Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J. K. Rowling – Episode 104

The Buddies fly into book 3 of the Harry Potter series in, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. They’re joined by special guest (with an appropriate name): Magic.  They discuss everything from taking a page out of Willy Wonka’s ‘how to deal with spoiled children’ book, to the questionable penal system of Azkaban. They also get into important topics around: The raging hormones of pubescent wizards, chocolate being the ultimate magical and non-magical cure, and how Snape is dead to them. So grab your Firebolt (if you can afford it), practice your Patronus charm, and join the Buddies for book 3 of the greatest series that ever lived.

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

Alright. Welcome to the book club. I’m Ticklefoot here with baby Carrot and rabies. We solemnly swear we’re up to no good. What’s up, buddies?

Well done. Well done. Hey, why am I ticklefoot? No. You’re baby carrot.

I’m ticklefoot. Oh, okay. Alright. Magic’s rabies because he’s the only person that has been bit by a dog and then in a separate situation had the rabies vaccine. My rabies vaccine’s expired.

Did imagine getting bit by Sirius Black? Do we know? He got bit by Sirius Bat. Okay. Alright.

Anyway Got him. We’re on fire. Alright. Here at the Buddy Book Club, we’re bringing out some bestsellers. And this week, we’ll be discussing Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling.

If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to us any past episodes, you can visit our website, buddybookclub.com, or send us an owl on Twitter or Instagram, buddybookclubpodcast. You can listen to us on iTunes, Spotify. Download and subscribe, write and review, all that good stuff. Normally, if you listen, you’re used to the 2 of us, but we had to have Magic on. He is a die hard Harry Potter fan.

We’re planning on getting some guests going for the Harry Potter series, but figured, you know, the first two, let’s just, you know Keith and I feel feel her out. But once we get to Azkaban, I mean, the Hogwarts Express is potentially off the rails, so we should get off the rails with it. So welcome, Magic. Returning guest, we’re we’re excited to have you. Thanks.

I’m happy to be back. I think we’re getting into when do I update my resume with 4 time guest on the BBC. I’m like, gotta be now. Right? Let’s get into some stock up, stock down.

Stock up. Keith, what do we got? Stock up, Willy Wonka. Oh. Perhaps the inventor of fuck around and find out.

I think he’s kinda was came up with that theory. But I mean, I was wishing this man was a professor at Hogwarts because Malfoy wouldn’t have a little cut in his arm. He’d be in a casket and, that’d be well deserved because a couple of things just really, really upset me for the Pirates first class. Mhmm. Care of magical creatures.

Every other class is dangerous. Let let’s start off with that. We got mandrakes that’ll knock you out if you don’t put your headphones on. We got duels going off in the hallways. We got dark art training.

You go out in the Quidditch field, there’s a 50% chance you break an arm or a neck. Like, this is a dangerous school. Even in potions later on, when they’re making a potion, Snape’s alright, Neville. You’re gonna have to try yours even though he knows Neville screwed up. So who knows what is gonna happen when when you take up a potion that you’re not supposed to have?

It’s part of being at Hogwarts. You have to listen and pay attention. Otherwise, it’s dangerous. Magic is dangerous. And that’s the same thing that happened with Willy Wonka’s factory.

You not listen to him. Shit’s gonna go pop off. And that’s that’s part of the process, and that’s too bad. Some people might die, but then the next person was gonna listen. Right?

The other thing is that Hagrid needed to start giving out negative points left and right. Mhmm. Mhmm. When Malfoy’s talking back to him, you’re the teacher. Be like, hey, Malfoy.

Look at me one more time. It’s negative 50 points for Slytherin. Like, shut the fuck up, bud. Alright? Like, I was getting pissed off for for Hagrid.

Stand up for yourself a little bit. You’re a teacher at this point. You can’t let him talk, like, over you and, shit talk you. So, we needed some person to come in here and start laying down the law. Couldn’t agree more.

That’s so well said. And I have a a stock down that’s gonna tie back into it, so I don’t I don’t wanna go too deep into that. But I was really upset during that first Care of Magical Creatures lesson because, like you said, Hagrid’s the professor here, and I understand he’s new and he’s trying not to ruffle any feathers, any hippogriff feathers, but you gotta put your foot down and be able to tell these kids to zip it and especially someone like Malvoise. So I’m with you there. Couldn’t agree with you, Mark.

Magic, did you have a stock up you’d like to share? A stock up? Hormones. Oh. These students, they are full fledged going into puberty now, and it is the hormones are raging all over the place.

You know, all the emotional outbursts and the the silent treatment over the cat. I don’t think I ever put this together until I was older. But in the Quidditch match against Cho Chang Mhmm. When he’s like Harry caught on his broom and saw the opposing Seeker and felt a lurch near his stomach that definitely wasn’t nerves. Like, yo.

What? Yeah. You know it’s near your stomach. Right? I I guess I wanted to talk about this anyway, so I’m I’m glad you brought it up.

Do you think that Hermione Ron issue, which continued for the entire book, and looking back on it, it’s interesting that book 1 in Sorcerer’s Stone, they were fighting the whole time, well, until they became friends, like, halfway through the book slash towards the end. In book 2, Hermione was kinda like out of the picture because she was petrified, and now in book 3, they’re fighting again. In their combined relationship, we’ve seen these people fighting more than they’ve been friends, which is interesting. But do you blame Hermione for this, or do you blame Ron and really Harry? Because Harry had no dog in the fight, yet just decided to back Ron.

Who do you blame Magic? I mean, I think they’re all to blame. Right? Like, you would think that the first 2 years, these guys know, like, it’s the 3 of us. We’re in this in this together no matter what’s happening.

Yeah. Things could get bad, but at the end of the day, we all gotta stick up for each other, you know, because weird that there’s not a lot of people looking out for them. The teachers are like, yeah. You guys got this. Like, don’t worry about it.

And Yeah. Unless you’re Malfoy. Yeah. And it takes Sir Hagrid, Pol and Ron, and Harry aside to be like, you 2 are being fucking idiots. Your friend’s going through a lot.

Like, what are you doing here? Talking about Quidditch? Like, you’ve been hanging out with Oliver Wood too much. What do you think, Keith? Do you side with anyone, or do you agree with Magic that ever everyone’s at fault?

I’m usually team Hermione, but I’m, I’m not in this case. All Ron was looking for is a little hand up. I thought my cat kind of was being a dickhead hand up. But but she’s like, nope. I’m not I refuse to say sorry.

And then she finally does say sorry, and Ron’s like, that’s completely fine. Don’t worry. But not a big deal. He was an old rat. That’s all he wanted.

Yeah. So I was on team Ron with that. I was on team Ron as well because, for starters, Hermione goes to get a pet, and she can get any pet under the sun, but she chooses a cat when her best friend has a rat. It seems like probably not the best mix of characters. And then, like you said, Ron was just looking for an apology off the jump, yet Hermione went straight into you can get another rat.

It’s like, what? But, like, excuse me. You can get another rat. He’s had this rat for years. It was Percy’s rat.

Then it got passed out to him. 12 years. 12 years with a pet. I couldn’t imagine if, like, someone ran over my dog, and I walk out. I was like, what the fuck did you just do?

And they’re like, just get another dog. Yeah. Yeah. It was old anyways. Parts are fun.

Yeah. I’m I’m team Ron. I’m not necessarily team Harry because I feel like Harry kinda should’ve played the middle a little bit. Yeah. Instead, he went heavy on Ron’s side.

My first stock up, and it’s gonna be a quick one, is miss Cleo. I I think you all probably remember miss Cleo, the commercials from back in the day. Maybe, maybe not. She’s the magical school bus woman? No.

