone that has that much power and responsibility deep down inside there lonely,
you know, it’s, it’s kind of like this, the superhero thing.
Yeah.
And so you’re saying it about a lover and I,
Heavy wears the crown or whatever.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
Yeah.
There we go.
So I think it’s similar to that, but probably for me, I think maybe more family and trade,
but that’s just me.
Okay.
Okay.
Let’s, let’s jump into pick your spell and an extremely surprising lack of spells in this.
I was very surprised after rereading this book how few spells there are.
Yeah.
You really only have three or four.
It’s the first real spell we hear is Alohomora, the door unlocking spell.
When we get the famous Wingardium Leviosa and then some locomotor mortis,
which is the leg locking curse and petrificus otalis, the body binding curse.
Otherwise there’s no other spells said in this book.
And when you were suggested the category, I was like, do we get that many?
So yeah, I’m glad you summarized it with four.
I went with the Wingardium Leviosa because I’m team Ron on this.
Why are we making these spells so hard to say?
What is it?
We’re doing Latin now?
What’s going on here?
Can we just make it like levitate or levitate-o?
You know, that’s why I like to like Spanish because like half the words are just the odd
note at the end.
You know, Marty.
So it is garbage.
We have to like preach here to understand that.
So yeah, that was my one.
Not because I actually like the spell, but just I agree with him.
Yeah, I feel like Alohomora, a door unlocking spell.
It’s like, when are you really going to use that in daily life?
You know, your car, you lock your keys in your car.
It’s like, oh, that one’s easy.
But and maybe your front door, so you don’t have to pull the keys out of your pocket.
But otherwise, if you’re using that, like you’re probably a creep.
You know, you shouldn’t be using that.
Yeah.
So yeah, I’m going to go with you with the link.
We already in levio, so pick things up and fly around.
We’ll move on to magical creature.
We got a few.
We got fluffy, the troll, goblins, dragons, unicorns, centaurs, and a giant squid.
If you have a different one, you let me know, but that’s your pick.
Yeah, I want my centaurs.
I just like someone asked you a question and you just like look up to this guy and say like,
oh yeah, Mars is pretty bright tonight though.
Huh?
It’s like just not answering any questions.
I appreciate that.
There’s someone running around this forest murdering creatures in here and he’s like,
yeah, well, Mars is in retrograde.
So what are you going to do?
It’s like Mars is retrograde.
Get it together.
If you’re going to talk astrology, you have to actually speak the language.
I’m of a virgin.
So I can say, I mean, burgo.
Whoops.
That’s my joke every time.
Really?
Every time.
Every time it gets a chuckle and then people like this guy is a virgin though, right?
So I’m like, damn it.
Yeah, I want the centaurs too.
I mean, I want whatever they’re smoking.
They’re deep.
They’re deep and are they deep?
I think they just don’t know the answers.
But you did talk about how she outlined like JK Rowling outlines the stories and it was really,
I forgot the stuff in the Forbidden Forest where the centaurs are basically saying that they,
the stars have told them that Voldemort is going to need to kill Harry Potter.
And friends says like centaurs have been wrong before, you know, the stars have to,
you know, we’ve read the stars wrong before.
I’m hoping that’s the case this time.
But he pretty much says that they have their like Voldemort’s going to kill him,
which is wild.
And I totally forgot that.
But it just seemed like, oh, shit, this is something here.
And lastly, in the Pope, or he’s actually, and I didn’t even tell you about this,
but for those that have the original US version, as I have, the illustrations were done by Mary
Grand Prix.
And I’m a big fan of the cover art, but not so much a big fan of the chapter art.
I kind of remembered it as a kid, but didn’t love it this time.
Partial to Keeper of the Keys, which is basically just a picture of Hagrid in all of his glory.
But, and Keith, I wish I had sent this to you, but I don’t understand the chapter art around
the sorting hat.
You would imagine the sorting hat chapter is the sorting hat.
But I think it’s a picture of the fat fryer.
As the chapter art that is the sorting hat, it just seems like a little crazy to me because
you have something that’s so easy there with this cool past worked sorting hat,
or maybe hairy with the sorting hat on, but instead they just have the cover art as a picture of the
fat fryer.
