Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – J.K. Rowling – Episode 110
The Buddies are now onto the sixth chapter of their magical journey with “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” by J.K. Rowling. The Buddies explored vital wizarding matters including: the questionable ethics of love potions at a high school, the surprising benefits of writing in used textbooks, and whether Dumbledore needed better threat assessment training. The Buddies also tackled life’s deeper questions, like whether Harry’s romantic strategy aligns with the D.E.N.N.I.S. system, and if Ginny Weasley is actually the only person at Hogwarts having a normal teenage experience. So grab your bottle of liquid luck, cause we’re snogging it up this episode (did we use that right)?
Intro (0:00-0:46)
Stock Up/Down (0:47-30:28)
Favorite Scene/Character/Magical Elements (30:29-42:03)
Love/Hate (42:04-55:01)
Conclusion (55:02-1:00:50)
NEXT Episode: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – MOVIE
NEXT BOOK: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂
Alright. Welcome to Book Club. I’m Dylan here with the Full Blood McGonagall. Keith, what’s up, buddy? You never go full blood, Dylan.
You never go full blood. Little tropic thunder reference. Nice. Here at the Buddy Book Club, we’re breaking down some bestsellers. This week, we’re entering the Vanishing Cabinet, sneaking into Hogwarts, and chatting about Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling.
If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to us on any past episodes, you can visit our website, go to bookhub.com. Send us now all on Twitter or Instagram, go to bookhub podcast. You list those as action on Spotify or review podcast. Please download. Give us a 5 star review.
If nothing else, give us a follow on some social channels, please, and thank you. Once again, disclaimer for the Harry Potter series. There are gonna be spoilers. Keith, let’s jump into stock up, stock down. What do you have for stock up on the half lip prints?
Yeah. Stock up. Airplanes making you emotional. Have you have you had experienced this where you’re, like, on an airplane and you’re reading or you’re listening to music or watching a movie and you’re you’re just much more likely to, like, tear up or feel things? Yeah.
It’s it’s an interesting phenomena because I feel like it is. I I was watching porn on an airplane one time, and I got the absolutely raging boner. And and then I started crying. No. I I I have I have noticed it, though.
There’s a few experiences. One, I started to, like, cry. Another time, I was watching Her. Have you seen that movie? And that was when the airplane had only, like, a few movies you could watch.
It wasn’t, like, you know, pick your own adventure situation. And that movie is so bad. I hated it so much, and I was looking around at other people watching it and being so angry. So talk about another emotion I was feeling. I was so angry.
It’s like, this movie’s terrible. I didn’t I didn’t think it was that bad. I don’t know. Just get a fleshlight like the rest of us. And Right.
And the third I follow that. Third experience was I was on a trip to Vegas, and I was watching on my iPad, I was watching some Anthony Bourdain no reservations, and they were slaughtering a pig, which was extreme. It was showing everything, and I was like, I looked to the person next to me, and I was like, I’m so sorry. I did not realize this was gonna be happening. And she was like, it Then you turned your hardcore porn back on.
Right? You said she was like No. She she was like, it’s alright. This is why I’m a vegetarian. And I was like, oh, cool.
Cemented her values. So, yeah, emotions do fly high in the airplane. Let me get to your point. Yeah. I was for some reason, I was experiencing those same emotions when I read this book with with, Dumbledore.
The the obviously, the last the the last ending part of the book. There was this weird discharge coming from my eyes. I don’t know what was happening. I wasn’t even on an airplane and all this stuff was happening. So I guess these are what normal people have the emotions, but I was I was tearing up.
I didn’t know Dumbledore died in this. Oh. I wasn’t ready for it. What? I thought it was book 7.
Right. Yeah. I thought it was a bit I thought it was early in book 7 that it happened. Definitely hit me much harder than knowing it was coming. I wasn’t prepared for it.
So, yeah, that was that was a bit shocking. The one thing I will say too is you’re talking about the anger and, the about the movie Her and, the emotions you’d feel there. When Umbra showed up to the funeral at the end, which, again, I don’t remember any of the funeral stuff, I think you just murder her. Right? Like, I’d go to Azkaban for that.
I’m I’m fine with that. Like, my darkest, like, biggest enemy showed up to my funeral. I think you can just kill that person. I think that’s fair game. I think that, like, any judge would be, like, well, they kinda had that coming.
They gotta throw that out. Yeah. Who also was so horrible to Dumbledore in the previous, you know, the previous times we’ve seen her. It’s like, what are you doing here? You don’t I would at least make a scene.
Like, you do not disagree. I didn’t know she was in the books. I honestly thought after book 5, she went to a sane asylum and, like, we never heard from her again. And then she’s in book 7. And I was like, what the hell?
She’s terrible in books. Ugh. Yeah. I’m I’m pissed that she’s still alive. Which double blur, I’m I’m gonna get to later.
This is a this is more of, like, a a u a positive eulogy, but I have some negative stuff to talk about now. We can’t buy this. Don’t you worry. Don’t you worry. Yeah.
My first stock up and I couldn’t agree with you more, by the way, and we will have more to discuss about Dumbledore. I am sure of that. But my first stock up is used textbooks stock up. Normally, you buy a used textbook and all you get is, like, some pages ripped out and, you know, penises drawn on every other page. They’re never more helpful.
It was never a thing that you buy a used textbook and and they become more helpful. I feel like college was a big place for used textbooks. Like, in high school, they just give them to you, and then in college, like, somehow, they don’t tell you there’s, like, an extra $5,000 you have to spend on textbooks. Half the classes, you don’t even need the textbook, and they’re like, yeah. This will be a $125.
Like, what? Oh, yeah. It was absurd. At least where I went to school, they had, like, their version of the textbook, so you couldn’t even buy a used one. And then it would change every year.
It’d be like a new volume, but it had no it was no difference. All they did was, like, mix up all the chapters so you couldn’t follow along. You know, it’s it’s it was so messed up. It’d be like a history class on the civil war, and it’s like, and what now you have to buy the new versions. Like, what what changed within the last 1 year that you didn’t the civil war?
Exactly. But, you know and then you buy those used textbooks, and either you’d go to the class and the professor would say, oh, I’m sorry. That’s not gonna work for this class. And then you’re out, however much you spent on that. And then you get that used textbook, and it would be gross.
Like, it’d be like someone had dropped it into it would look like Tom Riddle’s diary after Ginny, like, dropped it in the toilet and Moaning Myrtle, like, blew her snot boogies on it. So the half blood prince, we just gotta give a shout out to him because he actually paid attention to his potions, you know, advanced potions book. And on top of that, not only provided advanced potions, but then it provided lots of other spells and charms that could be performed by whoever found that later on. I almost don’t know why Snape got rid of that book or how that book maybe I guess it ended up in the potions cabinet because maybe Snape was keeping it there and then he became Defense Against the Dark Arts professor and he was like totally forgot about everything potions related because he was just like, oh my god. I finally got the job.
This is amazing. Yeah. The the only thing that makes sense to me would be that that was the book he used as a teacher, not as a Oh. I don’t understand how, as a student, you’d be able to do all of these experiments and do all this learning and all this stuff. So how would you ever be able to test this unless you became professor and then you start going through the textbook and be like, no.
This is what I I would do it. Yeah. That makes a lot more sense, actually. I was also wondering. It’s like, okay.
His advanced potions book, he’s not even getting until, like, his 5th or 6th year. How much time is he actually gonna spend doing potions and stuff? So, yeah, that makes a lot more sense that he just continuously improved on that over time. So it was really like you remember how they used to sell the teacher’s manual for the textbook? You’d buy the textbook, but the teacher would also have a textbook, but it had like, more information and stuff like that.
That was what his was, basically, is what he turned the picture. Oh, I like that. I like that. Yeah. So use textbook.