That’s miss Frizzle. Come on. Yeah. Same difference. Well, miss Cleo is, like, the late night psychic who you could call she was Jamaican.

I can’t obviously, reenact the commercial, but it was it was phenomenal. So I would suggest, if you haven’t seen it, go YouTube miss Cleo. But she must have been making money. Like, she could afford those those commercial spots and stuff. And I feel like our our girl Trelawny, Cybill Trelawny, who we meet, is pretty much similar.

Like, she just kind of, maybe she got something right once and has just been riding it off into the sunset, and she believes her own shtick so much that even when everyone’s making fun of her, I was like, she’s kinda right though. So I guess someone’s gonna leave at this point, so I guess she did kinda leave at that point. Although she might not be as clairvoyant as she thinks she is, I would call her 9 hundred number and have her tell me what my future has in store for me. I don’t know. How’d you guys feel about Trelawny?

Yeah. When she was possessed by the devil and just rattled off the future, that’s kinda when I liked her. Other than that, I feel like she’s kind of a con artist. So Yeah. The devil version of her.

Talking about. Con artist. I love that. You can make predictions that are vague enough that, like, something is bound to fit into it. Right?

Like Yeah. So don’t we respect the hustle? Because she now has tenure at a school. She has, you know, room and board for free. She gets a pension, all for the hustle of her being a con artist.

So I I gotta respect it. And Haggard could take a note out of this book is, like, she just right off the bat class 1 predicts someone’s gonna die. Mhmm. That gets the student’s attention. You’re now paying attention to, like, what she’s saying.

So I think Haggard should have done the same thing of just, like, brought out something just killed, like, an animal right in front of them and been like, that you’re next if you don’t listen up. You know? Set the tone. Set the tone early. Just bring out Aragog from the forest, and just be like, here you go.

Remember what everyone thought was in the Chamber of Secrets? Yeah. This is him. Come at me. I think it’s a great idea to predict someone’s death right at the beginning, but my only problem is McGonigal saying it’s never been right.

Where we already know Hogwarts is a dangerous place, we’ve been here for 3 years now, I’m sure there’s students dying. We’ve talked about this on previous podcasts, so McGonigal saying no one’s died kind of surprises me. Keith, do you have another stock up? Yeah. Scapegoating stock up.

This really got my goat. Unintended. Alright. We’re back. We’re back.

If the the Hagrid class and the way things went down there was a 7. This is a 10. I’m I’m very very upset about this. Cyrus gets into the school and gets in the Gryffindor tower and we think he almost kills Ron slash Harry. Right?

Who’s to blame for this d man in in Magic? The Dementors at the gates that are trained guards that are supposed to stop intruders? No. The grown adults? The teachers that have wands at the school that are patrolling the hallways?

No. The portrait who literally controls the door who can decide who comes in and doesn’t? No. No. No.

Not them. It’s Neville’s fault. Every single thing that happened is all Neville’s fault. Because why? He wrote down the passwords that change every day and lost it.

So no one else has to take responsibility for anything that happens. It’s just Neville’s fault. Mhmm. So now we’re putting everything on him. Even his grandmother comes out and starts shitting on him about leaving passwords out.

This is a 13 year old boy. His job is not to protect the school from someone intruding it. This is ridiculous. The worst part too is that we discover that he actually didn’t lose the note. Yeah.

Yeah. I was gonna say. Crookshanks stole it. Sir, where is the pardon? Where is the slow clap?

Yeah. I didn’t see no slow clap, d man. Magic? It’s bullshit. I’m still pissed.

I’m ride or die on team Neville for the rest of these books now. I’m pissed. Neville had a really tough year between that and getting absolutely bullied into the ground by Snape. It was like, give this kid a break. And I’ve I’m on the record saying, you know, not really a big Neville guy, and I think that JK Rowling had a bigger plan for him after book 1 and then just was like, man, I don’t think so, and for the right reasons.

But at the same time, like, I feel I feel terrible for the kid. Yeah. Like, his backstory is just as bad as Harry’s. Right? Like Yeah.

With his parents and everything, and, nope, we don’t get any sympathy for him. Just like he said, he gets blamed for everything. And the first one, when he tries to stand up to his friend, they petrify him. Yeah. Pretty much.

Not come come with come help us. No. You stay here because you’re no good. They rig a mortise in and not in a good way. Wait.

What? Magic, did you did you have another stock up? Yeah. It’s, hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. Oh, is this like a a sports club or something?

8 years since Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup. This is the most talented team they’ve ever had. Yep. Harry’s got the Fireball. It would be pretty easy to say, like, yeah.

We got this. Let’s mail it in. But, no, it’s 6 days a week training. It’s Wood staying on top of Harry for Dementor lessons. Like, this is talent working hard, and in the end, it pays off.

I like that. Yeah. I mean, we are we’re on record once again saying how we as much we love Oliver Wood. I mean, Oliver Wood’s even in this book telling Harry to knock Cho Chang off her broom, literally kill another student so that he can get the the Quidditch cup. And and I really did appreciate how Wood hit the showers hard after that first loss to Hufflepuff, and, showers hard after that first loss to Hufflepuff and just Wood refused to get out.

You know? He was probably just in there with Moaning Myrtle, crying for hours and hours and hours, although big asterisk next to the Quidditch cup because Harry has an illegal broom. It’s really that simple. Harry has an illegal broom. The fire bolt should not be allowed in competitive play.

Malfoy was 500 yards in front of him, and Harry catches up because he’s got a fire bolt. Come on. Broom Technology is just getting out of hand. I’m not gonna rehash my previous arguments, but there needs to be a governor on these things. Well, can I speak to that actually?

Because we got some data for the first time in this book. First of all, it’s all about agility and quickness, you think. Right? The Firebolt accelerates to a 150 miles per hour. Wow.

That’s pretty impressive. That’s fast. In 10 seconds? Mhmm. That’s not fast at all.

My Nissan Sentra, I looked it up, I think, goes 0 to 60 in, like, 6 seconds or 8 seconds. A 150. How long does it take to get to a 150? Oh, wait. It can’t get there.

First of all, sir, how dare you? Wouldn’t you be out of the stadium? Yeah. Actually, that’s a really good point, Magic, because the stadium, I picture it to be like a football field. But let’s even say it’s 2 football fields.

And I know there’s a vertical element as well. You know, there’s a there’s a y axis that’s going on here, but Smart. At the same time, there’s never gonna be a situation which you need to be on your broom for 10 seconds. Maybe because the fire bolt people also use to travel, like, use their brooms to travel. Uh-huh.

It’s like that’s why they said that. No. That’s a good point. It’s not necessarily just a Quidditch thing. But are you buying a Ferrari to travel?

Like, the the whole point is it’s a competition broom. Yeah. Exactly. You’re buying the Nissan Sentra for the long distance. You’re not buying the Ferrari and talking about, oh, it’s really good on gas mileage.

Like, come on. That’s a good point. You want it to win the shuttle drill. You don’t want it to win the 100 yard Sprint. But I still think it’s it’s an illegal broom.

That thing was turning on a dime. I mean, he was doing some crazy stuff. But my last stock up is the US penal system. Penal? I’m not a big fan of the way that we approach, you know, our criminal justice system, especially when people are incarcerated.

We put innocent people on death row. We have 4 profit prisons here in the United States, which is just absurd. But you know what we don’t do? We don’t send criminals to a prison with guards that suck your soul and tell you go crazy. Some might say metaphorically that’s true, but I’m talking about quite literally.

Azkaban, although on an island way out at sea, doesn’t rely on its walls to keep prisoners in. It uses dementors to make prisoners incapable of a single cheerful thought. That is directly from the book, incapable of a single cheerful thought. Are we concerned about recidivism here? Like, people are eventually gonna get out?