I’m not sure the reasoning for that either.
I did just see that the original cover sold for 2.6 million at auction.
People like it.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Let’s jump into some love hates Keith, what’d you love?
It’s one of those books where you’re reading it slow on purpose.
You didn’t want to get through it because you mentioned it nostalgia.
Once you get into the zone, you’re just feeling it.
I could have easily, easily knocked this out in a day.
Wouldn’t have even thought twice about it.
I kept stopping it at times just so I could span it out a little bit longer.
And some other of those microphones were slow reading.
So yeah, well, I was doing the same thing.
I had to stop because I didn’t want it to end.
Like I was like, oh, I’m reading way too fast.
Like I can’t do it.
The nice thing is we have six more, which is like,
that’s what I kept on telling myself.
It’s like, this isn’t over.
We got some more stuff coming up.
So that’s the one thing that got me through it.
I also thought it was funny.
The first half of the book, like we mentioned,
kind of goes by slow, but it kind of is like a horror story.
If you think of it from another perspective,
he’s both these like evil relatives are locked in a closet.
He’s hearing voices, snakes are talking to him.
Things are flying around.
It’s kind of like, and he’s having constant nightmares.
I’m like, this could have been a horror story.
If like, you just positioned it slightly different.
Yeah, it’s interesting.
That’s interesting.
I did like, excuse me, I loved the way the story kicks off.
You know, the boy who lived, what a great chapter name.
It makes you want to read it.
Like if I was the first time I picked this up
and I was an editor or whatever the case is,
and I saw one of these people that reads it first time,
I was like, oh, the boy who lived, like who is this boy?
And the thing I love as well is that within there,
we don’t get thrown into the wizarding world off the bat.
It’s not just like, oh, here’s this crazy world
that we’ve created.
We just get Vernon Dersley living his boring life,
working nine to five selling drill parts.
And then we start getting these curious characters.
We had Dumbledore and this Minerva person
talking about strange stuff and Voldemort.
We don’t know anything about these people.
We don’t know anything about what they’re talking about.
And we need to know.
It’s as a reader, we just need to know.
And I think in general, that’s one of the best parts
of Joe Rowling’s writing is she tells the story in such a way
that you just need to know what happens next.
It’s like the most bingeable book possible.
No, I completely agree.
And also there’s so many little hat tips or like sneak previews.
The fact that Professor McGonigal is as a cat,
you’re like, wait, what’s going on?
Why is this really, what do you mean? That’s a cat.
Yeah.
And they never retouch on it again.
This rest of this book.
These little small tidbits that you get,
two books from now, will be important,
which is like crazy to think that she planned all this out so well.
Yeah, I actually started writing down all the things
that are going to be important later in books
that are just kind of Easter eggs in here.
And I couldn’t get to them.
Like I couldn’t get to all of them.
It was like too hard to write them down
because there’s so many.
Everything starts off with Sirius Black’s motorcycle.
And from there, we just keep rolling.
What else are you like?
I love the books so much.
I’m trying to find stuff that’s just more funny.
Do you think that Dumbledore heard our take on child abuse
from the Matthew McConaughey podcast?
And it was like, yeah, we can’t have this guy growing up famous
and living a life of luxury when he’s young.
We need him to have some sort of abuse
for the first 10 years with life.
So I’ll make him a better person.
And that’s why he stuck him with a daresly.
Do you think that’s what happened?
I think so.
Yeah.
He read.
So even though that came out way later,
yeah, I think that’s the case.
You can see him in the future.
Come on.
One of the other things I loved was
Hogwarts itself.
It’s just so magical and full of wonder and mystery.
What I would give to have free reign in that castle
under an invisibility cloak.
We’re talking doors that are walls pretending to be doors.
Doors you have to tickle to get in.
Moving stairs, vanishing steps.
You know, stairways that only go quarters.
They only go one way on Fridays, whatever the case is.
Other quarters that lead to nowhere.
The students have a hard enough time getting a class,
but it just seems like such an amazing place.