Stock up. What else, what else do you have for stock up? Michael Jordan’s Secret Stuff Water Shop. Me? Have you ever seen Space Jam?
Yeah. Of course. I feel like I’ve stocked up this, but this might have been, like, stock up for, like, an episode 5 or 10 or something like that. Our 10th episode? Yeah.
It’s a very specific stock. But you’re still buying. But for those that are are in the know yeah. I’m still buying. In Space Jam, great, great movie, not the new one.
We’re gonna even count that that’s not, as d man would say, canon. The Tune Squad is getting absolutely demolished at halftime, and everyone’s like, why can’t we play, like, Michael? Why can’t we play, like, Michael? And Bugs Bunny, being the the smart rabbit that he is takes a, just a water bottle and slaps on a tag that says Michael’s secret stuff on it. So like, like Michael Jordan’s been drinking some, some basically HGH or steroids or well, I don’t know what.
But that’s what’s giving him all these powers. Right? It’s all mental is basically what it comes down to. Right? And the same thing happens in this.
Ron thinks he gets Felix, Felicis, and he’s like, now everything is gonna be easy for me. Everything’s gonna be lucky. I’m gonna be a complete stud. And he is because it’s all mental. Well, you have that mindset, the that attitude with at life, then that happens.
So sock up to that. I wish I could do the same thing as well as that Ron does. We all just need, like, our morning coffee. We need the significant others to be coming in and being like, oh, I slipped some genius potion in there and just like, oh, I guess I’m a genius today. Amazing.
I also had stock up for associated with that, which was the placebo effect. So I liked yours much better, by the way. Okay. Yeah. I just I thought it was I thought it was a nice little touch there.
And he fooled the reader. Harry did a good job of it because he does, like, the whole I’m trying to hide it, but shows his hand. You know? He did a real it’s almost like an Ocean’s 11 type move kind of thing that he did there. You know?
And then in general, though, like, I kinda wanted to talk about Felix Felicis because it’s a it’s a fascinating potion. And to me, like, the description of Harry after he took it, you know, like his experience, it kinda seemed like like that 2 to 3 drink summer high you get. You know, if you have, like, your second or third drink where you’re fully you’re still fully hydrated and fully cognitive. There’s no there’s none of the negative effects of alcohol. It just puts this kinda glow on this summer day.
You’re about to go to the beach or something like that. It’s just like Yep. You’re just walking around feeling like the entire world is on your side. 2, 3 twisted teas and you’re about to do do something. Yeah.
That’s that’s kind of what the Felix Felicis was, you know. I picture it just like a giant vat of some vodka iced tea with big old icebergs of magic ice in there. That’s a great comment because I that was gonna be my favorite magical element. I was gonna ask you, is there anything in the world that’s like that? And you kinda nailed it.
The only thing that you didn’t nail is that literally I could do that every single day. Yeah. That’s the problem. You can’t do Felix releases every single day. I could do 2 to 3 toities and go to the beach every single day for the rest of my life.
That would be no issue with me. That’s why I was like, oh, is it like meth? Yeah. When they first started talking about it, I was like, oh, this is kind of like what people that are, like, microdosing acid must feel like. You know?
Yeah. But Well, yeah, you can’t do it off of that either. Is that not that much of a problem? You, like, think you can fly or something like that. I I don’t think there’s a problem with microdosing acid.
I think the problem is people that just, like, take lots and lots of acid and then get get psychosis. And then also the love potion, that was just roofies. Right? So I I don’t know what that that was weird. That was a weird part of the book.
Part of the book, especially because they were so prominent, these love potions. And it seems like a serious violation. You should be getting sent to Azkaban if you’re giving someone love potions all the time. And this Especially because you’re slipping into this Oh, yeah. A 100%.
And Yeah. You know, it’s not like, couples in couple therapy, you know, taking some ecstasy and then having a a nice night with each other. You know, this is like your who’s the Jell O guy? Bill Cosby. Yeah.
You’re Bill Cosby slipping someone to Mickey. Like, this is not appropriate. And these teenagers are just slipping people love potions all willy nilly, and it seems like the school is kinda turning a blind eye on it. I I, you know, I don’t know if Dumbledore’s slipping. Actually, I know Dumbledore’s slipping.
But, yeah, the the love potion thing seemed a bit confusing. And it seemed like anyone could brew it. Or or wait. Were the Weasleys selling it? Is that what it was?
Yeah. The Weasleys were selling it. That was a little bit Yeah. Yeah. Questionable.
Like, what? So people can just go into a store? Seems like a lot of liability there. Yeah. I think that’s you’re gonna sue it for a while.
The ministry is just not, you know, doing their job of regulating these dangerous potions. I mean, we already know the effect when we hear back to, Voldemort’s mom’s story. You know, we know the effect of these love potions. JK puts out someone who had actually done it and given it to someone. She’s somewhat of a creature based on the inbreeding, which I’m sure we’ll get to as well.
But and she the the the local town, Gaston, she gets on her side because she given these love potions for, like, a significant amount of time that he sires a child with her, and the only reason why she can’t keep him is because she loves him so much that she has to stop giving him the love potion. Seems like it’s it’s it’s a schedule a drug or schedule 1 or whatever the schedules are. My next stock up is the dentist system. Is anyone familiar with the dentist system? Any Always Sunny fans out there?
Well, I have to say that Harry executes the system very well in his relationship with Ginny. He, d, demonstrates value when he saves her from diary Tom Riddle. E, engages physically. You know, they snog after the Quidditch victory. Nurture dependence.
He starts the DA, acts as her protector. He brings all these people into the DA. You know, he’s like, oh, Ginny, don’t worry. As long as I’m on your side, dark wizards, the ministry, no one’s gonna get to you. That’s nurturing dependence.
Neglect emotionally, the last 6 years, he’s pretty much not paid a ton of attention to her even though he knows that she’s into him. And he when he finally does get her, he doesn’t take her on dates, you know, have any real heart to heart say, oh, no. Sorry. I’m too busy with Dumbledore saving the world. Like, we’ll go back and snog later.
So neglects emotionally for sure. Inspires hope. Absolutely. He he gets her to believe that after all these years, we’re together. We’re gonna be going steady, but s separate entirely.
He uses Voldemort as an excuse to break up with her without having her feelings hurt and with also being able to keep her on the line. So going forward, if he ever needs to pull her back in, like in book 7, when they start snogging again, he just executes it perfectly, where although he separates entirely, he still leaves that little breadcrumb trail in case he needs to go back there, and she can’t be mad at him about it. So I would say that he, he executes the dentist system better than has ever been executed, honestly. That’s an incredible pull. I have no notes, and that’s that’s gonna be the clip right there.
It’s it’s easy. That’s a genius right there. You must have got slipped some genius out of potions. I got a little Felix Felicis in my corona that I’m having right now. Damn it.
Last one real quick. Slughorn pulls a move where he ruins his entire house because he doesn’t want visitors. I had to stock that up. You know, stocking up. If you don’t want people to come over your house, just start messing everything up.
And if for us in the non wizarding world, it’s a little more difficult because then you have to, like, put it all together yourself. But you could just, like, mess up kind of, like, one area and then take a picture of it, send to whoever’s coming over and be like, sorry. We got robbed. Can’t come. They’re never gonna follow-up.
They’re gonna be like, oh my god. That’s terrible. You’ll be like, yeah. Yeah. Did they take anything?
No. Actually, nothing got stolen, you know? Oh, okay. Cool. That’s it.
No one’s gonna wanna bring that up to you because they’re gonna be like, that was a horrible memory for them. Why would I go back and ask them if anything ever came of that? So easy peasy. Just just drive around. No visitors.
Smart. Alright. Alright. Fair enough. Stuck down.
What do you got? Dumbledore, stuck down. Weirdest. I mean, this this give me a long rant. I I we had to someone had to do it.