Maybe. I feel like you can’t get out. You know why you can’t go out? Because they usually go mad within a couple of weeks. If they get out for some reason, they just go straight to Saint Mungo’s, like, that doesn’t help anybody.

It drains wizards of their powers. I feel like wizarding powers are so important. You know what I mean? It’d be like them taking your testosterone from you when you’re in prison or something crazy like that, And then we already know that the way wizards get into prison, like get into Azkaban isn’t fair either because Hagrid just goes. No trial or nothing.

He just goes. So I think the wizards have this whole prison system really screwed up, and later we find out a bunch of these death eaters come out and break out of Azkaban or whatnot. And and no wonder, they’re all crazy, because they’ve been in Azkaban. That’s the ministry of magic’s fault in my opinion. It’s a great point.

And I also wanted to know, like, if you committed a white collar crime. You you did something that wasn’t that high level. Are you going to that same prison? Are you going somewhere else? Like, do they have, like It seems like that’s the prison.

Oh, that’s just it? Yeah. I thought they’re, like, oh, the white collar crime is the dementor babies that are there. Like, they’re they’re sucking your soul out, but it’s not as aggressively. You know?

That’s what I was thinking. Yeah. Like, young man drakes? Gotta straighten them up. Yeah.

Yeah. We have not heard of another sort of prison. It seems like it’s just Azkaban. Okay. Keith, what do you have for stock Talk down Snape and by the commutative property, Darth Vader.

I kind of forgot how shitty Snape is because of the ending. You know, he kinda has to redeems himself. Mhmm. It’s very, very similar to Darth Vader where he he throws the the emperor down the the well or whatever that was there and, you know, kills him and saves Luke. And you’re, like, he’s just been misunderstood this whole time.

You forget what happened before in, like, the first movie where he’s blowing up planets and choking out people and killing younglings and just being the worst person of all time. You kinda, like, give him a pass. In this book, I completely forgot how bad Snape was. I think it’s fine, honestly, to if his mentality is Harry Potter’s a famous person, he needs to be shit on. Fine.

Like, I’ll I’ll let that pass. Hermione’s the smartest person in the school. She needs to be put in her place sometimes. You know what? That’s fine.

I I’m okay with that also. To bully and belittle Neville, not just in your class, but outside of the classroom and shit on a person that’s weaker and not as popular or strong or smart as the other students, that’s just cruel and I don’t won’t stand for it. I don’t care for it one bit. Snape’s dead to me for the rest of the series. I don’t care what he does at the end.

Dead to me. That’s all I have to say about that. Super fan Chrissy had emailed us about this. She was basically right on the same page with you about, about how Snape sucks. I guess you’re gonna be part of, a listener mail here, but I know he’s playing the fence and whatever, but can you imagine being a 50 year old man bullying children because your dad was mean to him?

It couldn’t be put better than that, in my opinion. Yeah. 100%. He’s going off against against Neville, and then at one point, you’re like, oh, he’s making this potion for Lupin, so whatever. But then he’s at the same time, he’s trying to get everyone to figure out that he’s a werewolf so that he can’t be a professor there anymore.

Like, close the yearbook, Snape. Snape. Move on. Okay? You got a tough childhood because you were bullied.

I understand that. And maybe that that’s the point is that, you know, these things are cyclical, and if someone’s bullied, they’re more likely to then bully people in the future. But, like, taking it out on on Neville like, I get Harry because, like, you wanna take him down a peg, but it just didn’t make no no sense to me. No. Yeah.

I mean, it it’s it’s one thing to do it with, like, a connection of, like, yeah. Harry’s dad messed with you, so you messed with Harry. But, right, Neville didn’t do anything to him. He’s trying his best. Maybe he’s not the brightest, but he’s trying his best.

Isn’t that all you want from a student? You would think, but, yeah, Snape’s the worst. Magic, what do you have for Stockdown? Well, nice segue and a little bit of a a teaser in the intro. Stockdown, feeling safe around animals throughout this You’re you’re selling that all day.

Whole book. It’s always something. Right? Like, right off the bat, chapter 1, we have to be reminded about how Ripper chased Harry up a tree Yeah. To attack him.

We’ve got this this great big dog looming kind of everywhere. Not really sure what it is, what it wants. Obviously, the Buckbeak attack, and then, like, to top it all off, do you know if your animal is even an animal or is it a human? Like, how can you really be sure after that, you know? And obviously, that all hit pretty close to home given the recent events around around here, but I will say I’m not gonna slow play it like Malfoy.

I can handle it myself, and I will not be asking anybody to skin my shrivel fig, so to speak. Yeah. There we go. Funny you said that because, one, you burned one of my stock downs, which is your dog bite PTSD. For those listening, magic was recently bit by a dog.

Ripper, the grim, werewolves, you know, which is really I think the lore around werewolves is really just people getting bit by rabid dogs and, you know, them going rabid. So, you know, it’s it’s just a lot for someone who got bit by a dog, and without modern medicine, probably wouldn’t be here today or have a hand. So props to you, props to modern medicine. And then a double good hit by you because I also had the shrivel fig skinning of the shrivel fig mentioned in a in a different stock up, which which I’ll get to right now because because we’re on it, and we’ve kind of been talking about this anyways. But stock down is standing up against bullies.

It’s what you should do, and, unfortunately, it’s what no one decided to do. When Malfoy gets clipped by the Hippogriff, he’s going, I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. Guys, use that.

Use that later. When Ron, instead of, like, huffing and puffing when Malfoy asked Snape to help him in potions, you know, he’s like, oh, I can’t I professor Snape, I need Ron to help me. Just under your breath, be like, oh, I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying.

You know? Get get under that Getz collar, and and then Harry, he’s asked him to skin his shrivel figs. He should be like, yeah. I bet you want me to skin your shrivel fig, you sick fuck. You know?

Draco’s even shitting on Lupin. Like, he comes up. He’s just saying Lupin dresses like his old house elf. It’s like, oh, excuse me, Draco? You think Lupin dressed like your old house elf?

Whatever happened to your house elf? Oh. Yeah. Oh, that’s right. I tricked your idiot father into freeing him.

That’s, you know, that’s a real shame. They they are quite useful, those houses. I guess now you’ll have to scrub the skid marks out of your underwear yourself. Like, come on. Bring the heat against this guy.

So it just bothers me every time, I guess, when no one just gives it gives it back to Malfoy. At least Ron kinda decides to fight him at times, which I appreciate. At least he’s ready to throw hands at him like his dad. Go, mister Weasley. Hermione actually threw Oh, yeah.

That’s right. Hermione. The only people who have thrown hands in this story so far is Hermione and Arthur Weasley. Them’s the facts. I would say the same thing too, though, when the they’re on the train.

Look who it is. It’s Malfoy. It’s like, bro, get off my dick. Go sit down in your car and not be like, why are you bugging on me right now? It doesn’t make any sense.

Just just go bother someone else. Really? All you think about is me, isn’t it? All he does is just continually come up to Harry all the time. It’s like, bro, am I in your head all day every day?

I think he’s in love with him. Maybe that’s what it is. Brent free. Maybe Harry’s just go to him, kiss him on the mouth and say Yeah. I know you’re in love with me.

So here. We tried it. Did it work? Yeah. Do you feel better?

Keith, what else do you have for stock down? Yeah. Last one. Quick ditch or a credit strategy, stock down. We’ve all seen soccer where the aggregate matters, where teams play differently based off of what they need to get into the playoffs and things like that.

Mhmm. By that, I mean, this is more of a British thing or more a European thing, not a US thing. We don’t really play much aggregate games here. But Slytherin’s up versus Gryffindor. They’re up by 50.