It feels like a deep deal gets bigger and different.
Yeah, I just loved it.
I found that I could have just sat there the whole time
as they just explained what goes on in Hogwarts.
Have you played this the Harry Potter video game?
Thank you.
No, like Legacy Hogwarts Legacy, is that what it’s called?
Like the gameplay is not like blowing your mind,
but they have all the spells.
They have Hogwarts.
They have Dagon Alley, and you’re just walking around,
like living that as your life.
So it’s pretty awesome.
It’s Hogwarts Legacy.
Yeah.
Yeah, cool.
Yeah, I’m gonna check it out.
I need to find time to like dive in, you know,
because I’m one of those people who once I do dive in,
like I dive in fully into something.
So…
Yeah, it’s got a good story along with it too.
So…
I do have some paternity leave coming up in…
Oh, spoilers.
Yeah.
So let’s see how this baby is,
and then maybe it’ll just be resting on my lap as I play.
My last one was just the Flamel Cert.
It ties into that idea of all these Easter eggs that she does.
You know, this Nicholas Flamel Certch,
or the idea that, you know, we have to find this guy.
All the pieces are there for the reader to figure out.
I just loved it so much because the whole thing is given to us early…
early on on the Hogwarts Express with the Chocolate Frog.
You know, they say Nicholas Flamel during his alchemy.
So we don’t know exactly what that alchemy entails,
but we know that Dumbledore’s affiliated with Nicholas Flamel
because his alchemy.
But we immediately forget it because we’re lost on this train
with all these crazy candies that we’re thinking about.
A lot of stimuli.
Yeah, Hermione, Buggin’ People.
And all the books they search in the library,
even when you’re reading it,
now I know as reading this book, you know,
who Nicholas Flamel is.
But as I’m reading it, it’s like great wizards of the 20th century.
Notable magical names of our time, etc.
And there’s like five books that are all the same.
They’re like recent wizards.
So an astute reader could clearly see that there’s a theme
with the books they’re looking up, which is that they’re all recent.
So it’s like, all right, Nicholas Flamel must not be recent.
It’s just fun.
It’s fun to be with them trying to figure this out.
Maybe you’re able to,
but you’re still not able to see the final piece Joe Rowling holds on to for the end.
So I just love the way she crafts the story, honestly.
Fun fact that Stell Byrne now since he brought it up.
Only one character in the Harry Potter series is an individual from the Muggle world,
aka the real world.
Nicholas Flamel, the sorcerer from Sorcerer’s Stone,
was a French businessman alchemist and scribe in the 14th century.
So he’s a real person.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Fascinating.
Created this or stolen and lived forever.
That’s why he’s like 600 or whatever.
That’s cool.
So every other character is created from her mind,
except for Nicholas Flamel.
Yeah, according to the Fun Fact I found.
Yeah, I trust everything I read on the internet.
Yeah, it’s perfect.
It’s totally fine.
What about hate?
Hate the school turning on Harry.
I get them turning on Ron.
I get it.
But I mean Harry’s got them, what, 300 points from catching two snitches?
That’s not house.
You don’t get house points.
Yeah, you get those points for that.
No, no, no, no.
Yes, your final tally.
Their final tally was like 370 points or something like that.
Oh, that’s because they got negative points taken from them.
That’s how they determine the house cup.
What much do you think they get for a win?
No, that doesn’t make any sense because if someone answers something good in class
or whatever the case is, you get like five points and Harry’s out there,
catches a golden snitch and gets 150.
That’s why the math worked for me.
No, no, I don’t think so.
You do get points for Quidditch.
Like Quidditch is tied into the house cup.
I don’t get what the whole point thing is then if that doesn’t count in the room.
There’s separate points.
There’s separate points.
I’m going to have to look that up.
I don’t know if you’re right on that.
Yeah, but I do agree.
And that’s my problem throughout a lot of this series
is everyone turning on Harry on a dime at different times.
I do think if you didn’t know him, you’d be like,
look at this famous kid trying to get away with everything.
So I kind of get that.
However, the point thing, if you’re really pissed at him for point,
he got the thread of points.
I’m sticking with that.