He’s in one of mine too. He he’s stuck down as Dumbledore as my last one. I mean, Dumbledore had a rough book. He finally starts meeting with Harry and giving him the backstory, which I appreciated. That was nice.
But, I mean, the first thing is, Dumbledore’s, like, disposition is kind of this whimsical talks and riddles. You know, it never really gives us full straight answer, which fine. That’s your character. That’s what you do. But then Harry starts, like, asking follow-up questions, and he starts kinda, like, getting upset with him, which pissed me off.
I was like, yo. But start answering the question, and then Harry won’t have to, you know, give a follow-up. And, like, also, if you’re trying to give him this huge big project, maybe stop leaving out all the gaps. Like, we saw this happen last year. Talked about this the previous year when you’re like, sorry.
I should never have done that, and you’re still doing it. It’s almost like he likes having power with people, so he doesn’t fill everyone in on everything. You can be whimsical, but you then you can’t get angry when someone asks a follow-up. Now we actually have a little bit of this, like, angry Dumbledore. Not, like, angry, but, you know, he’s coming out of his shell a little bit in this book.
Mhmm. Imagine Michael Gambon doing this version of Dumbledore. Because when Dumbledore is as chill as possible, that 2 to 3 twisted t jumbledore, and Michael Gambon’s yelling, did you put your name in the hot the Goblet of Fire? Imagine what he’s gonna do with this one. But, he’s gonna be, like, doing the torture curses on him.
Harry. Nextly, the biggest thing Harry keeps telling him and what Dumbledore keeps waving off is, like, yo, Malfoy, there’s an issue with him. There’s something going on with Malfoy. And he’s like, yeah. Yeah.
Don’t worry about it. Do you think I wouldn’t know everything that’s going on? Turns out he didn’t know everything that’s going on. He turns out he didn’t know shit. Like, he lets death eaters into the castle with tons of innocent students and a werewolf running around the castle with tons of innocent students.
This is the same people that were shitting all over Neville for leaning out, like, leaving out a piece of paper. Let that one down. This no. I’m not. No one says anything about this.
Dumbledore, like, that’s your one job is to protect the students, and you didn’t even, like, look into it when Harry’s literally given it to me, like, 6 or 7, like, hints about it. Okay. So he comes clean at the end that he knew about the Malfoy thing from the beginning. That’s my next point. Gone.
And that’s my that’s the biggest thing is that it’s revealed that Dumbledore knew the whole time about Malfoy. We need a a Mark what’s his name? Mark Ruffalo. He knew, and he let him get away with it. That was about raping children.
This is just about werewolves. Spotlight. That’s the movie. Yeah. Yeah.
I gotcha. I gotcha. Yeah. He’s always he’s like, yeah. I knew this whole time.
However, what is the solution now that they’ve finally confronted it? He’s like, well, I’ll protect you and your family. Then why didn’t you just say that at the very beginning? What was the reason? There is no reason if the whole thing is, like, I can confront them and then I’ll go protect them, if that’s all you’re gonna do.
He wasn’t like he was gaining more information or doing anything different or do there was no reason not to do that right off the bat. Why wait until things reach that head or basically a point of no return for Malfoy? Whereas, you could, after the slug horn he he gets Ron or even after the Katie Bell situation, you could have just called him to your office, sat him down when it’s just you 2, and you kind of have a little pressure on him because it’s now just you 2 and you’re like, hey, Draco, I know what’s going on here. I know you’re trying to poison me. I understand it.
I can help your family. You don’t have to go through all of this. You know, he’s crying. Draco’s crying to Moaning Myrtle about having to do this. You know, it’s like he was ready to crack.
Like, he’s ready to turn and and and say, I don’t wanna do this. Malfoy now realizes what being a death eater is all about, and he really doesn’t have the stomach for it. So Dumbledore could’ve swooped in way earlier. But now after Malfoy’s already let these Death Eaters into the castle, which, you know, Dumbledore is like, oh, I never never realized that. It’s like, are you kidding me, Dumpy?
What are you doing here? Well yeah. And he’s also he’s he’s waived off 2 attempted murders. He’s almost she’s he’s almost killed 2 students, and he’s like, whatever. And this is my biggest problem is, like, why are we protecting someone that’s not exact exactly innocent at the expense of everyone that’s innocent?
Malfoy and his parents are not innocent people. They’ve opted into doing these things. Why are we protecting them? It doesn’t make sense. It’s like that you know that diagram where it’s like a train coming down the tracks and it’s about to hit a bunch of people and you can pull a lot of stuff.
Argument or whatever. Prisoner’s dilemma, I think it is. Or is it the other one? I don’t know. It’s one of those things.
But the difference here is the train’s coming on the track. It’s only gonna hit the Malfoys, and Dumbledore’s pulling the lever that so that it go goes and hits, like, 30 other people instead. Yeah. The other lever is, like, killing all these innocent children, turning them into werewolves, releasing Voldemort onto the world, and potentially killing yourself. And he’s like, alright.
Let’s do that one. Why is Bill why are the DA students? Why is, all the people in the order of Phoenix paying the price so that we can save these 3 fuck boys? Yeah. It’s like Lucius Malfoy already reopened the Chamber of Secrets pretty much.
You know all the stuff that Draco has done. You’re allowing students. I couldn’t agree with you more. But I just think in general throughout this book, we get a lot of slip ups from Dumbledore in general, which is why we have the stock down here. Why did he put the gauntlet ring on in the 1st place?
Oh, I assumed he had to get it out. He had to put it on or something. I don’t know. Well, yeah, they didn’t really explain that, right? But we learned more about Dumbledore in the 7th book, and I like we’ll talk about that then, But I think it was more of, like, he wanted to learn something or it was a slip up.
Either way, it’s a slip up. Putting that gauntlet ring on and then withering out his hand, not not a good look for 1. Not having Harry drink the potion, in general, the whole cave scene is just bad coaching. It’s just a bad coaching moment. He underestimates his opponent.
He’s like, oh, this is so classic Voldemort. He thinks that physical power is the only thing that matters or whatever the case is. Next thing you know, there’s a fury coming out of the water, and he’s gotta drink this potion to weaken you. It’s like, oh, actually, looking back that you know, he Dumbledore even says, like, looking back, that was a pretty good for the spells and charms. Like, that was pretty good by Dumbledore.
He’s, like, don’t underestimate your opponent. You’re going up against Voldemort. What are you doing? And then not having Harry drink the potion because I don’t know exactly why. Dumbledore, you are the better wizard here.
If this potion is going to affect someone, then wouldn’t you rather it be Harry so then you can help Harry? And if you guys need to get out of there, then you’re going to do a better job of getting you guys out of there than he would. And I do understand the counterargument that he’s put so much suffering upon Harry that he doesn’t want Harry to continue to suffer, and, like, he knows that this is probably gonna fuck him up. And also, like, Harry is the most important. But he said he says, like, it’s not gonna kill you.
Like, that wouldn’t make any sense. That’s not what Voldemort wants to do. So he knows it’s not gonna kill Harry. It it was just bad coaching. Simple as that.
He’s the head coach here, and it’s bad coaching. And it’s moral saving one innocent person. In this case, Harry’s actually innocent to but hurting 1,000 others because everyone knows the only person he’s scared of is Dumbledore. So why would you weaken the one person that could save 1,000 of 1,000 of others? Queen off the chessboard in a chess game.
Yeah. So once Dumbledore is injured or or dies, that really just opens up the floodgates. He’s the one the only person that’s holding up the waters back, and he’s like, well, it’s not that big of a deal. I’ll just, you know, I’ll just take all these sacrifices. Like, no.
It is a big deal. Like, that’s Yeah. Which is his which is his last slip up that I had written down with just dying. You know, don’t die, Dumbledore. I know Harry is super important, but all of the stuff that Harry has to do going forward, it would be a lot easier if you were around.