I didn’t really understand why Malfoy was even looking for the snitch. Just play or help your team out. Just go man advantage the whole game. You just try to be a chaser. And then you get up a ton of points.

And then Harry’s like, well, now I have to help man advantage now. You know, I have to come in. And now you’re seeking for the snitch by yourself. Yeah. And at the same time, you can also play and then be like, hey, yo, if anyone sees the snitch, let me know.

I’ll go off and get it. Otherwise, let’s just get a huge lead. We’ll win this thing. It seemed like there was no strategy. I feel like Wood would have came up with a good strategy here, but they didn’t.

I don’t know what was going on. So Stock Town, cryptic strategy. Yeah. It’s a good point. I almost wonder if your keeper should be like your backup seeker.

If the game’s not even getting played on your half of the pitch Yeah. Just a good point. Keep your keep your eyes on a swivel. Is it only the seeker that can catch the snitch? Do we know?

If you’re a keeper and you see it, be, like, boom, got the snitch. Game over. I feel like you’d have to be wearing a special uniform, like, if you’re a goalie or you’re, what’s the guy in the, like, in the volleyball that sets that can only send it or whatever? That’s a great name too. Rover or the Libero.

Is that what it is? Re Roberto. Ribeiro. Right? That’s what you said?

Oh, there you go. Yes. Yes. I said Rover and Libero, and then I pronounced that one. Yeah.

Libero. I like that. I like that too. Been watching a lot of volleyball Olympics. Love it.

Keith, these are great points, and I was with you a 100%. I was like, oh, cool. So you just don’t need to be a seeker right now, Malfoy. Instead, he’s just like once again, maybe he’s just in love with Harry. He just wants to be close.

Yeah. That’s a good point. Like, Flint or whatever. Is that Marcus Flint? Is that the captain?

I think so. He was like, alright. Here’s the strategy, and Malfoy was like, I don’t really get a ton of alone time with Ares, so I’m just gonna fly. I’m just gonna fly with him if that’s Yeah. If that’s chill.

It’s like, no. That’s not chill. Yeah. And and I’m gonna burn one of my loves here because we’re talking about quick ditch, but lot of Quidditch in this book. We really haven’t had a ton of Quidditch.

Magic, you didn’t reread 12. Right? You just jumped in for 3? I mean, you’ve read them a bunch of times. Yeah.

You’ve read them a bunch of times, but you might not remember that there is very little Quidditch in the first two books. I’ve seen the movies a bunch, and I know you have as well, so my memory was kinda tainted by that because Quidditch plays more of a factor in the movies, but there’s very little Quidditch in the books. We get 3 separate Quidditch matches in this book, which is phenomenal, and including the final, which we’ve been talking about. It was a whole chapter. It wasn’t just a couple pages.

It was a whole chapter of things happening, then over going the other way, then things happening again, and then eventually the stitches got but it was it was great. I was almost like, is prisoner of Azkaban a sports book with Harry Potter as the background? I mean, you got the elite group of seekers too. Right? We get we meet Cho and Cedric for the first time.

Oh, yeah. Good point. Good point. Yeah. Malfoy, Harry, Cho, and Cedric being your your 4 seekers, like, 4 pretty influential characters to the storyline.

And we also have Ginny Weasley in the stands who’s the future Gryffindor seeker. So hers. I guess yeah. Whatever. People at the top.

People should know. Dispose our comment. And, also, if someone’s, like, I can’t believe they ruined that Ginny is the future Gryffindor seeker, then, 1, that’s awesome. I’m glad you care this much. And 2, get over it.

Just a a quick one plan on the Quidditch thing too. Right? Like, the wizarding bookings stocked out. Gryffindor got their win. Minerva Magali had cashed in her ticket.

Like I mean, she was so jazzed. You know she was so jazzed. She was she was hitting up the brandy heavy that night. I I had a couple quick ones. This one’s super quick, so we’ll go with it, but summer birthdays.

Harry Harry pretty much has a shitty birthday every year. I mean, we know he had with the Dursleys, but from 11 to 13 when he’s a wizard, really unfortunate. Obviously, in his 11th birthday, he found out he was a wizard, so that probably isn’t the worst, although he went off into the night with this giant man who he didn’t know, so that that could be concerning, but imagine if he was at Hogwarts during his birthdays. He would have the most magical birthdays. He’s the most famous wizard in wizarding world, and he’s at Hogwarts with all of his buddies.

He’s probably getting letters from all of these people across the world like, hey. Thanks. Really appreciate you. Even Malfoy is probably sending him love letters during his birthday. So, yeah, summer birthdays, Stockdown.

I, myself, had a summer birthday. I invited my whole class, and, 4 people came. So, I’m still a little bitter. I was 26. I think my last lockdown was minister of magic.

I’m just not really sure it’s an important job. Are we sure? Are we sure it’s an important job? Because the minister of magic’s part of his job is to oversee the execution of a Hippogriff at Hogwarts. It’s like, what?

This is the the most important person in the in the wizarding world, and he’s gotta go to Hogwarts to see this creature get murdered. I was thinking about it. I was like, maybe the ease of transportation in the wizarding world allows for so much more. Like, it’s not like he has to get on air force 1 and then, you know, spend hours and hours going across all these time zones or whatever. It’s just Great Britain.

He can take flu powder. He can apparate. He can ride a broom a 150 miles an hour. So maybe because of that, you have a, like, a fuller schedule and you’re able to do the little things, but shouldn’t that be farmed out? Like, aren’t there bigger and more important stuff to do?

Or I guess, potentially, he’s already in in Hogsmeade because he knows that Sirius Black’s there, but also, isn’t that for the the FBI special squad or something like that, the hit squad or whatever it’s called? I don’t remember what these things are. What are they called? Because Harry becomes the one. Right?

What are they called? Ar ours. Ores. Or yeah. Yeah.

Like, shouldn’t there just be, like, a fleet of ores taking care of this? I don’t know. It was Neville’s fault, and so don’t worry about that. Yeah. No.

Yeah. So I just wasn’t really sure about about the minister of magic. To me, Fudge seems like he’s like the the peacetime king. Right? Like, when there’s nothing wrong, he’s fine.

Like, a social chair, like, just make the rounds and say hi. But when shit hits the fan, like, just makes it many times worse than it actually is. Managed to lose 2 convicts within a matter of a couple hours by just leaving them both alone. Yeah. It’s a good point.

No clue what he’s doing. Yeah. He probably just walks around. People are like, oh, he’s got a bowler hat. Like, that’s that’s silly.

Isn’t that fun? Like, isn’t isn’t that fun? Isn’t the wizarding world fun because of this guy? And then when shit really hits the fan, he’s got he’s got nothing. Do we have a favorite chapter in mind?

And I’m only saying this because the Mooney wormtail padfoot and prongs chapter is one of my Alzheimer’s. That whole reveal of the serious pedigrew thing. Obviously, it hits a little different when you know it’s coming, but it’s still pretty much chills worthy. And even earlier on when they said, like, oh, didn’t you know Sirius Black was your dad’s best friend? It was like, what?

Any other parts of the book that that hit you good? For me, and this is more of a obscure, but I really like the the Bogart scene. I think it’s the first time that I feel like we’re in a classroom setting where we’re really learning something, where it’s, like, alright, here’s the problem, here’s the solution, and now let’s put it into real life. Yeah. Test it out.

I was, like, I wish I was in that classroom. Right? It just felt real, and I kinda wanna see what my Bogart would be Everyone’s. I think that’d be kind of a cool thing to see. I also just think, the obvious favorite character in this book was Lupin.

So that kind of really showed him, like, oh, he’s a really good teacher. He knows what he’s doing. And he’s an FDR disciple because he says, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself when he tells, Harry about that. But, anyways Yeah. Yeah.