And it’s only minus 50.
So now he’s up to 50.
He’s plus 250 net.
Like they should have a plus minus for each person, not necessarily.
Yeah, like Hermione, they’re mad at her.
It’s like what?
She gets points in all of your classes.
Right.
You’re doing like be mad at Neville.
He’s bringing me up every now and he gets minus 50.
And he’s probably minus in general.
But yeah, I don’t like how they turn on Harry at all.
I don’t like how they turn on throughout the series.
It’s a big no-no for me.
But I do agree that if you don’t know him,
you could they throw this guy up on a pedestal.
And what can he do?
You know, you start to get upset with that.
So I get it.
What about you, Ray?
So the Quidditch stuff I didn’t love,
just the actual story of the Quidditch,
you know, like the actual matches.
I just remember being so much better.
You know, the Quidditch matches take up
like a total of four pages in this book.
You know, it’s like Harry’s first time getting on the broom
is more fun than any of the Quidditch matches.
And from what we know about the importance of the moment
he first tasted that golden snitch,
later from later in the books,
I thought it was more of a scene,
but it was like one sentence.
It was like, oh, Harry got control of his broom, flew down,
landed on the ground.
It looked like he was going to puke.
And he coughed up the snitch.
So yeah.
What’s the importance of tasting it?
Well, in book seven, oh, don’t tell me.
I don’t remember at all.
Oh, it opens at the clothes, bro.
Figured out.
Yeah, sorry.
I didn’t mean to spawn that part.
Did you say snatch or did you say snatch?
Snitch.
But talking about Guy Ritchie would be snatch is also very big.
Did you have any other hits?
Yeah, this is a big one for me.
I wish there was better trash talking to Malfoy.
Yeah.
Your whole family was riding Voldemort’s dick.
Your fucking whole family’s sucking
Voldemort’s dick for five years.
Don’t come in here talking your shit about how great your family is.
They’re fucking huck-tooing Voldemort for the last 10 years.
Your family’s embarrassing.
You shouldn’t be showing your face.
Like don’t ever talk bad about Ron.
Don’t ever talk bad.
Like, I was so pissed that he didn’t come back with that.
I could not agree with you more on this.
It’s talking about losing the ultimate fight.
Your father was on the side of Voldemort,
or he was quote unquote, bewitched by Voldemort.
So you’re either evil or you’re an idiot,
or you’re weak.
Yeah.
So, but the bottom line is your dad was working for Voldemort,
and Voldemort’s gone, so like that’s embarrassing for you.
You didn’t win.
So get out of the fight.
They need to teach, let’s just say,
my sister and her family are in town,
and my nephew, his thing for a while,
like the last year, has been like,
if you’re trash, you know, little kids,
they like to trash talk and whatnot.
His thing is, yeah, yeah, yeah, they did.
They did.
They’re not good at it.
So his thing is, I’ll throw you in the garbage.
Your nephew says this?
Yeah.
It’s like, oh, you mess with me, I’ll throw you in the garbage.
Yeah, I kind of like that.
Or like, you said, that’s his thing.
But it’s now, it’s too far.
Like, that’s all he’s got.
So like, hey, you got it.
Yeah, like we say rubbish.
You got it.
Expand on your trash talk.
Keep the garbage the same thing,
but just change the verbiage you’re saying.
No.
Expand on the whole thing.
Oh, okay.
So yeah, I think they need to do the same thing
with, as it pertains to anything in the ball thing.
Like, Malfoy’s so easy too.
He’s a little weasel fuck.
Yeah.
Just, and he stands behind crab and oil.
Or just in the Forbidden Forest, he was panicking.
Just stick on that for him for the next year.
I’m gonna jump into listener mail.
We do have listener mail this week.
You’ve got mail.
It’s from Caroline and Cape Cod.
It says, hi Dylan and Keith.
Exclamation point.
Long time listener, love the podcast.
I have a few Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Questions for you both.
A few?
Wow, here we go.
Start with one.
Which character do you most relate to and why?
Not necessarily your favorite character.
I’d say probably Ron, Pale, Gingerish, big family.