So Yeah. For sure. Just don’t die. It’s probably that simple. Just for the sake of Malfoy or whatever the case is.
It’s so dumb. Yeah. Dumbledore, stock stock down as well. Well, I mean, because we’re on the same train of thought, I’m gonna continue with my stock down, which is which is gaslighting. And I know that we’ve talked about gaslighting here and there on this on this podcast, and people kinda throw it around these days.
But just so we’re aware, gaslighting is a manipulative tactic that involves causing a person to question their own reality, memories, and perceptions. It’s a form of emotional abuse that can happen in any relationship. Everyone is gaslighting Harry in this book. Every single person that he talks to that matters to him is gaslighting him. He’s like, hey.
I think Malfoy is, fucking some shit up. I have some, like, pretty not great evidence, but, you know, I I think we should look into this. And everyone’s like, oh, you’re always out for Malfoy, Harry. You’re always out for Malfoy. He’s like, I think I think Snape’s trying to fuck with us down below.
He’s like, I trust Severus. I trust Severus. Every single thing, and then they turn it back on him too where they’re like, oh, you’ve always had you’ve always had this thing. You’ve always had this prejudice. You’re you’re always trying to get Draco.
You and him are enemies. Like, no. There’s a lot of sketchy, circumstantial things that are going on that I need people behind me to to support in some degree. And I’m kind of upset that at the end, Harry never does, like, a big I told you so. There’s a little I told you so, but there should be a way bigger I told you so.
And, obviously, we don’t know about the future of Snape at this point. But if this is your first time going in, you’re pissed because it’s like Harry has been warning everyone for years. Harry’s been warning everyone about Malfoy, and everyone just pushes his ideas aside and says he’s obsessing. And next thing you know, they killed Dumbledore. What?
Yeah. And if he didn’t give the Felix Felicis to all of Dumbledore’s army, then that I mean, what would happen to them? You know, more blood would be on Dumbledore’s hands. Yeah. I mean, talk about, inspiring hope.
You slip Ginny some Felix Felicis, and we’re back to the dentist system. I, inspiring hope. I mean, the problem is Harry’s batting batting 800. He’s he’s fucking absolutely raking at the plate, but the last of bat, he struck out. And so everyone’s just like, well, I don’t know about this, dude.
I’m just like, bro, he’s batting 800. Like, you gotta you gotta go with the hot hand here. You gotta trust the guy that’s that’s been right 4 out of 5 times. Great intuition with not only Malfoy, but also with Tonks, the whole, like, Tonks relationship. He was like, oh, do you think that she’s upset?
He misjudged a bit. He thought it was because of Sirius. She was like, do you think he was she was in love with Sirius and, like, that’s why this and this happening? And everyone’s like, oh, get out of here, Harry. But he was close.
Wait. Wasn’t Sirius and her cousins or something? Yeah. It doesn’t matter in the wizarding world. Doesn’t matter.
Alright. Don’t worry. Don’t worry about that. That’s the that’s gonna be my next knockdown, so you you just wait. But, yeah, it’s not a big deal in the listening world.
People just people just do that. It was looping. It wasn’t serious, but he was on the right you know, he Harry’s got good intuition, and that’s been proven over the past 5 years, so maybe people should start listening to him. I don’t know. Did you have another stock down?
Stock Town, Mariah Carey’s success song. Oh. I love that song. And by Eminem. Right?
Jam. Right? Yeah. I love that song. Why?
So so Great song. Yeah. Very catchy. So the backstory on that is she wrote that about Eminem, and then Eminem turned around and wrote the song called The Warning. If you remember I don’t know if I have.
It’s not like a publicly released song. It’s like a YouTube song. It’s him just freestyling, like, for, like, 3 minutes straight. Just absolutely eviscerating her. Yeah.
But that’s what exactly what happened in this situation. In this case, Mariah Carey is Harry Potter, where for the first five books, I’m like, why is Malfoy just showing up all the time being like, Harry, Harry, Harry, like, obsessed with him. And then the little blonde haired kid finally po poked back. In this case, Malfoy. Now Harry is obsessed with Malfoy.
I my whole perspective changed. I’m like, maybe we’ve just been seeing it through the eyes of Harry this whole time where, like, Malfoy will show up and and say something to him. But in reality, like, the first five years has just been seeking him out and, like, ribbing him and doing this stuff and just, like, not including it in the text, you know. He’s not really giving us that perspective. So I really think that my whole my whole mindset of Malfoy and his obsession with Harry has been wrong.
And this book 6 kinda changed that. All he’s doing is thinking and talking about Malfoy. That’s, like, the whole book. It it is definitely It’s kinda weird. The flip situation.
He’s like, Ginny, Malfoy. Ginny and Malfoy. He’s like, wait. What? Which which one are you which one are you looking for?
Her fell falls so hard for Ginny. It’s so she’s been there the whole time, and then all of a sudden, he just can’t do anything if she’s around. I did, like, the little thing at the beginning when they’re in potions class, and whatever that love potion or whatever the smell is of the potion they’re making as opposed to Oh, it’s her smell. And it’s her smell. But it’s like very loosely related.
You know, at that point, you’re not as we’ve read it, so we know. I don’t know if the first time you really pick up on that. That is like, Oh, Harry loves Ginny. That’s why he smells that. If I was Eminem and she released that song about how I’m obsessed with her, I’d be like my my YouTube song would be like, yeah.
I mean, have you seen the Honey music video? Of course I’m obsessed with you. You’re fucking gorgeous. What are we talking about? What are we talking about here?
Sorry. I’m not sorry. My last duck down is Charles Darwin, you know, the theory of evolution guy. Okay. Yeah.
You know, we just talk about a guy who’s batting 800. He crushed the whole theory of evolution thing and understood the implications of inbreeding, yet he himself married his first cousin and went on to have 10 children, 3 of whom didn’t survive past the age of 10. And then I think 3 more of the ones that did survive, like, were were infertile and had a bunch of other health conditions and whatnot. People have to look into that. I’m just kind of going from what I know, so I could be talking a bunch of shit.
But either way, he definitely married his first cousin and there was some effects of inbreeding. And he knew better. He knew. He knew better. So, you know, we know that inbreeding is bad, yet the gaunts and we assume the Malfoys and potentially the Weasleys are, you know, participating in this in this inbreeding.
I mean, look at the gaunts themselves. They’re very serious about their family and their heritage and whatnot. I feel like there’s a a weird, like, rednecky situation going on with them. Is is that bad to say? No.
Although, I don’t know if rednecks are a thing and No. I know. But it’s like, it’s like the family from Deliverance or something like that. Yeah. That’s what I was like.
Yeah. For sure. But, yeah, they have a very strong Deliverance vibe. And, I mean, they’re talking about the the sun whose one eye is looking north and the other eye is looking east. It’s like, you know, not I can understand why Tom Riddle went back and was like, I do not wanna associate with these people.
I’m gonna become the worst wizard in the world. So, yeah, just in general, inbreeding, don’t do it. It’s it’s, it’s it’s confirmed that it can it can fuck your shit up. So Well, I will defend my boy Charles Darwin here a little bit. I mean, this also may be because everyone was inbreeding, but I looked at the statistics because I was like, I don’t know.
That seems not that bad in the 1800 since when he was born. 30% of children died before their first birthday. 43 did not survive past their 5th birthday, and only 60% who live to age 10 survived to adulthood. So He’s got a right around a little statistic. He he’s over bumpy Mendoza lying there.
You’re fine, you know. Yeah. So it’s maybe just maybe his, history is too hard on him. It’s like statistics, man. When you throw it in just a small sample size of this thing, you don’t know.
But if you look at the bigger picture, he’s just everything was normal for him. Favorite chapter. What do you got? Me? We already talked about it.