I think he also said that day that Pettigrew lost his finger was a day that will live in infamy. Oh, and that’s, I don’t know what that part is. Progression. Yeah. Magic, what did what did you like?

Yeah. I mean, I agree with Keith. Right? Like, fave character is definitely Lupin by far. It has to be.

The best teacher they’ve had. Like, even the exam he gives them at the end, like, the obstacle course of everything they learned throughout the year, and of it being all useful stuff too. All these creatures have dark magic in them, and like here’s how to beat them, and I’m gonna test you on that. It’s not one chapter or scene per se, but all of the the one on ones with Harry and Lupin were my favorite parts of this book. I couldn’t agree with you more.

He’s so good. Keith, great point with the teaching element too because we’ve been in this school for a long time, and we really haven’t got a lot of classroom experience besides Snape just bullying children and McConnell here and there transfiguring stuff. We haven’t had anything successful, and it usually comes with the defense against, so that was the Boggart stuff, was was quite enjoyable, and Magic grade point with the final as well because it was pretty much just like American Gladiators or even Nickelodeon Guts. Like, at the end, it’s just like an obstacle course. Like, what a great sign ninja warrior.

It’s a ninja warrior, but then there’s evil creatures at each end. And since we’re talking about magical creatures, we do every episode, we talk about the the best magical creature, our favorite in in the book, and this is the best one so far for actual magical creatures and maybe the best of the series, if I’m thinking about it. We got redcaps, which are goblin like creatures that live wherever there’s bloodshed waiting to bludgeon those that get lost, and they said they live on battlefields, which made me think about what wizard battles must be like. It was like, what are ancient wizard battles like? Because that sounds super badass.

Can we can we have a shogun version of of Harry Potter? Because I wanna hear that even though there’s no battles in that book, god damn it. We got kappas, which are scaly monkey webted water dwellers that strangle people who wade into their ponds. Pretty fucked up. Hankypunks, one legged creatures that look like it’s made of smoke with a little dangling lantern.

It lures travelers into bogs, gets them lost, and fucks them up. Awesome. Flobberworms, not so cool. We’re not gonna spend any time on there. I don’t even know if we’d consider Crookshanks.

Would we consider Crookshanks a a magical creature? Because although he’s a cat, he has some interesting abilities. What say you? Yeah. I feel like he’s communicating with Sirius.

Right? So I feel like that’s not speaking English, though. I don’t understand how that worked, by the way. But yeah. Yeah.

Neither do I. And he got our boy Neville in trouble. So but we’ll allow it, though. I’m gonna allow it. And then, obviously, Boggarts, which we, talked about before, and then the big two, Hippogryphs and Dementors.

Magic, did you have a a favorite of that group? Well, you missed the Grindelos. Oh, of course. How could I? Which which may may or may come back into the to the slides.

Yeah. That’s a good point. Maybe I just forgot it because it’s thinking it’s, like, stuck in my mind. It’s, like, oh, we’ve already seen grindolas, but those are Cornish pixies that we saw in book 2. Mine actually veers off from your list a little bit.

I don’t know if you would consider it a creature, but I would throw the the night bus into contention. I had that under magical element. Elements. Fair enough. Either way, creatures are usually, like, living and breathing, but at the same time in in this story, there are interesting things that live and breathe.

So, I’ll I’ll allow it. Seems like so such a perfect thing in like a magical world of someone who’s just stranded and needs help. Like, well, there’s gotta be some sort of magic to get you out of this situation, right? If you can just stick out your wand arm, it helps on the way. Picture yourself.

It’s it’s late at night. You’ve thrown a couple back. You’re stranded in Harvard Square about to piss your pants. What better use for a night bus than that. Right?

Have a have a bathroom, have a bed, get your way home. Yeah. I mean, that’s that’s really key. As someone who may or may have been in that situation before, with someone else on this podcast, then yes. And then I was bullied, and you never stood up for me.

There’s a lot of there’s a lot of, things going on. There are a lot of crosses happening here. Keith, what did you have for a magical creature? Mine’s gonna be outside as well, and you might have had this as a magical element, but I had the monster book of monsters. Yeah.

That was also on a magical element. Well That’s fine. Too bad. That’s fine. That’s fine.

At least at least he’s closer than mine. The reason why, one, is it reminds me of Kramer’s coffee table Coffee table book. Coffee tables. Yeah. That turns into a coffee table.

I mean, it’s the exact same premise. I love it. And then 2, and I think we all can relate to this, but to stop the book from being so aggressive slash angry, what do you need to do to it, boys? You need to give it a good stroke. And I think we all can agree on that.

So there’s a life lesson in there. You gotta stroke its spine. Oh. What’s the difference? It’s like a massage.

I’ll take it. I don’t know. I honestly thought red caps were obviously, Dementors are, like, the most fucked up. So, like, we’re we’re there. And especially, Keith, you haven’t watched the 3rd movie yet.

No. I haven’t watched it yet. They did a good job with the Dementors, although, once again, stolen. Absolutely 100% stolen. Our boy, JR Tolkien, would have something to say about this, but, yeah, I mean, Demetrios, Hippogryph’s both wonderful, and Buckbeak, we’re gonna see Buckbeak more, which we love, but redcaps being these goblin creatures that live with his bloodshed and they’re waiting to bludgeon those that get lost, I’m thinking of a World War one battlefield.

Keith, we’ve read World War one books. We’ve seen the movies and whatnot. It’s just people spending days dying on the battlefield, and your guts are hanging out, and then all of a sudden, a goblin like creature stumbles up to you and starts beating you to death. This is pretty messed up. Pretty messed up.

I would think almost. Right? Yeah. But it’s probably not the last thing you wanna see before you die. Well, maybe they do see that, you know, in his lip just to tell the tale.

Or you’re the medic. You’re going out there to save someone, and there are a bunch of redcaps around, and they they bludgeon you, and your buddy’s laying there. He’s gotta walk. This Harry Potter world is pretty messed up. For magical elements, I had the night bus we just talked about, the monster book of monsters, crystal balls, the marauder’s map, the fire bolt I considered, and the time turner.

I feel like the Marauder’s map just because you would know all the scuttlebutt in the school. Like, you’d know what everyone was do which is kinda sketchy now that I’ve been saying it out loud. But I guess you’d know, like, who’s dating who and, like, who’s sneaking out. You’d you’d have a lot of, survivor type secrets if you if you’re playing the game of survivor. The Muradonite, that’s so cool, but we all think, oh, why wouldn’t everyone else come up with it?

Because I but I think it’s like the social network. It’s like Facebook. You had have to be this brilliant wizard to program it and make it. I think that’s why I thought it was kinda crazy. No one talks about, like, how the fuck do these dudes create this thing?

It’s, like, probably, like, insane magical talent to do it. Right? So it’s basically being, like, a programmer. I’ll burn a lingering question because how are these 4 guys and actually, 3 guys. Gonna throw a Pettigrew out because he’s a little No.

Yeah. He didn’t do shit. Yeah. How are these guys so intelligent and hardworking that they’re able to create a marauder’s map, become Animagi, and James Potter be the best Quidditch player since sliced bread, and Lupin be a werewolf. There’s just so much that they have to do, and they’re redid it within this time period of their 7 years there.

And granted, we don’t know what happened to them afterwards, but we know, obviously, Lupin being a werewolf, he eventually became a professor. He doesn’t have a ton of money. These guys should be the next billionaires in the wizarding world. Right? The next Galliunias.

Mhmm. So I just don’t even know how they had time to do all this stuff. Well, Harry and Ron and Hermione are just are doing the same stuff. They’re out there in Russian. They’re not creating.