Not very good at things,
but have my very own Harry Potter carrying me, AKD man.
Yeah.
Hey, yeah, that’s fair.
Yeah.
No, I was, I’ve Voldemort.
I’m Voldemort.
That’s not funny.
Yeah.
I’m probably more like Snape.
You know, I feel like he doesn’t get enough love in this.
And, you know, he just, he’s holding a grudge.
What’s wrong with that?
Yeah, nothing wrong.
I’m Italian.
Well, to a whole kid.
I don’t know why you transfer that.
Is grudges transferable to their children?
A hundred percent.
Okay, good to know.
Grudges live on forever and ever and ever.
And I know this for fact,
because my dad has a grudge with his older brother
and that transferred on to me.
That guy won’t talk to me.
I don’t know the guy, but he doesn’t talk to me.
So there you go.
Italians, man, they’re crazy.
What’s my next one?
With the warnings of Dumbledore,
would you be able to resist the appeal of the mirror of desire?
The mirror of Aerysad?
Oh, I never thought about that desire in Aerysad.
That’s just a, yeah.
That’s backwards.
That’s backwards too.
Wow, I figured the other one out,
but I didn’t figure that one out.
That’s dumb.
In this world?
No.
I mean, that’s why I play video games all the time.
That’s essentially it.
I’m playing Hogwarts Legacy so I can pretend I’m seeing what I want to see.
Yeah, that’s weird.
In that world, I would have no problem.
I’d be like, I’m going to go fucking down Dagon Alley
and get some crazy things I’ve never seen before.
Yeah, so no problem in that world.
I also don’t really see the appeal to the mirror.
Checking it out the first time,
being like, oh, cool, that’s what I desire.
But you’re not doing it.
You’re just watching that stand around.
You watch movies, you watch TV, you play video games.
I guess that’s true.
But I’d probably see the same thing Harry saw,
but in a positive way, the future,
and just like me, like lots of family around, all good stuff.
You know, but it’s like, wait, I could live that.
It’s not, get out of here.
You’d be seeing porn hub.
You can see that on the internet.
I know, that’s why you do it.
It’s like, there’s like, sorry, I got a, sorry, Hermione.
I got a boot in.
She’s like, why did you learn that charm
that lets you bring all the Kleenex with you?
Uh, the last question is, how would you handle living with the Dursleys?
Would you rebel or obey looking forward to listening to all your HP episodes?
Take care, care.
Oh, nice.
Very well done.
Well, I appreciate the email.
I appreciate that a lot.
But for me, I think the biggest problem would be boredom.
I think after a while, you get used to like their, we don’t like you.
And you’re like, we’re gonna ignore you.
It’s like, whatever.
As long as you can find some sort of outlet to entertain yourself,
then who cares?
That’s what I would go with, but I don’t know.
What about you?
I mean, Matilda, that’s why she just like went to the library.
Yeah, it’s funny you said that.
Yeah, it’s funny you said that because I was thinking Matilda
in that I probably like, get really rebel in the sense that you can’t go anywhere
because you’re an orphan.
So you’re stuck in this house.
Like you don’t have a choice.
But it’s funny you say Matilda, because that’s exactly what I was thinking,
in that I would be doing sorts of like subterfuge or stuff like that,
like putting peroxide in their shampoo or whatever.
Just little things that would bother them, but they wouldn’t
you know, be able to pin on me.
But I would be getting my vengeance somehow.
Well, and like Matilda too, I’d probably be starting a gang in school.
As well.
So, you know, same thing.
So I’m gang swarm.
Using your powers for not good.
Okay.
Well, thank you for the listeners mail.
That was wonderful.
And Cape Cod, I’m here.
You sound hot.
Give me a call.
Do you have any lingering questions?
Because I have so many.
You read ahead, kid.
You know, I drop and stuff about stuff in the future that I’m like,
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I didn’t have so many lingering questions.
So number one, how can the dursleys afford all of Dudley’s presents?
So for clarity, he has a room for the stuff he gets.
So they have an extra bedroom in their house.
So not only do they have to afford a house that involves an extra bedroom,
which Harry doesn’t live in, but it stores all of his stuff.