I I I really think the the ending, yeah, it was great. I I also I I remembered 0 part of the post Dumbledore stuff. I think it’s because when the when you first read it, you’re in shock. I think she did a great job of covering the in shockness after the fact for everyone’s like, everyone’s emotions and everything like that. So I thought that was great.
Yeah. It it kinda ruined me a lot of Lord of the Rings in the sense of I’ve seen those movies so many times. And then if you go back and read the books, you read return of the king, and whatever happens in the movies ends, and there’s still, like, 50, 75 pages left. And you’re like, wait. What?
And there’s all this other stuff, and I feel like that’s what the movie is gonna be like in the sense of because I can’t remember this movie. I kinda remember this thing ending when Dumbledore fell out of the window, you know, or the fell off the tower. And I knew there was some stuff after that, but there was a good amount of, like, Dumbledore’s funeral and people dealing with their grief kinda situation Yeah. That we didn’t really get. It’s hard.
This was a really good it’s a really good book. There’s lots of fun moments throughout. I think probably Harry’s Felix Felicis was one of my favorite moments of it because you get so much stuff going on in there between that time with Hagrid and, like, him getting drunk or, like, not drunk because, like, he’s not he’s fake drinking, which I appreciate. He’s, like, fake drinking and then forcing the other 2 to get drunk, and they’re just, you know, toasting back and forth to everything and Aragog’s funeral to then his conversation with Slughorn, I thought all that all that was great too. But, yeah, the ending I mean, seeing the whole Infuri stuff, it just seems really cool.
Like, it was like, oh, this is a big magic moment kind of thing. Favorite character. I feel like in this, we get Lavender Brown has a bigger role in this book with, you know, with all the snogging and all. Obviously, Slughorn’s a new character. Mclaggon gets a bunch of screen time or page time, whatever the case is.
I’m sure he won’t even be in the movie. And then I guess we have, like, Fenrir Greyback, who is somewhat of a character. Did you have a I mean, obviously, it could be anybody else, but I was just saying the new ones. Did you have a favorite in this one? Mine was, Oh, yeah.
Of course. Mine too. Mine too. Oh, nice. Wow.
Alright. I mean, I just thought it was hilarious when Ron catches her making out with, Dean. I think Ron had a pretty appropriate response of, like, come on, man. Like, I don’t wanna see this shit. Like, this is my sister.
Like, and, like, you know, then, like, my buddy, Dean, I know that you’re doing it right in front of everyone so they can see it. And she’s, like, that’s because you’re a piece of shit that’s a prude that hasn’t done shit. You’re, like, making out with your pillow upstairs, you fucking loser. I was, like, oh my. She went 0 to 100 so quick.
Ron was, like, crying after it pretty much. I know he wasn’t crying, but he was crying. That was that was that was a tough look for him. And, she yeah. And then she’s, like, breaking up with people on whims.
She’s crushing it in Quidditch, then hooks up with her her brother’s best friend right in front of him and dares him to say shit. She’s like, what are you gonna do, bitch? I was, like, holy shit. Ginny is fucking flexing on everyone in this, book, and I I appreciate that. And you realize Ron’s just jealous because of all the inbreeding stuff.
Right? Good point. No. I mean, I thought Ginny is the only person in this entire book series who is living her Hogwarts experience. Like, maybe Hermione, but Hermione is doing it in her own way, which is, like, very bookish, which I appreciate as well.
But Ginny is, like, I’m in high school. I’m gonna have all these awesome experiences. And, like, yeah. I’m gonna date this one person, and I’m gonna date this other person. And I don’t care.
I’m enjoying myself. I’m enjoying my sexuality. I’m being a studded quidditch. I’m doing it all. And then snaps, like, she’s, like, quick witted and is, like, snapping back at people and whatnot.
Like, she gives no fucks. She had quite the glow up because she went from, like, not talking and being shy to, like, yo, I’m the biggest fucking cock in the walk in this whole school. She definitely found her confidence at a little she’s all that moment for sure. But and and that’s why I love Ginny so much in this book, and I think because of that is why I hate Ginny so much in Oh, in the movie. I see.
Yeah. I feel like you haven’t said anything about that. That’s weird. Do you hate it? Yeah.
I just because she has this moment. You know? I agree she was, like, shy and obviously was, like, scared of Harry and stuff at the beginning. And then like Hermione says, she’s like, oh, Ginny just, like, moved on at one point. And she was like, fuck it.
Like, I’m not gonna sit around obsessing with Harry. I’m gonna go and enjoy my Hogwarts experience. Like, we only go to get to go to Hogwarts once, so, like, let me go and enjoy this. So, yeah, Jenny Jenny was awesome. And she’s in the she’s in the DA.
She knows her spells. She’s, like, better at Quidditch than any of her brothers because she was out there on her own time practicing with their brooms when they wouldn’t even play with her. Excuse me. No euphemism. Easy.
No euphemism. Easy. But, yeah, it just it was awesome. It was awesome. I love Jenny.
Love Jenny. Magical element. Did you have anything here? I figured this is not spell, but magical element. So, obviously, I feel like Felix Felicis would would fit in would fit in here.
Yeah. I feel like that’s hard to not have. That was the best part of the book, I I think, or one of the best elements of the book. Definitely. Cool idea.
I I do wonder, and it was in my lingering questions, why doesn’t the ministry just have, like, 2 giant vats of Felix Felicis in case Voldemort comes back or, like, in case they have a wizard war? Or, like, why doesn’t Dumbledore have a bunch of this? Like, why isn’t there more of this around? Like, if Slughorn’s able to brew some up, shouldn’t they have their chemist, like, their wizard chemist, just brewing up Felix Felicis for moments that are needed? I think it’s because, one, it’s incredibly hard to make.
So it’d be like I guess gold isn’t that hard to come by. But, like, it’d be something that’s, like, extraordinarily rare commodity. But it’s hard to make it because it takes time, they said. It was like, oh, it takes 6 months. It’s like so people drink whiskey that’s been barreled for, like, to 30 years or whatever the case is.
Right. Right. But my assumption was, like, you couldn’t make that much quantity because there is some ingredient that’s impossible, you know, to get for it. So if it’s if it’s not a supply issue, then, yeah, you should have it on hand at all times and be ready to use it when needed. Yeah.
I think just in general, I like Felix Felicis for sure. I think in general, like, just always have a basil around. Imagine if you’re, you know, you’re going to a bachelor party, and it’s like, oh, the day we’re supposed to, like you know, you’re in Vegas. It’s like, we’re taking a trip to the Hoover Dam or going 4 wheeling. It’s like, oh, I I do.
I’ve been at the crap stables since till 4 AM just drinking. Swallow a bazor, and you’re like, I’m ready to go. So so I I love I love myself a bazor as well. For your spell, we get a couple I mean, obviously, they’re Snape related. We get Levio corpus.
Sectumsempra is obviously a huge thing in this book when Harry’s sectumsempra’s Malfoy’s blood all over the bathroom. Pretty pretty fortunate that Snape was right there because I feel like sectumsempra, like, you would just bleed out real, real quick. Mhmm. Yeah. They must have every kid’s blood type on file at Hogwarts.
You just have to. Right? I think blood types are made up, honestly. I’ve I’ve said it was. I’ve said it a thousand times.
I don’t get that What’s your blood type? Does that make any sense to you? I don’t know. I don’t know. I have no idea either.
Yeah. Is it isn’t that so weird that they there’s, like, a below? Like, how does that even work? I saw a good GIF. I think it was probably on Reddit or something like that That explained it was like a moving GIF of all the different blood types as, like, which blood type matches with the other ones.
You know, most of them match themselves, but then there’s the whole o situation which really throws everything off. And it was, like, a really well explained one, and I was like, oh, this is good. Now I understand it. And then I closed that window, and I forgot it immediately. I just I’m just trying to think of, like, the first person that’s like, we can use someone else’s blood and put it into someone, and it, like, saves their lives.