They’re they’re living fast and loose. You know, they’re kind of coming up with solutions on the fly. They didn’t do with, Voldemort every single term, then they’d probably fucking creating stuff out of, thin air like these guys were. They don’t have the time to be the entrepreneurs that, their fathers were. So I guess, so Harry knows, like, 3 spells.

You know? How dare you, sir? I know he’s got he’s got gumption, and he’s got that it factor, but I want him on my team for sure, but he’s not the purple ninja turtle. He’s Steve Jobs. He’s put he’s surrounding himself with people that are important.

That that’s all you need to do. I mean, that’s a good CEO right there. Yeah. Sure. Sure.

I’ll allow it, but he’s he’s not creating the Marauder’s map. That’s for sure. He wouldn’t even know where to start. Steve Jobs didn’t create the iPhone, but he, he found the person to do it. Alright.

Best spell. And The mad magic, did you have one? Sorry. I I mean, one one point about the map and then one other magic element, which we didn’t discuss that I just thought of. I think it it’s worth bringing up what real ones, Fred and George, are for having the map for so long.

Seeing their brother sleeping with a dude named Peter Pettigrew every night and not telling anyone or not calling him out on it, just like letting him letting him figure himself out. Yeah. It is interesting. And obviously, it’s a lingering question as well. The other magic element that I just thought of was, what’s in that chocolate?

Everybody’s, like, eating chocolate and suddenly just, like, feels better. We is this laced with something? It’s, like, this can’t be just your standard chocolate. Right? No.

I disagree. Have you seen that episode of Band Brothers when they get into Holland? The GIs from, The 100 and First Airborne give that little Dutch kid a chocolate bar, and his eyes light up, and he has the biggest smile on his face even though he’s seen people murdered around him for the last 5 years, and his father looks over and goes, he’s never tasted chocolate. That’s why. That’s why.

Chocolate has that special, special, special thing. Mhmm. So I appreciate you bringing that up. Otherwise, we would have never talked about it. Chocolate just that’s what it is.

I mean, hell, if the wife goes 4 days without chocolate, we’re we’re in we’re in a tough situation over here. So, you know, I gotta make sure that she’s it’s like she’s seeing dementia’s left and right, so I gotta make sure she’s got all the chocolate she needs, especially when she’s 7 months pregnant. Do we have a favorite spell? We got a few more spells in this one that we haven’t had in other books. I’m gonna go through the ones I I had quickly.

Waddi Waddi, which is just an interesting game for spell. Lupin uses it against Peeves to get the chewing gum out of the keyhole. Not sure, but that also answers Magic’s previous listener mail about what you could do to peeves, so had to include that. Impervious, Hermione uses it so Harry’s glasses repel water. Genius, but also probably should become standard with glasses in the wizarding world.

And 2, Hermione probably should have thought of this when there was torrential downpours in the morning, they were walking down to the pitch, but no big deal. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. Ridiculous, of course. Lumos expelliarmus, we have those returns.

Obviously, we’re gonna have them every time. And then the other 2 I had were ferrula, which is when the bandages strapping to Ron’s feet to help splint his leg. Pretty useful. And Mobley corpus, which is a way to drag a body around that’s unconscious. Keith, save that.

You know, you might need it for your late night activities. I don’t know if anyone had any other ones. No. That was mine. Mobius Corpus.

I was thinking more of the the the magic reference earlier. Your buddy is a little bit hammered at the bar. He’s he’s a little bit bigger than you, and you just put that on him. You you put your wand out, and you get that bus, and you throw him in it, and it’s easy peasy lemon squeezy. I mean, that’s that’s that’s all we needed right now.

So you’re combining the night bus and the Mobley Corpus. Exactly. So get your night out settled. Because I think one thing people would say is, like, why do they need the night bus when they have flu powder and they have they can apparate? It’s like, well, flu powder relies on you being able to say things clearly, which you’re gonna be like, I’m I wanna go to tag and you’re gonna mess that up.

And then apparition is, like, very high and technical. So you don’t wanna do that and fuck up when you’re hammered. Right? So I think the bus is, like, is a kind of a necessary thing. Yeah.

It’s a great point. Apparition, you could get spliced. That would be terrible. And then the flu powder because you you assume in the wizarding world, everyone’s in a tavern that has these giant fireplaces that at any point, someone could just throw some flu powder and be like, I’m going home. But, yeah, you’d have no I bet you in the wizarding world you know those videos you see online sometimes of people that wake up in other people’s houses drunk Yeah.

Which happened to a buddy of mine. Pretty common. Yeah. Pretty funny, but maybe that happens all the time in the wizard world because everyone has a fireplace. There’s flu powder being used.

People are just like, I’m going home. Throw the flu powder in, and and who knows where they end up, but it’s probably someone’s living room. Magic, did you have a spell that, that you liked from from the book? It’s the pretty obvious one, the Patronus charm. Oh, I live in Yeah.

Wow. Obviously, the most useful in this book will definitely become useful as we go. Like, I couldn’t help when Harry was learning how to do it, I couldn’t help but think of the movie Hook, when Peter Pan’s learning how to fly. You’re doing it, Peter. Think of a happy memory.

And it’s like searching your searching your brain for like what your happiest memories are, but you can’t bullshit it. Right? Unless you’re truly happy, it’s not gonna work. I thought the answer was not to be happy. It was that you have to believe in yourself.

He was only able to do it when he knew he could do it. It. So it’s it’s basically it’s all mental, I figured. It is interesting that twist at the end when they’re like, how did you know you could do it? He said, well, I saw myself do it before.

Yeah. Positive reinforcement, positive thinking. Imagine yourself doing something. Yeah. That’s probably why because of that experience.

It’s why throughout the series, like, Harry just has the best patronus. The first time, it just worked out really well for him when he needed to call on it for a big thing. Yeah. With that being said, do you guys have an idea of what your patronus slash, if you could be an animagus, your animal would be? I’m going with the the river hawk, the one that, you know, we have everywhere in Cape Cod, which is the osprey, which is my my favorite bird because I think flight is important.

Well, I feel like it’s not that important in this world, though, when you can fly. With a broom? Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good point.

But still, I’m still gonna go with it because it’s just a badass animal. I was thinking my initial one would be one of my favorite animals, the killer whale, the orca. But, really, on land, it wouldn’t be so useful. Fair enough. Yeah.

I’d be just flopping around. What did you have, Keith? I’d be a cheetah. I think you’re the the fastest land animal. 0 to 60 in, like, 3 seconds.

Much faster than a fireball. I wonder when you are a cheetah, if you have to also, like, consume like, cheetahs can run that fast, but then they have to lay down. They’re like you after Thanksgiving, after, you know, after you eat that fast. It’s like, I just gotta lay down for, like, 2 hours. It’s lucky that I don’t have to have an imagination about this as someone who’s taken the the Patronus quiz many, many years ago and have been thoroughly satisfied with my result of an Irish wolfhound.

Oh. Those are like the ones from Robin Hood. Right? Yeah. The they’re big.

Irish wolfhounds are reserved, soft spoken, and patient with a quiet inner strength to remain calm in stressful situations. Oh, wow. So I said, yep. Giddy up. And and, yes, those are the dogs from Robin Hood Prince and Thieves with Kevin Costner.

If you haven’t seen it, go see it. Best movie ever. We already talked about characters, so I’m not gonna go too deep into it because we all agree on Lupin. It has to be Lupin is the wife’s number one character throughout the entire series. She actually said Lupin and Tonks.

I’ll allow it. I’ll allow it. She’s not had chocolate for a couple days, so I had to I had to allow it. But, Sirius Black, we get intro. These are only new characters.

Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, Trelawny, Stan and Ernie of the night bus, Aunt Marge, Cornelius Fudge. And as magic throughout there, we get Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang who will play into later books. I mean, I feel like all these people kind of, except for a Marge, kind of play into into the later books. So we’re getting back into new characters, which I feel like we didn’t have a ton of in book 2. Quickly, let’s go through some love hate stuff.