And Vernon is selling drill parts.
So do we assume that he has some like big government accounts?
Are these drills like super high tech equipment?
Is he the biggest salesman in all of Great Britain?
It doesn’t seem like he’s so super bright,
but just because you’re not super bright doesn’t mean he can be a good salesman.
So is that what we’re assuming?
That he’s just like really good at his job?
I mean, yeah, we’re talking about the early 90s, the economic boom.
I mean, this is this is pretty the internet bubble.
The economy was booming.
It’s not even a question.
So he’s really smart with his investments as well.
Yeah, he’s probably was putting heavy money on the bowls.
I mean, he’s just making all this money back.
So yeah, we’re good.
You’ve seen that meme before, right?
No.
It’s like, the most unrealistic thing about Harry Potter is that
not one mention of the epic bowls run in the early 90s.
Like we don’t even think they do casually drop like men,
bowls are really crushing it recently.
Yeah, it’s so good.
I love it.
All right.
Next one is Harry not famous enough.
Shouldn’t he be more famous?
So because of him, Voldemort is gone and the Wizarding World is free from his yoke of tyranny.
And all Harry gets in his childhood is a couple of handshakes in the street
or bows on his way to school.
Like where’s the Wizarding paparazzi?
It would be like Hitler walking into a Polish farmhouse in 1942 to kill a child
and then Hitler never coming out.
Plus all the mystery surrounding it, the world would be a buzz.
Like I don’t understand how there’s not more people finding Harry Potter and doing something about it.
Yeah, that’s a good point.
I think probably because he’s been out of sight out of mind for 11 years.
So I think that’s kind of playing it.
Would only entice people more.
Michael Jackson’s kids.
I don’t know who they are.
Don’t get.
Yeah.
Well, at one point, we knew him and then I don’t know what he’s doing now or she.
So you’re equating Michael Jackson to Harry Potter’s dad?
He made thriller.
Thriller.
All right, that’s fair.
Next one.
What type of schooling comes before Hogwarts?
Are magical children taught basic arithmetic?
And it sure doesn’t seem like there’s any Hogwarts prep.
Like Ron doesn’t even know how sorting works.
And he’s had five siblings go through the process.
So there must be like some code of silence when you go to Hogwarts and you can’t.
What happens in Hogwarts stays in Hogwarts.
Yeah, there’s a bit on Kumal, you know, Najiani, I think his name is.
He’s like the Pakistan guy.
He has a bit about like how they’re not teaching math.
He’s like, should they know that to Hogwarts?
So it’s a good question.
Yeah.
I don’t know how they’re learning.
I was told to get on the same page.
What do we talk about?
Their monetary system makes no sense.
I think it’s similar though to, hey, there’s a big surprise.
You don’t like your forbidden to tell people what the sorting hat’s all that stuff about.
So I think there’s some whispers about it, but I don’t think you’re a lot.
It’s like Santa Claus who’s still real, but you know, you don’t tell kids about that.
Okay, that’s fair enough.
I can accept it.
And okay, I got two more.
First one, how many students are there at Hogwarts?
Do we know?
I want to say like 150 in a class.
I don’t know.
Maybe that’s too many.
Okay.
So I did a little research by reading the book and
it starts off by saying before they get sorted,
it says all the student, all the first years get put into a small room before sorting.
So a class has to fit in a small room.
So even if they’re shoulder to shoulder, it can’t be a ton.
And then in the Gryffindor boys first year room, there’s five beds.
So if we’re going to use that as our base point, there are five beds in the Gryffindor boys first
room.
That means there’s five beds in the women’s room.
So there’s 10 kids per house, four houses, that’s 40 kids per year, seven years, 280 kids.
It seemed more than during the sorting hat than that.
Yeah, than 40, right?
But at the same time, it would take so long if there are more than that, granted the sorting.
Even though it’s graduation.
Yeah, exactly.
There are good arguments around pairs year and those preceding it being small,
as that was the height of the war against Voldemort.
And there’s also potential that the Gryffindor types,
like the parents, would likely be the ones dying during the war,
because they’re brave and they’re fighters.