Like, oh my god. That’s incredible. And then someone did it and, like, killed them, and they’re like, well, I don’t know why that was. Yeah. I think there was a lot of that.
It was like, oh, this works sometimes. Like, okay. Let’s do it. Oh, okay. Just, like, didn’t.
So that’s how they found out. Okay. That makes sense. Watched at some point in my past, probably, like, you know, at work when you’re, like, in your twenties and you’re trying to sneak watching a YouTube video, like, during the day because you’re just doing boring stuff. And I watch, like, a 10 minute Discovery Channel thing about the figuring out of blood types.
Pretty interesting story. Oh, so there is something about it. Like, people, you know, obviously, people figured it out. I don’t know. I can’t remember when it was.
I wanna say, like like, early 19 100 or something like that, but but yeah. Crazy. Oh, did so did you have a spell? Mine was a charm. Oh.
The refill charm. Oh, yeah. I didn’t know this was a thing you could just do. Why are people buying new bottles of butterbeer? Just fucking keep refilling that bad boy.
Do you think they have, like, the bars have, like, they basically prevent you from doing charms or something? Like, what’s the you know what I mean? Like, what’s the reason not reflecting everything all the time? Yeah. Like, people that try to sneak in their own booze to a bar.
You know, when you’re younger and you’re, like, bringing nips into the bar to save some money Yeah. It’s like, nope. Sorry. You’re kicked out. And, yeah, it was a very interesting charm.
Between that and the ability to vanish stuff, it really makes me feel like Trelawny might be a squib because she’s using the room of requirements to hide her empty sherry bottles. And between this spell and the spell that just vanishes stuff, it seems like you could just she could just be refilling her sherry bottle. Like, you would never need to not do that. I wonder how that works because you could just why make any more? If it had a drop, you could turn that drop into 2 drops and turn that drop into 4 drops, and then this all of a sudden, you got a full glass.
So I like how also they’re like, not only is Trelawny a terrible, terrible teacher She’s a drunk. Yeah. She’s yeah. She’s she’s an alcoholic. Umbridge, though, she’s stuck for firing her.
Yeah. What? Yeah. Yeah. It’s also just hilarious that Trelawney specifically uses the room of requirements to hide her sherry violence.
Seems like the one of the worst reasons for it to use it. We do get a glimpse of, the Ravenclaw Diadem in in this one when they go into the the room requirements when Harry does. My favorite spell was Muffliato, which is, like, the silencing spell. I have a baby, so it really should explain itself. I have a baby and a dog that barks at everything, so I would love to just Muffliato all sorts of stuff and mainly those two things.
Favorite magical creature? We really only have Nfuri. Right? Are the only new ones? I went with Fenrir Greybuck Where are we at?
And him just being an absolute savage and not transforming and still eating people. So, I mean, that could be a great, great character. I’m guessing he’s not even in the movie. But oh, is he? Oh, okay.
I don’t know if he’s, like, tall enough who he is though. Okay. But that’s like a rugged that’s a rugged bad guy. I was, like, thinking, like, oh, if they if she ever wanna do, like, a a side quest book, that’d be a cool one to have where, like, his origin story or, like, how they I don’t know how his story ends in this. I forget.
But, like, that’d be a a villain that would be a good arc to to follow. Yeah. It kinda reminds me of, like, Sabertooth in X Men. I don’t know if you’re a big X Men guy, but, he kind of has that that Sabertooth vibe. But, yeah, it’s it’s pretty crazy that he just decides, like, I’m gonna go all in and just be a werewolf even when I’m not a werewolf.
And then Bill is, like, bit by him, and his only thing is he, like, likes red meat more. Like, he likes meat rare. But, yeah, they say Bill’s face is all messed up and stuff, so it must have been like a Hannibal Lecter type situation where his face just literally got eaten off. I I just had to go with the Infuri. I mean, we’re talking about the the living dead.
You know? I love zombie movies. I’m playing last of us, which is pretty much a zombie thing. But in general, I just love zombie movies, and that’s pretty much what what Inferry are. So Mhmm.
I had to go with them. Simple as that. Keith, what do we love about The Half Blood Prince? Great, great quote from Dumbledore. It’s the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.
That gave me chills. I fucking love that. Yeah. It’s funny you say that because a lot of people love dumby quotes and, like, know them from Harry Potter, and I couldn’t Oh, is that right? Yeah.
Yeah. It’s like a big thing. And I couldn’t think of 1 off the top of my head, but then when when I heard this line, I was, like, that’s a great quote. Like and so we were on the same page there because I heard it. I was, like, oh.
And it’s so true as well. I guess that’s why it’s such a great quote is because it is true as well. So, yeah, definitely gave me a little goose pimples myself. For love, I feel like this one just starts out with a bang. We usually kinda get a slow burn into it and although Goblet of Fire kinda starts with a bang too, but it’s almost like a greatest hits album in the first fifty pages of this one.
We get Dumbledore early, which we love. We usually don’t see Dumbledore or, like, get any real Dumbledore interaction till the end of a interaction till the end of a book. We get the burrow early. We both love the burrow. Everything that happens to the burrow is great except for the incest.
And, lessons with Dumbledore, it’s like, oh, Dumbledore’s gonna do lessons with me this year. So you’re like, okay. This year’s gonna be awesome because we get lessons with Dumbledore. We get even more Dumbledore. Harry becomes the Quidditch captain, which tells us there’s gonna be Quidditch.
We’re gonna get more Quidditch in this one, although his captainship is kinda slid in there, here and there, mostly with the tryout scene. But in general, it was like, wow. This is going to be awesome. And then it starts pretty much with, like, Dumbledore talking to Harry’s aunt and uncle, which was fun, and then them going to Slughorn. It was just such a great start that I was all in from the jump.
Great point. The the whole book, I mean, I think was was great because especially because I said the last book, book 5, I was a little bit disappointed because I had never remember thinking 5 was bad, and I placed it as my last place book. Yeah. This one, I think, really revitalized things, especially the second half, like I already mentioned in the ending. It was the first book too where, I guess, Goblet of Fire kinda ends negatively.
But we we catch the bad guy. We get the ultimate goal. Right? On most of the books, we have that same Yeah. It’s the same kind of thing.
Yeah. We the end is, like, we get a big reveal. Harry comes triumphantly, and we do it. Like we said earlier, he went 4 for 4. But this one, there was definitely really, like, a super, super solemn ending where nothing good happened.
The last one at least, like, Harry’s right. Voldemort’s back, and everyone believes him. This one, there’s no positive related at the end of the book here. It’s just, like, not only was he right about Snape, but Dumbledore is dead. And now he’s his big quest ahead, and, like, nothing good happened.
Yeah. So I like that. Guess we forgot about magic a little bit, but, like, horcruxes in general, which we really haven’t even talked about. On top of that, it’s like, now there’s 4 horcruxes out there that I don’t really even know what a few of them are, and how am I gonna find these? I don’t even have Dumbledore anymore.
It’s a low low. It’s Luke getting his arm cut off after fighting Vader and then the Empire taking out the entire resistance, and and we don’t know what’s gonna happen. You know, it’s that kind of a situation. So, yeah, I I love how it it’s so down at the end after being awesome, and you feel like the stakes are at as high as possible right now for Harry and team. So, yeah, big big fan of that.
And I kinda talked about it in my other love, but, you know, we just get so much Dumbledore in this. Like, we normally we see Dumbledore at the end of the book, and this, we’re seeing him throughout the entire book. He’s a main character in this story for the first time ever, and with him comes all of these trips into the pensive, which I I just loved. Hearing about Voldemort’s past was so interesting, and you don’t know why necessarily Dumbledore’s showing to him. I mean, as Sun Tzu says, know thy enemy.