Keith, what did you love about Prisoner of Azkaban? Love wise, Fred and George just around Percy, just just awesome. I think that this is one thing too that growing up in New England. Tell me magic if I’m wrong, but when someone thinks they’re too good to get on their high horse, big New England thing is just Think you’re better than me? Yeah.

You fucking think you’re better than me, kid. You just start shitting on them immediately. Fred and George pulled this off perfectly around Percy. I was laughing constantly anytime, like, Percy’s around and they’re together. Amazing.

I think that’s just must be a mass hole thing. We’re all fine setting gentlemen where I Yeah. Okay. Alright. What about in Italy?

When you lived in Italy, were they like that? Think, oh, Boccona Pepa. Oh, no. My time in Italy was filled with with curse words, and everybody trying to outdo one another. So it sounds like New England except with, Yeah.

We have craft shake parmesan, and there they they grate it. What did you have for Love’s Magic? I loved all of the the connections we get to Harry’s parents in this from getting to meet some of their friends. Thought the the way that Harry in the beginning with the Dementors when he could hear his mother and eventually father’s voice, but didn’t fully wanna, like, let that go because he had never had that to them. I thought that was a really unique way to look at it.

I know I don’t like that, but it’s like I’ve never heard them before. Now, I hear them. Like, I don’t wanna get rid of that. And it’s pretty fucked up premise too, the idea you hearing your parents in their death throes, but wanting to hear that because you haven’t heard their voices before. Although, I feel like in the mirror of Erised, he probably heard their voices and could internalize that, but I know that wasn’t their actual selves.

But, yeah, it’s pretty messed up, but also understandably conflicting. I think that’s a that’s a really good point. Did you though, Magic, because it was in one of my hates, did you have any issue with Lupin playing extremely coy to the fact that him and James Potter were best friends and knew each other super well, and I’m sure he had tons of awesome stories about his dad to tell Harry, but instead was just like, yeah. I knew your dad. No.

I don’t really blame him. I think he was already showing a little bit of favoritism towards Harry and, like, being a werewolf teacher at a school. He’s already on pretty thin ice, like, as we found out at the end, enough to to lose his job. So I think not trying to to shake his position too much, and he didn’t know Harry yet. Now that he’s met him, like, obviously, toward the end, we get a lot of that, but that’s that’s after we’ve had all those that time together and gotten to know each other.

Yeah. I just feel like he would you don’t it’s not favoritism to just say, like, oh, I knew knew your dad. I had a teacher in high school whose son was in the class. I wasn’t like, oh, he’s giving him an a because he’s his son. Maybe I thought it, but, just say, hey.

Just so you know, like, your parents really did love you. You know, just give him something. Throw the kid a bone here. The only thing he’s gotten so far is Hagrid giving him a, picture book of, you know, of of his of his parents. So I have the Quidditch final as mine, which we’ve already talked about, and I love throughout all of the Harry Potter books.

I love the sneak peeks into the future that we get, you know, the breadcrumb trails. And I think we’ve talked about this before, but Joe Rowling does such a great job of leaving these for us and having such a wonderful outline that we’re able to then, on rereads, follow them back. Dumbledore saying that when Harry’s like, oh, hey. Trelawny kinda went crazy, and I think she had a seizure, and Dumbledore’s like, oh, she now has 2 correct predictions. We all know, oh, what her other prediction was, and it also Dumbledore not being so surprised by it, it just shows that Dumbledore knows that that first prediction.

I guess guess what I’m trying to say is this whole time when Dumbledore is like, oh, Voldemort’s kind of back. Voldemort’s kind of back, and Dumbledore doesn’t seem to flinch or be that concerned about it is because he knows. You know? He knows about that. So having read the future books and then rereading these, it’s like, oh, shit.

You see all this stuff. I love all the the breadcrumb trails out there. And then even the Snape issues, although he’s having them with the gang of, like, Lupin and Sirius, but that gang, We learn so much more in later books, and it allows us to feel a little bit worse, 1st Nate, but then also he’s such a dick throughout this that it just goes away immediately. Did you have anything else you you love that you wanna call out, Keith? I had a couple quick ones.

And I went meant I meant to mention this in the last couple books too, but the way that JK describes, like, eating and then being sleepy after and being like and then they went right to bed because they were so tired. There’s something about it that just makes me reminds you of being a kid and, like, trying to stay up late but you’re, like, so tired and you had such a good day. Yeah. That doesn’t happen anymore. The book near the end, I hadn’t even got to the ending yet and I was like, the book could end good right now and no drama could happen.

I’d I’d love this book. Because it was just, like, I’ve been in the Hogwarts for a year. This is great. Yeah. It was a good year at Hogwarts.

It really was. Magic, you got anything else for love? It’s it’s kind of along that line of one of the biggest turning points in the story of, like, where things start to get a little darker. It wasn’t not that, like, the first two books were, like, a monster of the week per se, but they didn’t solve all of the problems in this one. Right?

Like Pettigrew cut away, and that’s gonna, like, obviously play a huge part of where we go now. Yeah. But it wasn’t like, yep. We had our year at Hogwarts. We beat the bad guy at the end, and let’s reset it for next year.

Yeah. Good point. That’s the best point, I think, really. You win the house cup. The first two is like, oh, a re is this becoming serialized where it’s just, you know, gonna be one story and then we kind of rehash it and it’s the same story over again, but, like, slightly different?

And this one, it’s just totally on its own. And, additionally, with the first two, the final scenes with, you know, fighting that monster, your monster of the week, like you said, it’s only, like, 30, 40 pages, maybe if that. And this one, we get a super long, drawn out situation, drawn out in a good way, I mean, with them at the Shrieking Shrek and then everything happens, and so, wow, that was crazy. Sirius is about to die, and you realize, holy smokes, there’s still more time in this book, and they time turn and do it all over again, but from a different perspective. It was awesome.

Like, it really is. I can remember as I was listening because I read some of it and then listened to it. As I was listening to the end of it, I can remember reading it for the first time and 100% not putting the book down from the second they go out to Hagrid’s hut to see Buckbeak’s murder until the end. And it’s hard to be that much of a page turner where you’re just crushing it like that. Yeah.

Any hates for you, Keith? Hermione was kind of a buzzkill at times. I feel like I wouldn’t necessarily trust her as a friend if you’re like, listen. I’m going to use this broom. She also like took the bottle away from Hagrid and told him to stop drinking.

He’s an adult. Let let him, like, blow off some steam. You know what I mean? Like, there’s a couple of things where I was like, just you don’t know better than everyone, Hermione at all times, you know? Like, let people live.

Make let them make their own mistakes. Yeah. So didn’t didn’t care. That’s why you, like, don’t trust the person anymore as a as a friend. So I didn’t care for it.

See it, but at the same time, she and Harry’s she always has everyone’s best interests Agreed. In her mind. You know what I mean? Like, the Hagrid stuff is, like, I kind of agree. It’s, like, that’s kinda weird.

At the same time, Hagrid does have his issues. You can warn the person and say, this is my opinion. This is what you should do. But then after that, you, like and they say, I disagree. You you can’t just go over their head now.

I don’t like that. You don’t like her knocking, saying she didn’t knock to McGonig? Yeah. I think you gotta be, like, this is what I believe you should do. Things happen and then you let me learn.

And then for the rest of her life, she thinks Harry’s death’s on her hands because she didn’t stop him. Hey. You tell someone not to touch the stove 10 times because it’s hot and then they reach out and touch it. The only way they’re gonna learn is if they touch it at one point, then they’ll never do it again. Right?