So those Gryffindors would likely have had Gryffindor kids,
would be casualties of war, which changes everything about the numbers or basing this on,
and that you couldn’t have, you know, maybe the Gryffindor numbers were small.
So let’s say there’s more than 280, but there’s double that, 560.
At the Christmas feast, there’s 100 fat roasted turkeys.
And if we’re talking fat, we can say conserve if it’s 12 pound turkey.
So that’s 1200 pounds of turkey.
The general rule of thumb around Thanksgiving is a pound or turkey per person.
So that’s enough turkey for 1200 people.
But only a small portion of the school is around for the feast.
And we’re also assuming they’re feeding other people and staff and whatnot.
So it’s very confusing, honestly.
It’s very confusing how many students there are.
And it really bothered me throughout the book, especially because I’m thinking about all the
wisdom of kids that didn’t get into Hogwarts.
Because then like, what are they doing?
But J.K. Rowling says there’s only 11 prestigious wisdom of schools in the world.
Oh, I appreciate the research, especially you’re adding in the turkey weight.
That’s something I would get into.
So I appreciate it.
Yeah, yeah, the chicken theory.
Head to buddybookclub.com for that.
And then my last lingering question, which is really a conversation piece,
but Harry thinks at the end that Dumbledore let him take the old college try at fighting Voldemort.
He’s like, oh, Dumbledore, you know, kind of let me do that.
What are your thoughts on the matter?
Do you think Dumbledore knew Harry was going to go after the Sorcerer’s Stone or whoever is
trying to steal it?
We talked about it earlier, but I think it’s either Dumbledore is incompetent,
has no idea what’s going on with the school.
Or he’s thinking spoilers.
This dude is going to have to die at some point.
So let’s get it over with early.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, but you know, one cannot die while the other lives are one of the cases,
but then he’s kind of saying, all right, I’m just going to give you to Voldemort without all the
potential of their protections.
But I do agree that the idea that Dumbledore is this incompetent is just not possible.
And the fact that Dumbledore was away, so many of the charms and whatnot were for young
wizarding children.
And he knew that the other guy or quirral or whoever it was, like he knew that Harry would
flush out whoever this situation was.
All you really need to is the mirror because you wasn’t getting by the mirror.
Yeah, exactly.
The end, he’s not getting by the mirror.
And Dumbledore has been known in the future to, you know, kind of hang Harry out as bait to some degree.
So I think Dumbledore knows he knew like when him and Harry sit down, he knows the relationship
between him and Malfoy.
He knows the relationship between him and the rest of the people.
He knows what devil’s about.
So Dumbledore knows what’s going on.
I think that he did allow this to happen, whether it was his best decision.
I’m not sure, but he’s not incompetent.
All right.
Yeah, I can agree with that.
All right.
So give me your, give me your fun facts.
Dumbledore has a deeper meaning.
It actually is an old English word for bumblebee.
Rowling has said that she chose the name because she always thought of Dumbledore humming to himself.
I like that.
Well, bumblebee?
Yeah.
I appreciate you going with the bumblebee sound too.
Yeah, that was nice.
The original names were the characters were Hermione Puckle, Draco Spinks, which I don’t hate.
Neville Puff.
Neville Puff.
I mean, long bottom of, I don’t know what’s worth.
Long bottom of her puff.
Especially in the British slang for poof.
Maybe that’s what it is.
I don’t think so.
Well, we know now a lot more about JK Rowling than before, so let’s put that in there.
No, we’re not.
And then I had a meme that I had a couple of memes, but this one I think is the best one.
Slytherin looks like we’re going to win the House Cup smiley face.
Dumbledore would be a real shame if I gave 8 billion points to Gryffindor for Harry making his bed.
Slytherin, but a real shame.
Yeah, I like that one.
I like the bull’s one better, but yeah.
Cool.
That was my fun box.
Yeah, those are good shares.
Those are good shares.
I hope you keep those up for the future runs because I’d like to know more.
All right.
Instead of doing what would you recommend the book as we normally do,
because we both love Harry Potter.
Everything negative that we have said throughout this is lies, myths, and fallacies.