So you think that’s probably the idea is, like, okay. You wanna know who Voldemort is. But then at the end, it’s revealed, like, oh, it was all because of this horcrux thing. And now we’re showing you, 1, you know, all that how Dumbledore found this cave situation and then also the other potentials for horcruxes. And you also see a lot of not only early Tom Riddle, but Tom Riddle’s family.
I love all origin stories, whether they’re good guys or bad guys. We’ve talked about this, but but bad guy origin stories are super fun. I did very much enjoy that as well. And then just for the ending in general, because this is obviously very big. Harry’s been talking about Snape this whole time.
Everyone’s defending Snape, and then Snape ends up killing Dumbledore. Like, do you basically, do you remember your first time reading this book and how that affected you? I think I remember someone spoiling it for me, but I almost, like, didn’t believe them. You know, one of those things where because I remember I read it probably, like, 5 days into the release. It wasn’t, like, one of those things where I you know, oh, I’ll, you know, I’ll save it for a month.
It was pretty quick. You remember when this came out, people were reading it that night. Like, it was a 24 hour turnaround. And so People were outside Barnes and Noble, like, I mean, for all of other books too, but, like, this one for sure, I remember I mean, and I’ve also seen a video, which is hilarious and terrible, by the way. I mean, you probably still find it on YouTube, of people at that time, like, lined out of Barnes and Noble for the midnight release and some guy driving by being, like, Dumbledore dies on page 726.
That’s so weird. Chasing the car down. Yeah. That guy should all similar to Umbridge, that guy should be murdered and, you know, no no issues with that. So yeah.
One of my friends did ruin it. It was a big thing, like, ruining the ending for someone. If you’d read this and someone hadn’t read it, that was the other reason why you had to do it. You had to read it quickly because you were gonna be screwed if someone ruined it for you. And and I had a friend at a party who was like she was like, oh, yeah.
Books are but someone said, like, you know, half blood. And he was like, oh my god. When Dumbledore died, it was crazy. She was like, I’m halfway through. What the fuck, dude?
I would be so mad. I would be so mad. I also remember thinking, and this could be revision of his story. Like, I probably maybe didn’t think this when I was the at the time, but I remember thinking, like, there’s no way Snape is actually bad because if that’s the case, then Dumbledore is one of the worst wizards of all time. It’s fair.
You know what I mean? Because he has such a bad book, I remember thinking. And I’m like, there’s no possible way that he could also be wrong about Snape because then, what the fuck? Why are we looking up to this guy? The guy sucked.
Like, you know, at that point, like, I was like, there must be he must be coming back from the dead or, you know, like, the white wizard situation in, in Lord of the Rings or something. I didn’t know. Something that was gonna happen, I thought. So I mean, so much is stolen from from LOTR that I wouldn’t be surprised if, you know, it’d be it would be terrible if if Dumbledore came back as, like, you know, Dumbledore the White because it’d be, like, so on the nose. But, yeah.
It’s possible. Yeah. Alright. I honestly didn’t have any hate. So if you did, feel free to fire away.
One is not taking Hagrid’s class. That that kinda got my code a little bit. It’s a gym class. You know what I mean? That’s what it is.
It’s gym. Yeah. And I also hate like, you mentioned earlier, Ginny living her best life and, like, living the shit to the full. She I don’t hear Ginny 1 one fucking time about her OWWLs. Right?
She doesn’t say shit. She’s just like, yeah. I’ll fucking crush studying, but, like, I’m still gonna fucking get it in. It’s fine. You know?
We’re good. But these guys are like, well, we are really busy. It’s a fucking gym class. You’re hanging out with your best friends, and you’re going hang out with your best friend teacher. Just take the class.
You know what I mean? Like, it’s not really me that much hard studying or anything like that. That pissed me off. I would have loved for some background on this one where it’s like, oh, what’s going on in Care of Magical Creatures? And they’re doing, like, the best possible creatures this year.
Like, Haggard just found his stride. You know, he was still learning. So he found his stride, and he’s doing awesome stuff. Because he even says and it’s in book 7. But he says, like, oh, we got some unicorn babies in this year.
Like, you could have been playing with unicorn babies, but instead, you babies in this year. Like, you could have been playing with unicorn babies, but instead, you decided not to take the class because it’s too much for you. Like, get out of here. Yeah. That annoyed me.
I also thought the the girl’s hating Floor, I kinda was on her side. She she was kinda being sassy and, like, dickish about everything the Weezies were doing. Mhmm. She’s like, this music sucks. Like, oh, that’s not how it cooks things.
It’s like, you’re being a huge bitch. Yeah. You’re a huge bitch. Kind of the yeah. You’ve gotta deserve all this shit talk you’re getting behind your back.
So I didn’t have any issue with that. But she’s gotta figure it out. I did like the moment that her and missus Weasley had with Bill, though. I think Yeah. That was nice.
That was nice. That was the one thing you’re like, oh, that’s the one redeeming quality issue. But in book 4, she was not this conceited. Or We didn’t really know, though. We didn’t we didn’t hang out there that much.
Yeah. And then the last one, Percy just coming in and opening the door. Oh my god. That may be the most anger I got. I was like, you can knock, you piece of shit.
Don’t let you ever walk into this house again. This is the Weezies house here. You’re not a Weezie anymore, you little bitch. And then how does he not understand that how that’s so messed up for how that would affect his family? Like, they love you, and they wanna see you, and you come into Christmas dinner just so that you can bring the minister magic, and then you get out.
Like, oh, like, I would never, even no matter what, I would never forgive him. This is bottom line. Like, the thing too is, like, you can understand where Voldemort’s coming from. He’s not that bad of it. You know what I mean?
Like, you’re like, I get it. He has got some motives. Percy is is a worse person in my mind. You know what I mean? I just think he’s a worse person.
Because what’s he doing this for? Like, so he can become a person like, a a political figure? Like, okay. So you’re turning you’re turning letting your family loose because of this. And this is after you know that Harry was right.
So you can just say, I’m my bad. You know, you can hand up this. It’s not a big deal. Yeah. That I hated that scene.
I got so angry. So I mine was just basically lingering questions. How many death eaters are there? You know, it’s not really clear. It seems like there’s this, like, small group of death eaters.
So, like, why are we super scared of them? Because every time we run into death eaters, it’s, like, the same group of people. So it seems like they should just be able to take care of that, and, like, Voldemort is the only one that they should really be worried about. Like, maybe Bellatrix. But yeah.
Well, they said it was, like, 30 to 1 at the at their height. So I think they’re, like, recruiting and getting people back in. Okay. 30 to 1 what? 30 death years for every 1 order of the phoenix.
Yeah. It’s also, like, why is the order of the phoenix the only one? Like, isn’t there an army? Like, isn’t there a wizard Isn’t there a wizard, special forces or something like that that can be involved in this? How do they identify wizards from muggle families?
You know, is this like a cerebral kind of thing, x men? Like, how do they know Riddle was a wizard? How do they know Hermione is a wizard? You know, how do they know these things? Yeah.
It’s a good. I thought it was similar to, like, the you’re using magic under 18. It’s kinda like saying and a half, which which brings me to the other thing. They said if you’re using magic when you’re under 18, it’s up to the pair under 17. It’s up to the parents to disclose that it was a child.
It that whole thing doesn’t make any sense to me. There’s a big thing in there about how they only knew Harry did it because he was in a muggle house that obviously had no other wizard people. Seems like some, antinonpureblood laws are just nice. Because then it’s like, oh, so Ron could do it under his house, and they wouldn’t know. So it’s up to the parents.
And if I was a parent, I would encourage my kid to use, like, simple magic at home so that when he was able to use magic, that he knew what he was doing. Just like Oh, yeah. Of course. I’d be like, yes. You can have a beer at home so that you understand when you go out that having 6 is probably not a good idea.
What? You think of, like, 8 or 9 is probably better? Like, there’s no point there’s no point in taking the calories. You’re only getting 6 beers. Like, let’s see.