So Harry’s gotta he’s gotta live his own experiences. Can’t just be holding his hand at all times. Coming from a stove toucher, I get it. Magic, what about you? Any any hates?

I think anytime that you’re introducing the idea of time travel, it’s pretty tricky to, like, establish the rules. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s hard because the like you just said, the last chapter or 2 of the book when they have that whole time traveling scene is, like, so riveting and you can’t put it down. And I think it’s really well done and that the original events are already explained by the time traveling thing.

Mhmm. But how they, like, the way that she introduces the time turner to the story by having Hermione do that for classes, I don’t really think I love that because as as it’s mentioned many times, we must not be seen, we must not be seen. Yet she’s in 3 classes at once with all these other students, and then Ron and Ernie are comparing notes about seeing Hermione. Yeah. So the rules of that, like, throughout the school year, I thought was a little iffy, but obviously willing to forgive it for for what we get at the end.

Yeah. It wasn’t in my notes, but I couldn’t agree with you more. And I will say the only movie that did it really well was, Timecop featuring Jean Claude Van Damme. Go back and watch that. Great film.

But but, yeah, the whole thing of them saying we should be seen, but then it’s, like and they’re asking her the whole time, hey, how are you in all these classes? They could very easily figure it out. They could be like, hey, Ernie. Hermione thinks that she was in class, so, yes, she was with me. It’s like, no, she was with me.

You found out. Out. And, honestly, my only biggest gripe about the Time Turner, because I do think that JK handled it pretty well, is that it created the Cursed Child, which is not canon, and if they have people have the ability to do that kind of thing with time turners. They wouldn’t just give them to children where, like, Hermione could just go back to pre Voldemort and, like, do some messed up stuff. But it’s like, oh, they trust her because she’s a good student.

She could lose it. Someone could steal it from her. Crookshank could take it off her neck. Give it to Sirius. Sirius could go back and change every I mean, Harry could take it and be, like, hey.

No, Hermione. We’re not going 3 turns. We’re going 50 turns, and I’m going to save my parents. Lingering questions, Keith. What lingering questions do you have?

Where did you govern them in your heads? I have just one. Did Harry’s parents get great life insurance? How does he have so much money in the bank? And what type of company is issuing life insurance policy when you know Voldemort is trying to kill them?

Yeah. I mean, you answered your own question because they created the Marauder’s map in in high school and also where it became Animagi. So his dad obviously had some sort of side business that was, like, wizarding technology, like, poop powder. You don’t even have to poop. You just put a little poop powder in your shorts, and the poop goes to a waste dump, like, a 100000 miles away.

Great answer. I wasn’t expecting but that that answers it completely. I mean, obviously, duh, this is Yeah. Easiest. If you didn’t give me the example of poop out, I wouldn’t have no idea what you’re talking about.

But that example really solidified it. And the poop got solidified up. Yay. Yeah. I got it.

Yeah. Nader, did you have any lingering questions? 10 out of 10. No notes. House cup.

Keith, who gets your house cup for this one? I’m gonna go in front of this one because I know this one might be, down the road. You guys already referenced it, a bunch, but Cho Chang gets my house cup. Woah. What?

Yeah. Yeah. You like that? Because she batted the eyelashes at Harry a couple of times. So if you didn’t have a crush on Cho Chang and this this is the first inanimate object I had a crush on, is that what’s called an animate object?

Non human, non real person? Your mattress was the first, but yeah. Go on. Goddamn it. This is bringing back some waves of memories of, falling in love with Cho Chang.

And, my future prediction, I don’t know what happens, but I think he’s gonna marry, marry Cho Chang, and they’re gonna live happily ever after. And so we’ll see what happens. Oh, I love it. Magic, who is your house cup? I think we’re all on the same page, and I’d like to get out ahead of this one too, and go with Crook Shanks.

Oh, yeah. That’s what feels good about. Little mister not falling for any of this bullshit. Knew the whole time. Was it the sneak scope?

I don’t think we talked about was going crazy the whole point. Yeah. That’s good. No one paid any mind except for Crookshanks. Like, something’s not right here.

Figured it out. Got in league with with Sirius and was was pretty much an integral part of of uncovering the big truth here, and I don’t think any of this happens without Crookshanks’ involvement. Yeah. Crookshanks is like the Internet sleuth. Don’t fuck with cats.

Right there. Here we go. Don’t fuck with Crookshanks. So my house cup was actually going to go to the inventor of the sneoscope because it sees through Peter Pettigrew being a rat, which it feels like everything has the like, all the magical elements so far have this asterisk. I mean, even Harry’s invisibility cloak, which we learn later, is, like, one of the most magical things.

It’s like Frodo’s me thrill, but even that, Dumbledore kind of can see through it, and on the Marauder’s map, right, Harry can be seen when he’s on it. So it’s, like, how strong is that? But the stinker scope seemingly can see through everything. So whoever invented that, props to them. I’m also gonna give an honorary honorary mention to to Dumbledore because throughout all of this series, the institutions, the authority is always wrong.

They they can’t get their shit together, and they lead us astray and us being the characters because we’re obviously characters in this book. But Dumbledore is like, yeah. Fuck it. Like, I’m gonna make up the rules. Yeah.

You’re not supposed to time turn, Hermione. Use time turning to go and save these people. Oh, you’re not supposed to do this. Harry, don’t worry about it. Just just go.

Just go handle it. Although, we do have issues with him putting all of his resolve into a a 13 year old boy, but save time. Dumbledore gets an honorary mention honorable mention as well. Before we get out of here, we have to finish our rankings. I’ll start with Magic.

You’ve read the whole series, and you didn’t read the first two with us. But how does Azkaban rank in your 7? I mean, the first three, I think, is a pretty consensus 312. In the 7, it’s definitely top 2. Hammering it down in in top 2.

And on a reread, it it felt like it it deserved to still be there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Keith, we’ve only done the first three so far. Where does it rank for you?

312 as well. I do think that for me I remember 3 being one of my favorites, but for me, the the reveal wasn’t obviously didn’t hit as hard. So and I was, like, getting angry with them being, like, just ask the right questions. So a little bit were taken away from me for that, but I still think it’s starting to hit its stride. You can obviously see on this book.

Yeah. 3312, couldn’t agree with you more. And I agree at the reveal point, you’re just, like, serious. Tell these people to shut the hell up and start explaining yourself Yeah. And not being, you know, being around the bush here.

Bigulous. Yeah. Time is of it. It’s like, yeah. I did kill your parents.

Like, he said it. He just said it. But, woah. Hold on. Hold on.

That’s not exactly what I meant. That went on for, like, 10 pages. I was like, just get to the freaking point, Sirius. I loved it. I’m excited to continue because I remember Goblet being I mean, I know I love Goblet, but I I I’m excited to do it.

And I’m really excited to watch the movie with you, Keith, because you haven’t seen this one and it’s a great movie. Magic, it has a bit I mean, your name is Magic. Why wouldn’t we have you on for Harry Potter? But No. You know, it’s been an absolute honor once again 4 times.

4th time is is not enough. If you wanna come on for a later episode, do let us know because we’d love to have you back. Thanks thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. And, Keith, I’ll catch you for the movie, hopefully, like, next week because I’m excited to watch it.

My brother-in-law hasn’t seen or read any of these, and he’s, like, I’m gonna start watching Harry Potter tonight. I was, like, oh, wow. Don’t fucking tempt me with a good time, buddy. I I wish I could get my mind, Obliviate. Obliviate.

Yeah. Obliviate. Got it. Yeah. Alright.

Well, that was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of the Squid Game. Check out next time for the film version before we get on to Goblet of Fire. Keith, magic, it’s been real. Alright. Alright.

Bye now. Bye bye.