We love to critique it, but at the end of the day,
we fucking love Harry Potter.
It’s perfect.
Yeah, instead of recommending the book, let’s award the House Cup.
So my cup is awarded to that sly devil, Minerva McGonagall.
Why, you may ask?
It’s for making piles of galleons betting on Gryffindor to win the House Cup.
So early on, it says McGonagall couldn’t look at Snape because Slytherin winning the
Quidditch Cup the year before.
Likely because she had lost a lot of money betting on Gryffindor last year
and was turning to Dodge Snape.
I’m sure the Vig alone on that bet was big enough that she couldn’t crawl out of it.
So once she finds out that Harry’s the best flyer in the last 100 years,
she knows it’s time to risk it all.
Knowing how tightly the Quidditch Cup is tied to the House Cup,
she makes an enormous bet or potentially a series of bets on the wizarding equivalent,
like fan dual draft Kings, whatever, through intermediaries, of course,
because she can’t do it herself, that Gryffindor is going to win the House Cup,
which considering that Slytherin had won the Cup for the last six years,
it’s definitely a plus money bet.
I’m going to say like four and a half to the line.
So she takes her last bit of savings and after she makes this bet,
she takes her last bit of savings and buys Harry that name is 2000 to kind of secure that situation.
Things turn out well for her.
Hermione’s racking up Scholastic points for Gryffindor with small increments,
which she wasn’t really prepared for, so she loves that.
And then Gryffindor is crushing the Quidditch matches, but here’s where her real genius comes in.
She’s got a lot of risk in the marketplace with all of her money on Gryffindor, so she needs to hedge.
Now Slytherin is an underdog now, so she goes back to the marketplace,
puts some money on Slytherin at probably like seven to one odds.
We’re talking like after Harry beat, I think it was like Alvalpuff in that game.
So, you know, the odds are really stacked for Gryffindor, so she puts money on Slytherin.
Then when she catches Harry and Ron out of bed, she’s like, oh, this is great. Her Hermione and
Neville, she docks 50 points from all of them. They’re like, this is absurd. No one’s ever done this
before, but yeah, because she’s already put her that money on Slytherin to hedge.
So, and she takes a little from Malfoy, you know, she takes the same mouth from Malfoy,
not to, you know, put a cent on her, but she’s basically securing herself a big payday.
I’m not sure that she was expecting Dumbledore to save the day for Gryffindor at the end.
But she knew that he’s a wily bugger and, you know, has diverged, you know, she’s already
diversified her risk. So, in case that, you know, Dumbledore decides to pull off any shenanigans.
So, really, it was the best and potentially perfect bet progression that she could have made,
and for that, she deserves my house cup.
That’s just well, really well done. I don’t think anything to add. I think we might have lost half
the listeners other than those gambling addicts like ourselves, the last part there, but that’s okay.
Yeah, that’s fine. I mean, it’s true. So, you know, dude, you want with that?
I’ll award the house cup to Hagrid. Okay.
I already mentioned him earlier. Just fails upward at everything he does.
Gets kicked out of Hogwarts. He lines a job. He’s kind of incompetent, basically a drunkard,
rides a sweet Harley, just hangs out with kids all day, you know, little children.
He’s doing everything right. I mean, what? So, I’ll give it to him.
He’s a man of simple pleasures, and he lives life to the fullest, that’s for sure.
Yeah, 100%. He’s got dolphins for feet. Keith, God. It was a longie, but it was a goodie.
It was a goodie. I’m glad we get to talk about Harry Potter, and there’s so much more to come.
This book’s one of the shortest ones, so we got a lot more stuff coming. What do we got next?
We got the movie Harry Potter and the Star Stones coming up next, and then the second installment.
Chamber of Secrets. Yeah, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets next, after that.
I’m going to probably watch the movie this weekend, you know, maybe a Sunday Vig, so we’ll do that
next week. And happy July 4th, everyone. If you’re in Great Britain, then sorry, but we won.
And yeah, Keith, I’ll catch you for the movie. That was fun.
Dude, all right. All right. Bye now.
Bye now.