Is that what you’re saying? Exactly. Yeah. If if Harry was so keen on what the Malfoy’s if, if, like, Draco was up to or he thought he did, why didn’t he use the map earlier? It seemed like he waited a while before pulling the map out.
He he was using it, but he couldn’t see where he was because he was in the room of acquiring. I know. But he kinda started that later on. Got it. The whole Horcruxes thing with Slughorn, like, not wanting to give the memory, the memory wasn’t that bad.
What what is he so ashamed of? You know? A student asked him some questions, and he answered them. And he in the memory, he was like, this is terrible stuff. You don’t wanna do this.
Also, Dumbledore being like, alright, Harry. You have all this shit you have to do, but why don’t you go get this memory out of him? And that’s your one job. And if you don’t do it, I’m not gonna give you I’m not gonna be like, it’s alright. Keep working on it.
I’m gonna give you the the stern. I’m not upset. I’m disappointed to talk. Yeah. We can’t talk again until you get it.
I I didn’t major in sales. Like, that’s not my job. Like, you know? Let me know what you think about this, but I thought it would have been almost better if we didn’t see that first scene with Snape talking with, Malfoy’s mom. Yeah.
That would have been a much bigger draw. I mean, it was still a big shock, but, like, that would have been even better, I thought. They’re setting you up to think Snape is which he does kill Dumbledore, but, like, is already a bad guy. So you’re then you’re like, oh, so he’s already a bad guy. We know that.
Yeah. I I liked it. I think it was good because, for one, I didn’t think Snape was gonna kill Dumbledore because I didn’t think about the unbreakable vow. I didn’t think about that at the end. Everything was happening so fast that I wouldn’t wouldn’t be able to recall back to that.
But then after reading the book and you’re thinking back on it, you’d be like, holy smokes. There’s a whole first chapter or whatever with Snape doing the unbreakable vow. Like, oh, interesting. And that also kinda ties back to, like, what Snape does in the future. In general, I liked it because of those things.
I I wouldn’t necessarily get rid of it, but I do understand what you’re saying. Alright. It’s time to award the house cup, Keith. Who gets the house cup for you for half footprints? Yeah.
House cup goes to, Harry and his big old nuts in this one. I mean, Harry was, like, shit talking and and bringing that that hate all all book. First, he runs into Draco’s mom, and he, like, point Blake right to her face. He starts shit talking. I was like, oh, the the respect your elders thing was thrown out the window real, real quick.
He’s shit talking Dumbledore, him and the, minister of magic guy. Magic. He’s grimjour. He just, like, goes out on nonstop. Yeah.
I was Imagine if the president of the United States walks into your house and you’re like, sit down, bitch. I got some words for it. Yeah. Oh, you want me to help you? I mean, kick rocks.
Stand, she’s I mean, I already mentioned on the Jenny, you know, positives, but he just went up to Jenny. Jenny, there’s no been no, like, romantic inclinations for the last, like, 5 years, and he just goes up to Jenny. He’s like, this is my girl now. And starts making out with her, like, no pretext. Nothing.
I’m like, Yeah. What? She just broke up with someone. I was like, goddamn. Harry’s got that fucking game, apparently.
Yeah. He’s like, JK Simmons in Oz or something like that. He’s just, like, the the cock of the walk and and walks up. He’s like, this is my prison bitch now. It’s like, oh, alright.
Sure. Whatever. That is a deep drop. I don’t know it. I but I’m I know Oz in a prison, so I was like, wait.
What? So Yeah. JK Simmons plays the most ridiculous character. But yeah. Yeah.
I couldn’t agree with Mohairi. Absolutely crushes it. I mean, I I understand that he hates the ministry so much, but, you know, the president of the United States walks into, you know, your house. You I feel like it’d be hard to be like, alright. Shut your mouth and let me talk.
I also don’t think that the I mean, as much that I hate the ministry, but I don’t think he was like, hey. We need some, like, moral support. Is he can you help us out? And he’s like, go fuck yourself. I was like, alright.
I guess that’s one way to I feel like you you’ll do a little scratch your back when you scratch my back thing there, and I’m I’m okay with that. A 100%. Or you’re like, hey. You have a negotiation. Like, his negotiation tactics aren’t there.
It’s like, okay. Hey. You guys have fucked me over a bunch of times. So I’m happy to show support for our government because they are the ones that are against Voldemort, but, like, we need some I need some other things. I need Stan Shunpike released so that in the next book he can start killing people because, he is a death eater, it turns out.
Spoiler alert for book 7. But, yeah, I I I agree Harry had some big old nuts in this one. And then he turns on the waterworks for Slughorn. Like, oh, my mom. I thought you thought she was your favorite student.
You know, he’s a little manipulative. Could have been in could have been in Slytherin, this kid. Could have been in Slytherin. Yeah. For my house cup, you know, I would love to give it to Dumbledore as an honor after his death and because we get so much of him in this book, but we’ve already discussed how he blew it.
And so I’m gonna give the house cup to Hogwarts itself. I think this book, we get a perfect little Hogwarts situation. I mean, early on, I loved all the Hogwarts stuff because we were learning about it. I’m really sad after reading this book because we know in book 7 that they don’t return to Hogwarts. And I know they do come back, obviously, for the battle of Hogwarts, which is awesome, and I’m excited to read that again.
But losing Dumbledore is one thing, but it’s even sadder to leave, like, the mundane Hogwarts life forever, which is what we’ve experienced. Like, all the little stuff that happened in the last 6 books about, you know, them just silly things that happen in class or on the Quidditch pitch or going down to Hagrid’s hut or just in the hallways or with peeves. All those little things that really didn’t have anything to do with the plot line, but had so much to do with building this story up. I loved all of that and knowing that it’s over and, really, Hogwarts is only back for this, like, epic battle scene is just really sad, you know, because Hogwarts has so much majesty and beauty and so much amazing things that happened in that place that losing that is really sad. And I know that, you know, we’ve read these books a bunch of times, and I can always go back and revisit them, but I’m not gonna be doing that anytime soon.
So it almost feels like I’m losing something all over again, and I just love Hogwarts so much. So, you know, I had to give the house cup to Hogwarts. It’s got so many fun mysteries and all the little things. You know? If those walls could talk, I’m I’m sad sad we’re leaving Hogwarts.
I’m honestly more sad about that than than losing Dumbledore on this reread. I used to think it was like, oh, this is terrible. We lost Dumbledore. But after this reread, it’s like he’s in the other books, like, a little bit. He’s in this book a lot.
I I loved what we got, but I didn’t care as much this time around that he wasn’t gonna be in it anymore. But you said mundane. That word is a negative connotation, but it’s the the mundane part is the best. Yeah. Exactly.
I wanna be in the mundane, if that’s the case. Exactly. Like, whatever they say. Like, life’s the things that happen is you’re waiting around for other stuff to happen or some bullshit like that. I don’t know what the quote is, but that’s what Hogwarts is.
Dumble coaties. Dumpy quotes. There we go. Dumpy quotes. Alright, Keith.
What do we got coming up next? Finishing this thing out. We got the movie up next, and then we’re gonna do close it out, book 7. I don’t even know what we’ll do after this. Yeah.
We have to go on vacation or something. We should have saved Red Rising for after this. I know. That’s a big mistake. We’ll figure something out.
But Someone’s gotta give us the best series of all time. Someone’s gotta pass it along. Well, the journey is almost over, but I’m I’m excited to watch this movie because I feel like I don’t remember it whatsoever. So I’m excited for that. And then, obviously, I’m already into book 7.
I I’m pretty much have not listened to any, like, sports stuff, and I’m just listening to this book because I love it so much. So so I’m excited for that too. Alright, Keith. I’ll, I’ll catch you for the the movie next time, and you guys can come back and finish the journey with us. Indeed.
Bye now. Bye now.
